Ok, Voodoo 5 owners and potential owners read this.

[BladeRunner]

This is a on going thread I started elsewhere, read it carefully I'd be intreseted in owners input:-

Topic: Would 3DFX like to comment on this then??
BladeRunner 7/28/2000 05:35

Dear tech support,

As a potential customer of the V5 6000 (if it gets released in the UK before it is out of date) there is an issue that needs to be investigated and addressed. Please check these links:-
http://www.3dpower.net/articles/v5/v5_heat.shtml
http://www.excel.co.th/techref/vsa02.jpg
http://www.excel.co.th/techref/vsa01.jpg

with regard to very poor heatsink fitting or quality control. Also when are ALL graphics card makers going to learn Gluing heatsinks on is a very poor solution, removable heatsinks with thermal paste is the correct, (and only way), it should be done on such expensive products as the V5.

Regards J.spencer
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Avonnied 7/28/2000 08:30

I completely agree with you there..

even though i love the voodoo5 the technique used to attach the heatsinks is pretty crappy at best.

to me it looksl ike they tried to cut a corner to increase their profits. you only have to pay the sweatshop working a penny a heatsink rather than 2. :-)


what is ironic is the holes are actually there in the PCB for a fashioning system similar to other videocard heatsinks ( even the voodoo3 ).. come to think of it they sould have just used 2 v3 heatsinks and stuck a fan on there!!!.

Post a reply
Lordkileraunt 7/28/2000 09:18 Ok, what I would like to know, is how do i remove the original heat sink that comes with the v5. They never thought that we might modify it a little bit? What if i wanna put a better heat sink on it, including a fan over that heat sink, and one on the opposite side of the board. As of right now, there is no way to do that. Do they just pop off or something. Cause i think if i pry on that damn thing it's gonna break.

Post a reply
slick50 7/28/2000 09:51 I used a samll screw driver to rmove mine, A little scary put them come reall good, then i used a single edge razor blade to gently scrape the glue off witch takes a while to do. Then i put paste all over the chip except 4 cornes, just leave enough room for 2 drops of super glue on each corner work real nice for me

Post a reply
blammo 7/28/2000 11:30 Just buy the tennmax fans. It's worth the $40, and it makes a HUGE diff in stability / temp of the card. Should be manditory.
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Jarrod 7/28/2000 12:55

Hi BladeRunner,

I personally have a Voodoo5 5500 in my machine here at work. I've been using it for about 2 months now.

I have no problems with overheating. I have no problems with lockups.

If you want to put a different heatsink/fan combo on the card you're more than welcome too, the only catch is that in doing so (removing the original heatsink/fan) you will VOID your LIFETIME warranty. So that's something to think about.

Take care! :O)

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This post was edited by an administrator
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BladeRunner 7/28/2000 14:11

Jarrod

Thanks for the reply but you failed to answer my original question. I have no intention of removing the heatsinks on a V5 6000, and no intention in purchasing one UNLESS 3DFX do something about this bodge way of fixing the heatsinks on what will be a £400 PLUS product in the UK.

Splodging a great lump of glue ramdomly near the Chip and throwing a heatsink at from the other side of the factory is just plain poor design application or shoddy workmanship.

I'am quite serious about wanting this card, although it's continued delay is making it less desireable by the day, and as a possible customer this issues needs to be admitted to and addressed.
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Jarrod 7/28/2000 14:24

Hi BladeRunner, actually I thought I did answer your question...??

I understand that because of this *report* from that website you believe that the heatsink we use is shoddy, I can't change your opinion, but I can tell you that there are *lots* of people using the card (myself included) who are not having any type of problems with heat, etc.

It's actually kind of humorous the way you describe it: "throwing a heatsink from the other side of the factory"...

Look, please, I would merely ask you to lighten up a little bit and not take such a report from a random website so seriously.

If in fact you purchased a Voodoo5 6000 and it did in fact have a defective heatsink (maybe a 2-5% chance that that would happen, probably lower) then you would of course take advantage of our very generous warranty program to replace it.

We have the best warranties in the business. We have toll-free technical support in the US (unfortunately doesn't apply to you, I wish it did), we have email support in virtually all the major languages in the world.

I think that as a company we really do have a lot to offer you in a 3D accelerated video card. I would hope that after your purchase you will feel the same way.

Take care...

Jarro
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mark.gulliver 7/28/2000 15:08

BladeRunner

I assume that you are aware that the "glue" you mention is thermal exopy, which has identical thermal conductivity to silicon thermal paste - you know, the stuff most people replace the "glue" with?

Mark
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BladeRunner 7/28/2000 17:10

Firstly I was trying to be a bit humourous, but I am English so I appoligise if It came across the wrong way. We have a strange sense of humour over here you know. I was just trying to highlight the way the glue has been applied and how thick. Poor by any standards.

This is not some random website thing I've found, I moderate and help on Hardware Central, (video cards section), and have been quite involved with the Geforce and it's many issues. This V5 issue has been cropping up recently which makes sense as the cards are getting some burn in time now.

I can also tell you from experiance that Thermal epoxy will not transfer heat as efficiently as paste, although it will do a reasonable job if applied sparingly (thinly) and correctly.

This V5 problem is from "users" and regardless of percentage needs to be resolved on a hot .25 micron chipset card.

I'm not flaming the V5 6000 as I will get one, I'm just not keen on the glue solution for the reasons stated, even less so when poor application has lead to these problems for owners. It also matters not how good your back up customer service is, these issues should not be present in the design or application. This was my main complaint with the original Geforce cards, should have done all the beta testing in the labs and as such they would have realised the glued heatsink, (Creative CLAP, but others were as bad), was not up to the job, I eventually had a ICE 71 peltier with a Alpha P3125 heatsink on it to see if that would stop the damn GPU from "Glowing"

check this thread out for details and my thoughts on this problem and please don't bury your heads in the sand over this.
http://discussions.hardwarecentral.c...ML/009669.html
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SharkFood 7/28/2000 17:49

I wont bury my head in the sand- but instead call it exactly how I see it.

You guys are responding to someone that claims:
>>"I wonder if this could be the reason my (very expensive)Voodoo 5500 overheats in 60 seconds flat?"<<

>>"The card has not been overclocked and it was unstable from day one."<<

If this were indeed the case, then that guy was a fool not to return his card- but instead void the warranty and start prying heatsinks and fans off it.

I know of NOBODY that has heat related problems on their V5 running at stock speed. The highest majority of us can run the card as high as 174-176mhz with NO problems on a properly ventilated, case-on PC. This is using the stock heatsinks/fans as shipped on the board. BOTH styles (older ram/fan design and the newer fans too).

Like 4x4 posted there, it's quite simple really-

>>"It's common knowledge that if you're going to over-clock any card past it's default settings that cooling is the first thing to upgrade. "<<

It IS common knowledge.

And if someone is having problems with the card from day 1 running stock speed (highly unlikely), and "it overheats in 60 seconds flat" (even more unlikely) there is obviously something wrong with THEIR particular card.. I'd also doubt someone's first natural inclination after strapping a $300 US card in their box and having it overheat would be "Let's start prying hardware apart!" but instead "Let's march back and return this sucker for one that works!"

It's REALLY, REALLY silly. I've closely inspected my own, and a few other V5's. They all look good. They have a bit of thermal epoxy and the fans aren't always *perfectly* straight on the chips, but they suffice to do the job- and 166mhz is NO stretch for them regardless. Heck, 174mhz is no stretch either- provided it's in a case with a FAN.

Ciao!
-Shark
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computerjack 7/28/2000 17:51

Bladerunner...

I think you need to get a couple of things into perspective. Firstly modern 3D video cards are mass produced products, it's not one guy in his shed fitting these heatsinks on by hand. I am also British and have a 'British' sense of humour but I think that you must have missed the boat somewhat if you think that any company is going to court bad press for the want of 2p's worth of thermal glue !

OK, there are profit margins here and I remember my original problem with the Voodoo3, what we are talking about here is overclocking ! The only reason you would need to replace the existing heatsink and fan is if you want to overclock ! That's fine but you can't expext any manufacturer to build in extra safety for the fact that customers are going to use their prosuct improperly ! If you're going to overclock then sort it out and get a better heatsink/fan combo ! Lets face it, if you need that much performance then you'll be selling your card in 6 months for the next best thing anyway!

Let's keep things in perspective !
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itsfun2bme 7/28/2000 20:10

just my 2 cents worth here. My first card locked up over heated and did crazy stuff. I returned it. My second card locked up over heated did crazy stuff. I came here. What I found was that my problem was a mixture of drivers and bios and god only remembers what else. The point is after working with tech support emailing them and everything else I have been a month now without any probs. I have all my programs running from my old system now and no crashes no lockups and most importantly NO OVERHEATING. My system is running smoother now than it did with my voodoo 3 and thanks to winbench 2000 i have everythingtweaked for maximum performance however I must say that I do not nor will I overclock the card, it isn't necessary and as a customer I don't want to void my warranty.
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BladeRunner 7/29/2000 03:18

I think IQ's have dropped sharply around here as you all asume all I want to do is O/C this thing if I buy it. As an mechanic (motorsport), It just makes me shudder when I see a well designed (million dollar) product possibly undermined by the sake of poor heatsink fitting either because of the application or poor quality control.

Just look at the pictures, I doesn't matter if it runs ok at first, or for you, but lack of complete heatsink contact because the thermal compound is poorly applied, or too thick is unaceptable in a product of this expense from a company such as 3DFX, regardless of whether it is mass produced or not.

Just stating that it doesn't matter and "my card is ok" doesn't change the fact that none should have left the factory like that.

They don't have to stop using the "glue" (but must accept it's not the profesional way to do it). The heatsink needs to be attached in such a way that it is level and has full contact with the chipset, again it is not rocket science.

I'm sure this is the design reason for fitting a heatsink to it in the first place, all I'm saying is if they want my £400 + for a 6000 I need to know they accept "some 5500's" are uncceptable in this area and they will make sure the application or quality control is sorted before the 6000 is produced, after all that has Twice the chance of one poorly glued heasink problem.

What do V5 "owners" think?, are your heatsinks flat and square in the chips?, is there a temp difference between the two on the oppisite side of the PCB between then? views welcome, and those that know me will be aware I don't complain about hardware on a whim, I would just like to see 3DFX state they are looking into it and any poor heatsink fitting will be resolved before the 6000 is released. Add to the thread at http://www.3dfxgamers.com/boards.asp...st&boardpage=1 whether you agree or disagree with me, just keep it clean and factual please.... Regards BladeRunner





[This message has been edited by BladeRunner (edited 07-29-2000).]

[Freon]

You can throw **** in a box and slap a warranty on it and say it is a quality product. But I'd rather buy a quality product that won't break in the first place.

Not saying the Voodoo is ****, I just love that analogy (paraphrased from the movie "Tommy Boy").

That is why I don't buy Maxtor hard drives. Sure they have a 3 year no questions warranty, but I don't want to lose my frickin data! My ex-roommate has owned like 5 or 6 Maxtor hard drives and HALF of them died. I bought one, and it died after only 4 months. Sure it got replaced buy I lost all my data! So I buy IBM only now... And my roommate continued to buy Maxtor because "they have a great warranty." Stupidity at it's best.

Don't sell me a warranty, sell me a quality product!

Who wants to be out of a video card for two or more weeks while you're getting a replacement? No thanks.

Anyway, I think that is what you're getting at. There's the Americanized version.

I'm in no way saying there is a problem with 3dfx's way of doing things, I'm purely arguing the arguement. In all likelyhood, even a poorly applied heatsink will be "ok," but you want a quality heatsink purely because it will make you feel more confident about the product you're blowing 400 UK on. I totally understand that. And also, it's nice to have a heatsink you can use to overclock without having to replace it and void your warranty. Sure those Card Coolers are great, but with a 1/16" thick spot of thermal compound, it ain't gunna make much difference.

Oh, and thermal epoxy is not nearly as effective as even generic silicon thermal grease. With thermal grease, you have springs applying pressure between the surfaces, plus you will never get thermal epoxy spread as thin as you can thermal grease. I also think thermal grease generally has a higher thermal conductivity than thermal epoxy, unless you're talking special aluminum/copper/silver epoxy.

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BP6, Celermine 566@850, 320meg, CL TNT2U 175/220

[BladeRunner]

Freon

LOL at that quote

You have grasped what I'm on about and I'm not one to bash hardware unless it is deserving of it.

I know what you mean, I have just got two IBM 75GXP, (ata 100 @ 66 for the moment)and they are superb I too am not very interested in warranties because of the time / hassle factor involved.

3DFX can argue until they are blue in the face, but if the heatsink is not flat and square with minimal "Glue" it shows general lack of product build quality, and just unacceptable IMHO on a top line 3D card

While we are on the subject anyone with Radeon? what's their heatsink attachment like?



[This message has been edited by BladeRunner (edited 07-29-2000).]

[big jim57]

Talking to jarrod at 3dfx is like talking to people at Intel...Useless!
I was a circuit city a couple weeks ago and they had one V5 on the shelf,I asked the salesman if I could see the card,after a small debate he opened the box.The first thing I looked at were the heatsinks,they were not centered on the chips and they were not level..must of been one of those 2-5% (Probably lower) ones..lol

[Freon]

Mmmm. 75GXP <drool> I have a 20.5 gig 34GXP. Still pretty fast. I also have a Promise Ultra66 hacked, ready, and waiting for me to buy another identical drive so I can RAID them.
But I think I this point I need to start saving up for either a Radeon or an NV20 which will cost God knows how much. Maybe I'll raid my pair of old Seagate 6.5 5400 drives...

Overall I think 3dfx's heatsink solution isn't THAT bad. That's how my CL TNT2 Ultra came. I replaced it with a relatively large 486 fan, but it didn't help me overclock it much (175 to 180, but 180 isn't any faster so I don't bother). The back of the card STILL gets hot as hell. And the heatsink (yes, it is well attached) doesn't even get luke warm.

Really when you think about it, 5 deg C isn't much of an improvement.
With only 10-15 watts to dissipate, 5 deg C may be the difference between a huge Alpha fan and a poorly attached OEM, so you can see why they may have decided to just cheaply glue them on rather than buy nice clip ons with thermal grease. 5 degrees C is only one or two percent change in absolute Kelvin scale.

Oh, and I think the Tennemax is a waste. $40? That's ridiculous, unless you absolutely must have maximum performance and not lose a PCI slot. Still silly because you're unlikely to be able to use ALL your PCI slots anyway due to limited IRQs. Do like me--buy a $10 486 HSF and attach it by looping wire through the holes and around the heatsink with thick single strand wire. Looks cheap, but the size will let it beat out that tiny Tennemax in the performance arena. I don't care how well designed it is, it's just so small.

Oh and I say go ahead and rip the heatsink off. If you ever have a problem, buy some epoxy and slap the OEMs back on and send it back. It costs them less to just send you a new card rather than do exhaustive research to find out if you reattached the stock fans. But I could see them looking at a return and saying, "Hey, that heatsink is attached WAY to well. We ship these things out with a much worse attachment job. Send it back!"


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BP6, Celermine 566@850, 320meg, CL TNT2U 175/220

[Beef Marinade]

I know this may not be directly related, Blade, but I thought this may interest you.

After reading all this stuff about crap heatsink placement on V5's, I decided to checkout my V3 heatsink. I was a bit surprised to see a large glob of glue, and the heatsink at an angle to the chip. I could see daylight in between the h/s and the chip.

Yet my V3 2000 is o/ced to 175MHz (from 143), and it runs very stable. Maybe 3dfx has been doing this for a while, but hasn't been pushing the chips as hard?

I have to admit, I never thought of checking it before all this stuff about the V5s.

Just some food for thought.

Beef.

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PII 266 @ 448, 64MB of 66MHz SDRAM @ 79, Aopen AX63 Pro, V3 2000 @ 175, 13.6GB - 7200rpm WD Expert, SB Live Value, LG 40x CDROM, Jazz 300W Front Speakers + Sony SRS PC300D Rear Speakers / Sub Woofer, 15" Monitor, Full Tower Case, Win98 Original Edition.

[BladeRunner]

Beef Marinade

It's funny you should mention that as I've had a few V3's and they were all ok on this except the last one I bought.

That was not level or square on the chip and I winced when I saw it but decide to remove it and do it properly anyway as it was an OEM and I didn't have enough time to return it.

This is where Freon is spot on with this statement "Don't sell me a warranty, sell me a quality product!

While it is really unacceptable on a V3 OEM I can stomach it, but not on a V5 6000 in any circumstances. perhaps I am prejudging this product and it will be better but hopefully potential customer feedback may wake them up to be sure this is not carried through to later V5 5500's and the 6000

Sometimes it pays to buy the slightly more expensive option as the Asus v7700 GTS is of excellent quality with a removable heatsink pinned with thermal paste. They also use hardware monitoring to give you GPU "Rain" and core temp / power levels. Maybe other manufactures should take note because it made me choose and pay more for the Asus card. I don't regret a penny

[Todd a]

Hey Freon. I got you beat. I got 486 heatsink quartered and applied to the memory with double side heat conductive tape. I made a little frame with some sheet metal and attached it to a socket7 fan. I added a 486 heatsink and fan to the backside (helps a lot) and connected everything together with a few zip ties. I'm not one for overclocking much, but my Voodoo3 2000 does 166Mhz at about room temperature. I'm been at this speed for about a year now with no problems.

[BladeRunner]

Todd a

Not wishing to take anything away from your tweaking, but every V3 2000 that I've had gets a fan (52mm) attached to it with cable ties, thats it and they have all run stable at 175mhz like this with lock ups or weird colours at 176mhz

[Moraelin]

I think I've said this before, but wth... My V5 is rock stable at the default frequency (166 MHz). It won't go anywhere near stable over 172 MHz or so, but at 166 MHz it works more than all right. Even though the heatsinks look horribly glued there.

I'm not sure if you can blame the epoxy or the tiny heatsinks for the lack of overclocking potential, though. 3DFX chips traditionally had no problem running hot. (The V3 3500 ran well over 60 celsius, without a fan, if I remember right. Admittedly, it had a much larger heatsink, and overclockers typically attached good fans to it anyway.)

Personally I'd blame the lack of overclocking potential to simply: twice as many chips. You have two VSA-100's, which must both overclock to the same point. (Talk to someone who's tried SMP with overclocked Celerons, and he'll know what I'm talking about.) You also have twice the memory chips, and again all of them must overclock to the same frequency.

And the V5 6000 will again double the graphics chips and the memory chips, over what a V5500 already has. I wouldn't set my hopes too high for overclocking that one.

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Moraelin -- the proud member of the Idiots' Guild

[BladeRunner]

Moraelin

I guess you are correct there but my whole point to this thread is not for overclocking rather to insure the card lasts for a while.

It may work fine at first, for a long time or for ever, but if like the pics show there are areas of the Chip with no heatsink contact, that will create major hotspots in the Chip its self and unthinkable stresses in the silicon. If some are burning the glue in places, (even if they are overclocked, as you can't O/c them much anyway). it will probably lead to premature failure at worse or stability problems at default clock at some time in the future.

Granted this may not happen at all, (if you have a good one), and may happen when the card gets to a "old hat status", but whatever the reason the current heatsink method or quality control is totally unacceptable in a product of this cost from 3DFX.

An acronym I use is if you bought a new car you would expect the paint to be firmly attached to the body.... level and not thicker in one place than another.

Quality construction should be a standard feature not a buyer request IMHO.

I will probably put active cooling on a V5 6000 if I bought one but I would want to run it a month or so to check it out without the worry of VSA100 burnout due to this issue.

[BladeRunner]

UPDATE

I recently sent this e-mail to 3DFX so I really hope they take note.

Dear 3dfx,

Please read this E-mail as It contains a thread from 3dfx gamers forum I started recently. This is not a product complaint as such, or a silly flaming attempt but some honest input form owners of V5 5500's and myself a previous Voodoo card owner, and potential buyer of a V5 6000.

Do not disregard this without reading it all first or passing it to someone in the tech / product department that will read it. I am trying to help resolve an issue that does exist, and will have potential to get worse if not addressed in production ASAP.

I have sent mails on this subject to 3DFX before without reply, but these issues appear to be on the increase now. Please don't think I'm some kid with a bee in my bonnet. I am 35, a race car mechanic and a respected member and moderator on
www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral (video cards & display) forum.

Honest inputs from 3dfx with regard to the points made below would be appreciated.

The forum thread can be found at http://www.3dfxgamers.com/boards.asp?BOID=32&THID=66507&start=31& sortby=posted&boardsort=lastpost&boardpage=1

and is in text form here, up to date as of 12.15pm 31.7.00 (UK time) I've also included the complete thread as a word doc for your convenience.

Regards J.Spencer, aka BladeRunner

[This message has been edited by BladeRunner (edited 07-31-2000).]

[Freon]

Moraelin:
Hmmm... I played around running dual Celeron 366's at 550 and had no more problems than running a single 550. From all the web sites I visited while playing with this I never heard of anyone else having particular problems running overclocked SMP compared to non-overclocked either. If both chips worked at XXX mhz in single mode, they seemed to work just fine at XXX mhz in dual. Now SMP itself may be unstable, but it has little to do with overclocking the chips. After all, for what reason SHOULD overclocked SMP be worse off? If you're using a Celeron on 100mhz bus on a 440BX chipset, the only things running "out of spec" are the CPU's themselves. The CPUs themselves are just fine running at that speed no matter what Intel tries to tell you.

The only problem is you must use the least common denominator (run no faster than the slowest chip is capable), lowering your chances of overclocking higher with two unknown chips. Other than that, I don't see why there should be any problems overclocking more than one chip as long as they both run off the same clock generator, which should be the case. If it weren't, they'd have trouble running at stock speed.

3dfx has no heat problems? What about the Banshee? I remember countless people complaining about how hot their Banshee ran and how unstable it was. The Voodoo 2 ran pretty hot, too.
I don't think heat is a big deal unless it causes problems. The Voodoo 5 is probably just dandy running 120-130 deg F, even if it makes the owner nervous. If a solid state device works for one hour, it will probably last years so I generally don't worry about heat.

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BP6, Celermine 566@850, 320meg, CL TNT2U 175/220

[Luke-Skywalker]

As long as it works it shouldn't matter, a guarantee is a guarantee, and it is legally binding.

BladeRunner - Do 3dfx actually respond? I asked nVidia questions(on many occasions) but receieved no reply.

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A Dog is a Cat with More hair

[Moraelin]

Freon, that was precisely my point: both chips must run at exactly the same frequency. If one Celeron overclocks to 100 MHz, but the second goes only up to 83 MHz, then you must run both of them at 83. (Or replace it with another one, that does overclock all the way. Which is very possible with CPU's, but not with with graphics chips.)

Any design with more than one chip, can only be as fast as the slowest chip allows. That's all the point I wanted to make.

And in this case, personally I don't even see the VSA-100's as the slowest component, but the many memory chips (which must run synchronously with the VSA chips.) There's only so much you can push RAM without being able to fudge around with the CAS and other settings. With the few video cards I've played with, the memory invariably showed the least overclocking potential.

E.g., on the Savage 2000, the core went with no problems from 125 to 150 (a decent 20%), while the 6ns memories would not go over 166 MHz at all. At 167, it would already crash. On the Matrox G400, the core went up to an impressive 160 MHz or so, while the memory could only take a marginal increase to 180 before it was artefact city all over the screen.

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Moraelin -- the proud member of the Idiots' Guild