Recently I got an itch to pull out my old PCI Voodoo from the closet, blow the dust off and try out some Glide games on my XP 32-bit system. I removed the GTS 250 and installed the Voodoo, not bothering to set PCI video to boot first in the BIOS. Screen came on and Windows loaded normally, recognizes the card and starts the driver update wizard, but around this time it locks up.

Next I plug my monitor into onboard and reseat the Voodoo in another slot, hoping to just get it recognized and installed without locking up. This time the computer freezes before Windows gets to the login screen. Tried it a couple more times in different slots and with different PSU connectors with similar results; computer locks up either before or right after loading the desktop. Once I remove the card the lockups cease.

I did note the card was quite hot in the middle whenever I pulled it out but both fans seem to be working on it and nothing seems damaged or missing. I'm aware failure is common for cards this old so I'm not expecting miracles, however the card does still boot at least.

I have just made a video in which I rattle on for some minutes about my poor dead baby in the dark and display some frankly awful camerawork while it boots. If you can get through that there's some semi-good footage of the card itself at the end.

I'm out of ideas at this point, about ready to call time of death on this thing. Only thing still yet to do is test in another computer.

edit: video removed, I got it working. Seems there was a conflict with my obnoxious overpriced X-Fi sound card that prevented the OS from loading. Now I know I tried booting it at least twice without the sound card in there before but who knows what the problem was then. I had just flashed the card from 1.11 to 1.16 in a last ditch effort and to my amazement Windows loaded.

I got the default Microsoft XP driver installed and proceeded to run dxdiag. After running the directdraw tests I saw that no sound card was recognized. Looking down, sure enough the light on the card wasn't on; it had gotten gradually nudged out of its slot by cables same as the Voodoo earlier. Shut down, push the sound card back in, reboot... locks up at loading bar. Remove sound card... boots into desktop. Onboard sound ahoy!

I theorize that there might be some IRQ conflict that is unresolved by the BIOS here. Through Google I found http://forum.starmen.net/forum/General/Tech/25053 where a fellow seems to have the same issue. Google also tells me that these X-Fi cards don't like to play nice with 'IRQ Sharing' which I'm guessing it's very likely my M-ATX mobo with only 2 PCI slots employs.

Anyway, the card is not dead and I'm thrilled for that. Thanks everyone who took a look at it! I'm off to investigate Glide-capable XP drivers.