Hi friends,
Sorry for being away for a long time. Some of you might remember me from a past success of mine, the Voodoo4 AGP with 64Mb of RAM...
http://www.falconfly.de/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1145604124
Is there in this community the spirit for modding the 3DFX cards to their max still alive?
Because finaly we have the opportunity to accomplish the dream of going to double the orriginal amount of memory on our VSA100 voodoos. That is 64Mb for the Voodoo4, 128Mb for the Voodoo5 5500 and, for the brave, 256Mb with the Voodoo5 6000!
I have the opportunity of buying now the right memory chips (16Mb each) that we need for this project. I am in contact with the reseller company that can provide the memory modules, but it will take a joint effort to get it done, because they will not sell in small quantities.
To keep it short, the minimum batch they agreed to sell is a tray of 108 chips, at a price of 2.40 Euro (3.50 USD) without VAT for a piece. If we can get enough of us to cover this number of RAM modules, then we are good to go. I will take at least 8 chips to mod my own Voodoo5 5500, but there is no way for me alone to pay for all of them.
By the way, the SDRAM is of top quality, it is rated for industrial temp use; I will link bellow the datasheet:
http://www.esmt.com.tw/DB/manager/upload/M12L128324A%2040%2085C.pdf
If anyone here is interested in modding their Voodoo4/5 cards to the double of the default RAM memory, please reply with the number of chips you want to buy.
I have fate that 3DFX is not dead yet and we can togetter pull this off.

exxe wrote on 02.09.08 at 22:09:38:


Here is what I am able to do:
I can mod my own cards, ofcourse. I have the tools and the skills to do it; I have un-soldered and soldered with hot air with my heat gun many times RAM chips on video cards.
I have no intention in transforming this opportunity into a business. If somebody wants to have his own Voodoo5 5500 with 128Mb of RAM, then and join this group buy, then he can purchase the memory chips here and the card(s) from any source he likes and perform the mod himself or at a persson of his choice. I will not be selling modded cards. However, I can help with the procedure if asked for if a persson wants to send me his card(s) and the memory chips to have them modded. Please keep in mind that as far as I am concerned, there are a number of issues to be reminded of:
-The soldering with hot air using a heat gun is not 100 percent safe; some chips can and sometimes do get damaged so spares could be needed. So for modding a Voodoo5 5500 that has 8 memory modules, one extra or better 2 should be available just to be on the safe side.
-When using 16Mb chips, an extra adress line needs to be tied from the memory modules to the VSA100 GPUs on the card PCB. Hank provided the solder points for the Voodoo5 5500 AGP (I was able to confirm them too):

Also, by the same reverse engeneering method too, I was able to provide the solder points for the Voodoo4 PCI PCB:

http://www.falconfly.de/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1169273701
There is no easy way for this. If I want to find out where to connect the A11 adresses for the memory for, say, a Voodoo5 PCI, I have to get a (better dead) Voodoo5 PCI, unsolder the GPU and check with the VSA100 pinout and a multimetter where does the signal leads on the PCB. The same goes for Voodoo5 6000 too...
Also, a BIOS mod is needed but that will be the easy part.

What we should do is all throw in together as a group and also pick up a few cards on ebay for the modding and hopefully Komponentis up for the job and cranks out a card or two for each of us in the group purchase

I also want to mod a Voodoo 5 5500 to 128MB, tell me what I have to do! I have a card for this project!

Who will do the modification?

Ok!

1 Voodoo 5 MOD to 128MB

How much for the Chips and the Rework?

Komponent wrote on 02.09.08 at 21:59:57:


Edit:
A few suggestions for a smooth deal:
As the RAM reseller is located in Germany, it would be best (and cheaper too) if one of the german members here would agree to receive the whole tray of memory modules and then redistribute the chips to everyone of us all arround the world.
I still agree to apear with the company where I work as the official buyer (because they will not sell to private individuals) on the paper work; but it would also be simpler if the same german friend would be the one to first collect all the money from all of us and then make the bank transfer to pay for the RAM.
Anyway, I fear that we will not be doing this joint venture and will miss this chance because, to be honest, I do not see the requests for chips following here... It makes me kind of sad, knowing I awaited for years for an opportunity like this one...

osckhar wrote on 04.09.08 at 12:13:48:


Guys, if you are interested in buying, please state the number of chips you want; so we will know when we are covered.
Also, please understand that this offer will not stay on forever; if we are not able to gather the funds in about a week... well... let's just say that no reseller will wait indefinately for a bunch of hobby freaks...

I want for 2 V5.

Oscar