Old PCI card doesn't fit my new PCI slot?

[CTrainBEB]

I broke out my old 3dFX Voodoo 3 2000 PCI video card today. I went to pop it into my rig and it won't fit in my PCI slot. It looks almost as if the short and long portions of the connectors are backwards. Anyone know anything about this?

 

[Dahak]

If i recall correctly, the voodoo 3 was a 5v pci card, and all the new board will only take the 3.3v cards, that is why the notch key is in different locations.

 

[CTrainBEB]

oh man that makes me very angry. I just got a monitor to hook up to my card and it doesn't fit!

anyone wanna buy a voodoo 3? haha

 

[rbV5]

Are you "sure" it not an AGP V3?

 

[CTrainBEB]

i tried it in my AGP slot just for kicks and it didn't fit there either.

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: CTrainBEB
i tried it in my AGP slot just for kicks and it didn't fit there either.

Its AGP alright 🙂

 

[VirtualLarry]

If you can't get it to work, I've found an alternative use for Voodoo cards for you. 🙂

 

[Peter]

Yes exactly. AGP and PCI slots are keyed to prevent users from fitting cards that are electrically incompatible with the _signalling_ voltage used by the system.

So you can't fit a 5V-only PCI card into a 3.3V-only slot. Just as well as you can't fit a 3.3V-only 1x/2x AGP card into an 1.5V-only 4x/8x AGP slot.
The difference is there are unkeyed, "universal" AGP slots, but no "universal" PCI slots. Cards may be "universal" on AGP and PCI. Yours is not 😉

Just for the record: What board is that? 3.3V-only PCI is rarely seen in the desktop world ...