Voodoo 3 2000, overclockable, yay, or ney?

Ohayo,

I've got an overclock Utility that I can use with 3DFXTools, and I've got the little "3DFX Overclock" Tab in my advanced settings for my display adaptor. There's the little slider that's supposed to let me overclock my card, but It won't let me move the slider.

Is it not possible to overclock Voodoo3 2000's?
Or do I need a certain set of drivers installed or something?

you might need a different program here is a link to few overclocking and tweak programs try some out and find out which one works best you can always get rid of the ones that are undesirable.have fun.take it easy and dont kill your voodoo their precious.

yay, very

I dont know why it wont let you move the slider because I have a voodoo3 2000 PCI and I have overclocked it to 170mhz from 143, Do you have the latest drivers the 1.07.0? If not get them from http://www.guru3d.com
I use the 3dfx overclockering progy cause its safe if your sys boots and the vid card cant handle the new speed it will reset the speed back to 143.
I get an average 75 frames in Q3 with everything on high. with wicked gl drivers.
also the 1.07.0 drivers take advantage of amd's 3dnow tech.

When you overclock take off teh stock heatsink and put a HSF on it cause the stock one sux a big fat one. You can get these cheap at the shack I use a socket7 heatsink with a 5500rpm fan on it.

Re (note: I hate UBB script : "I dont know why it wont let you move the slider because I have a voodoo3 2000 PCI and I have overclocked it to 170mhz from 143, Do you have the latest drivers the 1.07.0?"

I have about 8 sets of drivers. I should choose one set, as only one set of drivers seems to work with Q3, the other with TDR2000, another with Black and White, And another with DirectX 8.0 SDK.
But I don't think I've tried those drivers yet... I'l get 'em.
Oh, and my card's an AGP one. All the more reason the overclocking should work I figure...

I'll let you know if the new drivers work in a day or two (here's why)

Thanks.

Okay, my WinME re-install wnet better than expected.

The new drivers worked, I Can now rip that neat 'ol slider to 220 mhz.
My card's currently at 143mhz, so how much farther shoouuld I take it? Should I just set it to 220 mhz and see what happens? or, should I only take it up to about 180?
I've never overcloced anything before, let alone a video card, so I feel I should ask.

Thanks.

I think 170 would be about the limit. Thats what I would hit on my card.
Also, since it dosn't have active cooling (right) you maybe hitting on a heat issue.
I have one of these cards myself, and was thinking of putting on some active cooling of sometype to see what it would do. Ill keep you updated, as ill probably do it today or tommorrow.
AKDUDE

My old V3 2000 went to 170MHz fine with a super slot exhaust fan sitting underneath it.. those momma's run hot! @ 143MHz with no extra cooling it was hot to the touch but with the slot fan @ 170MHz it was nice and cool. Can't be bad, mine went to 175 but sometimes a few artifacts popped up in the summer so I slowed it down a bit.

Yep 170 seem to be the limit with active cooling..becareful though it seems Q3 REALLY pushs the card like in UT only the core will get hot..but in Q3 the whole card gets HOT i mean it like Q3 uses every ounce of power the card can crank out.

But this is how it is on my sys...could be diff with yours.
Glade the new drivers worked as well.

Slot Fans? Hehe, cool, I've got one of those in the slot right under my card right now.
gonna goto town in a mo tho, and get a new heatsink/fan for it. Then I'll try turnin' it up.

Active cooling? You mean a powered heatsink? (instead of some plastic radiator thingy

Just ran the Q3 tuorture demo test I found. Ouch. My computer must have a headache after running that... Automatic rocket lauinchers, shotgun spread Railguns, explosive lighning runs... narly.

Look out for that heat, a friend of mine killed a Linksys NIC with the heat coming out of his overclocked V3!

Is there a way to monitor my Video's temp. without having to touch the heat sink?

got a new heatsink and fan, 'cept it weighs about 7 ounces, so I think I'll keep the oldone and stick the fan on. don't like the idea of it falling off onto my sound card or something.

I think you should get a new heatsink cause the stock one just sux....and you have a better chance of frying it...I came to close once and now theres a broww burnt spot on PCB of the voodoo...its right where the 3dfx logo is.
So i suggest that you take off that stock heatsink cause that isnt thermalgrese under it..I think is some sort of calk.

And when you take off the stock heatsink, just grab it and slowly slowly twist dont pull twist..and DO NOT TWIST HARD I mean dont yank at it...slowly twist..thats what I did and it got the calk stuff and the heatsink safely.

sfa ok (Jun 26, 2001 08:03 p.m.):
Look out for that heat, a friend of mine killed a Linksys NIC with the heat coming out of his overclocked V3!

Click to expand...

I thought my voodoo was broken the first time I tried pulling it after having used it for an hour gaming. The damn thing darn near assimilated with my hand!

My friend stuck a small fan on it and never had the heat problem again.

Sorry I didn't get right back in this post like I said I would..
I just added the extra cooling today to my Voodoo3 2000. Its a Small heatsink fan combo for a Celeron I picked up over at CompUsa. Looks like a Vantec heatsink I have seen before, has the same shape, and the same blue anodizing. I attached it using Superglue Gel, one drop per corner of the chip, and ARtic silver2 for the thermal paste.

I am able to reach 180-184 with this setup. The heatsink itself stays pretty cool. The old 1/4" heatsink felt like it should be glowing red it got so hot! The new one stays cool like I said, but man the back of the board gets really really hot at 180mhz. Like burn your finger hot. I may add a sink on the back as well...

Anyway, the best 3dmark 2000 score I could get was 3209. This was with a beta set of non supported non 3dfx drivers that I forgot the name of. Supposedly it supports HSR and hardware T&L if you have a current AThlon or Pentium. Also has Anti Aliasing... ill post a link when im awake tommorrow.


If you guys can do alot better than this score, let me know how you did it, im really interested.
I noticed one dude on 3dmark got 6000! Is that possible with a Voodoo3?
AKDUDE

Hey AKA, you could try a heatsink on the back but when I did it it didnt help...it actualy made stability problems..I guess it was like sandwitching the chipset in the middle and this was with a athlon socket a heatsink...plus you have to take a square peice of papper and cut out a square in the middle of it..there is a small square under the chipset on the back of the voodoos pcb...I cut a square out that was the size of because when teh heat sink made contact with the little silver nubs on teh out side of teh scare it messed up the screen when I booted..so that why I used that technique..it worked

Hmm ok, I tried that, but it didn't get me anywere. I had a small chipset heatsink laying around, and used thermal tap to mount it to the back of the board. The heatsink got pretty hot when the fan was off, so I know it was working.

Still locks up at 185mhz. Not that I really really care, as I use that machine for serving games and umm well thats it really. I dont' actually use it to play.

Also If I burn up this Voodoo3, its no big deal to me.
Anyone want to send me a TNT2 for 20 bucks?

Has anyone tried the Omega drivers? I used the XPENTER drivers, and didn't get much of a boost.
Im looking for something to boost D3D performance more than anything else.
AKDUDE