HELP!!! My Voodoo 5500 thinks it's a 4500!!

[CannonRIP]

I just installed this card on a clean, no other card installed, installation of Win98SE. But under the Info tab in the 3dfx Tools it says the following:

Hardware Version: 1
Chip Series: VSA 100
Bus Type: PCI
Total Video Memory: 32 MB
Graphics Chips: 1
Graphics Clock Speed: 166 MHz
BIOS Version: 1.11

But the driver is identifying the card as a 5500! And the box clearly says it's a 5500! Also, when trying to configure the FSAA choices, all I get is "Fastest Performance" and "2-Sample Anti-Aliasing" and NO other choices!

I've tried different driver versions with the same result. Any suggestions? I'm running an Athlon Thunderbird 900 on an Abit KT7, 300W power supply...

 

[chuckieland]

the best way to find out is to look at the card
v5 4500 has one chip
v5 5500 has two chip
so if you see two heatsinker and fan then it's v5 5500
if you only see one heatsinker and fan then it's v5 4500

 

[Motorheader]

If I remember correctly from a couple of months back it is a known fact that the VooDoo 5500 will show as only one chip and 32 meg of memory - even with the latest drivers and utils.

 

[Paul]

When you boot up, does the bios report 64MB or 32MB of RAM? If it is 32MB, your card is bad. Need to call up 3dfx and pray that they will exchange it for you.

 

[CannonRIP]

Well, the card has got two chips and two fans on it, so I'm pretty sure it's a 5500...

OK, so if the fault is in the 3dfx Tool Info tab not reporting the correct stats about the card, I can live with that. But how do I get the damn Tools to show ALL my FSAA choices? I should have "Single Chip Only", "Fastest Performance", "2-Sample Anti-Aliasing", and "4-Sample Anti-Aliasing", but I only get the middle two.

 

[CannonRIP]

Well, I did get them to appear briefly once; I installed the old drivers from the CD over top of the latest ones I had downloaded, and in the FSAA I had my four choices, but as soon as I rebooted the system I was back to two choices only again...

I have tried every possible combination of drivers & installs I can think of and it is always the same problem...

I am definitely NOT impressed so far...

 

[CannonRIP]

Well, I tried out the card in my old system, a Pentium II 500E, AOpen AX63 Pro, VIA Apollo Pro 133, 250W power supply. Started with a clean Win98SE install on a reformatted, blank c: drive, used the drivers off of the CD, and it worked! The Info displayed correctly and all my FSAA choices were available.

 

[CannonRIP]

I then followed the EXACT same steps in the EXACT same order installing the card & drivers on my new system... and it STILL does not work!!

So what the heck is it about my Athlon Thunderbird 900, Abit KT7, and KT-133 chipset that the damn drivers (any version) do not like!? I am at a complete loss to explain it...

Any ideas???

 

[ChipNOW]

Install the latest 3dfx drivers... not only will they give you a pretty monsterous performance increase (from what I've heard), but they might fix the problem as well. Also, run some benchmarks and compare them to the AnandTech ones for the same res, same game on the 4500 and the 5500 - if it performs like the 5500 then it's all well and good... IMHO I wouldn't use FSAA anyway, I'd rather play at 1280x1024 than at 800x600 FSAA. My 2 Aussie cents... with the conversion rate that's 1 US cent

 

[Usul]

Get new 4in1 VIA drivers, and try again...

 

[solpadeine]

CanonRIP,
Exactly the same thing happened to me....sorry to tell you but it was because one of the chips on the card had died. I got a replacement from the local shop I bought it from. 3dfx tools should NOT tell you only one chip and 32 mb of RAM, when the card is working correctly. One test you could try in order to verify for yourself that the card is faulty is to touch it after some time in use. I found that one set of the RAM chips were completely cool, while the other set were hot.
Just out of interest, my card worked fine for 3 months until I upgraded to an Abit KT7. My replacement card has worked OK so far (1 month)....hope you can get yours exchanged too.

PS also ignore what the BIOS says on boot up, my BIOS said 64mb on the faulty card. 3dfx tools lets you know whats really going on...