I recently got hands on a Evilking 4 board with TVOut to improve my TV gaming PC.
First installed it on my P2B and it always freezed when playing 3D stuff (tested AM3.1 and SFFT 42). Then tested it on a bit newer P3BF and same crash. Same setups are running fine with a V3. So i thought it is a defect of the card and i gave it a final try in my Nforce2 machine (i knew that it is a 1.5V Evilking from Exxe ;-)). To my own surprise it ran without any problems. After that imo the agp must be the bad guy and i looked for a 1,5V providing board and i found a Cusl2 1.02 from asus on ebay and bought it. But now the same freeze happens on Cusl and its running Agp4x. I have no further ideas to solve this problem...

maybe driver?
change agp mode?

greetings tobi

There is an old thread here where I noticed it in testing, both Powercolor V4's run at 3.3 volts, not 1.5 as do the regular 3dfx Voodoo 4.

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/715/powercolorv4lek4btl7.jpg

my card matches the lower picture. So it runs 3.3V anyhow? I don´t think so...

And why it then functions without problems in the nforce mb?

There are several Cards with 4x AGP connectors that (due to various reasons) are electrically 2x AGP cards.

It's virtually the same with the Kyro2, for example.

These 3.3V Cards will run for a limited (highly variable) time in 1.5V AGP Boards, either until the Video card and/or the Motherboard is destroyed. This can be hours, days, in rare cases even a few months.

For that sole reason many Motherboard manufacturers began integrating protective circuitry into the Boards back in those days, that prevent such combinations from powering up and some give a corresponding warning (usually by a small LED mounted close to the AGP Port).

Therefor, quick "tests" (card POSTs and runs apparently normal) do not qualify as "4x AGP passed".

An indicator of the severe electrical anomaly inflicted on the Card and the Board can be very high temperatures found near the Card's AGP connector after a short period of operation.

k...

but thats not the real point of my problem anyway ;-)

The Cusl provides the voltage the EK4 requires and is capable of doing 3.3V 2x AGP.

Anyone has an idea why it freezes?

maybe some curious addition: installed UT and started with Glide...Is running the start demo fine without freeze , but freezes when entering the menu. driver problem? which one is 100% stable for Ek4 and XP so i can exclude that or find the final solution ;-)

i just need glide running stable  8)

forget this post: its freezing too :-( but is there a 100% stable driver? or a special one for the ek4?

No, the Evilking will run 100% stable with any default 3dfx Driver...

If it isn't stable, it's either another Software bug (OS ?) or Hardware (overheating ?).

i placed a new heatsink on the card and a 8cm fan is blowing on it. but at the backside of the vsa100 it gets too hot to hold your finger for just than one second...i measured the voltage regulator and one of his legs has 2.8V. the vcore for vsa100?

its stable a bit longer now to me...

REMOVE THE CARD! :o

I remember I had a V5500 AGP once... :'(

..until I ran it in an Athlon board and the card MELTED!!! :o

It WILL happen to your card unless you remove it! ::)

You've been warned - don't come crying to us if your card fries! :P

great solution  ???

it´s now really out of the pc and my old v3 is doing her job again.

finally i tried running it with two 6cm fans@12V blowing on it. the heatsink was around 24°C and it still freezes but after a longer time (2min). any tip for this? maybe a bad voltage regulation?

Another addition:

The card operates at 3,3V in 2x and 4x Agp-Mode set in Bios. The i815e tweaker always shows 2x and 3,3V in WinXP. Maybe i  can isolate the 3,3V Agp Pins to make the card running at 1,5V to mimic the Nforce2 situation where it works without problems. Could it be that the Ek4 cards that are capable of doing 1,5V are only running well on 1,5V?

Or should i try raising VIO (tried 3.3 and 3.4V)?

You cannot modify (as far as I know) the Card to actually run at 1.5V (as opposed to the Kyro2, where a mechanical workaround existed) due to hardware limitations.

Further increasing the Voltage (I assume you mean the AGP Voltage, Vio is usually the CPU I/O Voltage unrelated to AGP) will just increase the risk of damage.

Bottom line :
Either you change the Motherboard or the Card, or you risk destroying any of them... anytime. No known workaround exists, otherwise alot of people would have kept their Voodoo AGP Cards in 4x/8x AGP Systems.

The 3.3V AGP limitation was a hughe deal when the first Pentium 4 Motherboards arrived and 3dfx owners were searching for a solution.

Only the 3dfx Voodoo4 AGP owners were lucky, the only 4x AGP 3dfx Retail Card that ever existed.

There exists a mod bios i am going to flash tonight which sets Agp to 4x. I hope it will also set the voltage to 1,5V and i will test again!

I dont want to kill the voodoo or a motherboard but i want this setup to run. So ill take every hint i can obtain. maybe the voodoo is a buggy one. does anyone here use an ek4 to play or for a longer time?

Yeah, but AGP 4x only affects card speed... ::)

...not voltages! :P

maybe...never heard of 3,3V and 4x agp...

wrote on 07.02.07 at 20:58:50:

maybe...never heard of 3,3V and 4x agp...

I can vouch for it as I have done the testing with an Epox board the reports the AGP voltage on boot up.

See this thread-

http://www.falconfly-central.de/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=techtalk;action=display;num=1109647799

The Powercolor boards would only run at 3.3 volts and 2x AGP.

you are both right...i cannot force either 4x or 1,5V.

now i am out of ideas...

wrote on 07.02.07 at 21:21:51:

you are both right...i cannot force either 4x or 1,5V. now i am out of ideas...

Find a mainboard that supports the EK-4 if TV output is that important to you.

i already tested 4 boards (3x BX and 1x 815E)...and nobody seems to have this card in a running setup!
Normally those boards are known for compatibility and stability...

Last night i was talking with seba a member of the german voodooalert forum. he wanted to sell his ek4 to me. while talking he asked me if my defect card also has a soldered resistor on it. i replied with no and he sent me a picture of his card. in the region between the gpu cooler and the bios chip my card is lacking 3 resistors in total:


http://home.arcor.de/tobias.reiff/Files/modifiedek4seba.jpg


i think this is the most probable reason for freezing of the card. The resistor seems orange orange black gold to me being a 33 Ohm resistor. we have to clarify the start and stop point of this resistor.R90 and R91 i dont know maybe one of you has an idea.One of you knows the value? I think there is 56R2 printed on the Resistors.

The cards are from the same production week as well ;-).

Maybe other owners of ek4 can look at their cards and write if they have the same rework on their card. Seba stated out that his card is running perfectly!
Greetings Tobi

Ps: Ah I forgot to point out, that my card looks like there was never soldered anything on the soldering points ;-)

Listen Up people!

Finally managed to get it running  8)! Last night i soldered those 3 resistors (R10 connection to 8 leg chip (4 on the left and right soldered to the 2 on the left and those two 56R2 which means a 56,2Ohm Resistor). After that i had to reinstall heatsink and powered up. Card was running stable in 3D for more than 20min (It was very late already  ::)). I fixated the soldering with some hot-melt adhesive. Longer testing will be tonight.

Thanx to all of you for the tips!

If someone (with a 3dfx hp) of you wants a short rework article i can make some pics and add a bit of text.

Have a nice weekend (will be the first for me in this year after this struggle;))

A rework article would be great! ;)

Always useful to share your experience with other people... ;D

wrote on 09.02.07 at 09:19:42:

If someone (with a 3dfx hp) of you wants a short rework article i can make some pics and add a bit of text.

Yeah, a DIY rework guide would be a cool thing! Any time soon?

i am not 100% sure that the rework really solved all problem i had with the card. still unable to do 2xFSAA and it still crashes in P3B-F. Stock cooling of the card is not sufficient to run it in a not perfectly cooled case. but i can post what i soldered next weekend!

Just a thought, but have you tested with a multimeter the TYPEDET pin state on the AGP connector before and after your rework?
A good guide about how to identify 1,5V PCB compatibility can be foud here:
http://3dfx.rule.lv/?cat=manuals&article=agp