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Voodoo 3 3000 AGP Freezing, Crashing (Read 376 times)
phreakindee
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Voodoo 3 3000 AGP Freezing, Crashing
01.02.09 at 03:05:41
 
Maybe should go in hardware section, not sure...

An old build I have is giving me quite a headache. With graphic intense games, such as Speed Busters or NFS: Porsche Unleashed, after about 3 minutes of playing the system locks up. Doesn't power off, just freezes the screen and OS, sometimes the audio continues, usually it stops though. Sometimes a bit of what looks like the start of artifacting occurs.
It's also done so while messing around in Windows though, seemingly randomly. It also does it with older games after a long while, such as Need For Speed II SE in Glide mode. Any ideas as to the cause?
I have a GA-6BA mobo by Gigabyte with a 450MHz Celeron, 128MB PC100 RAM, 16MB Voodoo 3 3000 AGP, 200w PSU. I am running fresh-install Windows 98 SE, with DirectX 8.1b, and the last Glide drivers, 1.07, also tried with Merlin.

My guesses:
Faulty Voodoo card (it worked fine last time I tried it a couple years back), possibly overheating but it has run these games before fine
PSU (low wattage? doubt it)
DirectX. Seems to work better with DX8.1b, DX7 was even worse, DX9 same thing. Doesn't make sense if it's this.
Bad ram is ruled out, swapped sticks
Unstable CPU?

Cooling seems to be fine all around. V3's only a passive heatsink of course. Opening the case and getting some air around it doesn't seem to help.

Mobo BIOS is flashed to newest version, freezes with both old and new versions though.

However, I've used the Voodoo card before (a while back) with no problems on another Celeron system. Don't have another rig to try the card out now.
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« Last Edit: 01.02.09 at 06:05:38 by phreakindee »  
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bucksavage
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Re: Voodoo 3 3000 AGP Freezing, Crashing
Reply #1 - 01.02.09 at 07:38:45
 
I have had a similar problem.  My specs are celeron 533, voodoo 3 2000 pci 16 meg, 384 megs SDRAM (pc 100 I believe), dual boot Win98se and Win XP.  I had that same issue with Colin McRae Rally 2.0, the game would run ok, until it came time to race, then after like 10-30 seconds, the game locked up except for the audio which kept playing.  I also have had it happen in both Win98se and XP seemingly randomly, often while surfing the web in IE, the PC just locks up oout of nowhere.  I tried as well to open the case and let extra air around the vid card and the cpu and that, but right now it's closed and it hasn't froze today yet, kncok on wood.  (knocks on wood)
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ps47
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Re: Voodoo 3 3000 AGP Freezing, Crashing
Reply #2 - 01.02.09 at 09:57:40
 
I would try underclocking the card..or maybe trying out some other card,just to see if the rest of the system is stable.
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phreakindee
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Re: Voodoo 3 3000 AGP Freezing, Crashing
Reply #3 - 02.02.09 at 00:32:59
 
Thanks for the advice, I had decided against underclocking the card, as I'd used it on another system with no issues. But it's been in storage, and has been knocked around a bit while moving. It seemed fine though, physically. I'll try UCing if I can't grab hold of another V3 to test out the rest of the system. My main concern was the PSU being too low-powered or low-quality for it, as I've seen this happen with newer machines.

It still seems like overheating... which is weird, I don't know why it would now and didn't before.

Hopefully it's just the card. Noticing what looks to be just a little artifacting when it freezes, but not every time, also brings me to think it's the card.
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« Last Edit: 02.02.09 at 00:45:47 by phreakindee »  
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phreakindee
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Re: Voodoo 3 3000 AGP Freezing, Crashing
Reply #4 - 02.02.09 at 02:14:03
 
bucksavage wrote on 01.02.09 at 07:38:45:
I have had a similar problem.  My specs are celeron 533, voodoo 3 2000 pci 16 meg, 384 megs SDRAM (pc 100 I believe), dual boot Win98se and Win XP.  I had that same issue with Colin McRae Rally 2.0, the game would run ok, until it came time to race, then after like 10-30 seconds, the game locked up except for the audio which kept playing.  I also have had it happen in both Win98se and XP seemingly randomly, often while surfing the web in IE, the PC just locks up oout of nowhere.  I tried as well to open the case and let extra air around the vid card and the cpu and that, but right now it's closed and it hasn't froze today yet, kncok on wood.  (knocks on wood)  



What kind of sound card are you using? Asking because...

I had the idea to just go ahead and set up another system from around the same era and see if the card was at fault. Took the PSU, RAM, Voodoo and hard drive from the Celeron machine I was using and put it into a 750Mhz AMD Athlon machine.

Once it loaded all the new drivers, started up Speed Busters and... it ran flawlessly for a good while. Hmm. So, I tested it more, still no crashing. Cranked up the resolution, still no crashing.

So, I moved the Voodoo over to the Celeron machine which was unplayable, and took out the sound card. See, the Athlon machine had an integrated 32-bit sound chip. The Celeron machine had an ancient ISA ESS Audiodrive sound card from the DOS days. Now the machine runs great, no problems for about half an hour, and at higher resolution and full graphics on Speed Busters.

Maybe it was the ISA port? The drivers? Who knows, I don't care too much as it seems to have solved my problem.

Now there's no sound, but I assume if I get a newer, nicer PCI sound card installed in there it will be okay.

At least I hope

EDIT: Added a Creative PCI 128 card, and it's going great so far!

EDIT2: Only one freeze after a couple hours of use.  Undecided Then this, sound still playing...

...

Now THIS seems like the Voodoo card (or CPU/mobo? nah, thinking more the card still with the sound going okay)... strange that, after restarting, all is well.
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« Last Edit: 02.02.09 at 04:43:52 by phreakindee »  
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bucksavage
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Re: Voodoo 3 3000 AGP Freezing, Crashing
Reply #5 - 02.02.09 at 06:39:40
 
My soundcard?  The driver disk instruction manual says it's an AOpen AW-840 series PCI Sound Card, the driver disk says Cobra Sound Card on it, and the mixer and all that it uses in either win98se or XP is C-Media(and other related apps are C-Media as well, or some of them are anyways.  The machine also has a built in sound, but itr is completely disactivated, and it didn't work near as well as the other one does.  Hell my pc even has a built in 8meg SIS 6326 (I think) AGP-2 video, but it wouldn't run right with my voodoo in there as well so I deactivated it too.  But so far it hasn't crashed or locked up in like 2-3 days, so maybe it's a random thing.  I suppose it could be the mobo, it's an old Intel i440LX...
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phreakindee
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Re: Voodoo 3 3000 AGP Freezing, Crashing
Reply #6 - 03.02.09 at 05:35:24
 
Tried a spare CPU cooling fan, stable for a couple hours of 3D gaming... then death.

Got another V3 card, a Gateway 3000G, and also freezes. So, it pretty much leaves me with:

CPU
Motherboard
PSU

EDIT: Apparently, it's the motherboard. It seems that this is an older revision GA-6BA motherboard, and it sucks with Voodoo 3 cards and nVidia TNT 2 cards... both of which I've tried with it, and it locks up... like many 3DFX forums and tech support sites seem to show. Guess I'm outta luck with this build.
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« Last Edit: 04.02.09 at 03:21:19 by phreakindee »  
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bucksavage
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Re: Voodoo 3 3000 AGP Freezing, Crashing
Reply #7 - 05.02.09 at 04:53:27
 
Hmmm, that makes me wonder if that is the same issue that is hampering my pc at times.  I run an Intel i440 LX mobo in mine.
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