Any megatouch guys out there? Lost.

mdrago

New member
Joined
Apr 22, 2009
Messages
366
Reaction score
0
Location
Crestwood, Missouri
I just got a Maxx Emerald 2 and i bought it not working. It's a conversion from a Maxx so its not a dedicated. I got a good deal on it so I figured any amount of headache for this is okay to me.

When I first brought it home and would kick it on the bill acceptor cycles through like it should and the monitor does turn on but without picture, so its still black. I figured this was likely a power supply problem so I got a new power supply from my work and plugged it in and now the bill acceptor doesn't even cycle. The fans do not turn on or anything else. Does this sound like my motherboard is bad and is shutting the game down?

There are also 2 or 3 connectors that I cannot figure out what they go to. They are currently loose. One is a connector with two yellow wires that are loose that come off of another connector on the motherboard. The other two I cannot remember what they are. I can post pictures later when I get home.

Anyone have any good ideas as to what could be going on with my game?
 
is the PS atx or AT , I belive the originals were AT. this can work but you have to ground the green wire to get it to work off just a switch on
 
I'd have to see the connectors before being able to tell you where they go....
 
ok, a couple things for you to start with here. If the monitor and bill acceptor cycle on, then you have ac power. This is almost never an isue with these machines.
Maxx emerald should use a mini ATX style power supply. It is a smallish box with a single 20 pin connector out of it. If you short out the green wire to any of the blacks, you should be able to bypass the power on circuit built in to the power supply and get it to start. I would recommend that you do this with the power supply out of the game, just to be sure that it is indeed working. (Check it with a meter after you get it powered on, just use a paperclip to jump out the wires.)
If your power supply is good out of the game, check it in circuit. Plug it into the game, and see what happens. If it comes on for a split second, and the machine shuts down, you probably have an issue with the power switch section of the mobo. It's ok, just use the paperclip bypass, you won't harm anything.
If the power supply is good, and you put it in the game, and the game still doesn't work, (providing the bill acceptor and monitor work), does the cpu fan spin? How about the two (or three) exhaust fans on the back of the cabinet? That will tell you if you have 12 volts from the power supply. At the least, it's a start.
Check and make sure your monitor is good. Plug in a laptop or desktop to the monitor, ad check for a picture. It's just a VGA monitor, after all.
If all that is ok, and the game still doesn't power on, it should at least make some noise, or give you some text garbage on the screen. If it beeps, it's giving you an error code. Research it online, you can find the codes (I can't remember where right now, but you can get it). If you get text garbage on the screen, it should be able to help us diagnose your problem here.
If it works out that you have a board problem, basically (in my experience), you're kinda stuck. Merit (who built the stupid things) won't support Maxx anymore. That goes for ANY maxx....Emerald, Maxx, Blue Maxx, Diamond, Ruby Sapphire, Crown, Jade, Etc...Most repair shops (at least the ones I've found) won't do anything with them either. The good news is that any Maxx board is interchangeable. So, a Ruby PCB will work with your emerald, or so on, etc...but you'd need to find a board. Sometimes Ebay is ok for this, just be sure it's tested first.
The connectors that are hanging around are probably not used. The bigger one you were talking about comes off the harness that plugs in to the I/O board (the one closest to you looking at the machine from the back), right? The other connectors you'd have to get me pics of, but they most likely aren't used either.
Start with this, and see what you can do from there.
 
ok, a couple things for you to start with here. If the monitor and bill acceptor cycle on, then you have ac power. This is almost never an isue with these machines.
Maxx emerald should use a mini ATX style power supply. It is a smallish box with a single 20 pin connector out of it. If you short out the green wire to any of the blacks, you should be able to bypass the power on circuit built in to the power supply and get it to start. I would recommend that you do this with the power supply out of the game, just to be sure that it is indeed working. (Check it with a meter after you get it powered on, just use a paperclip to jump out the wires.)
If your power supply is good out of the game, check it in circuit. Plug it into the game, and see what happens. If it comes on for a split second, and the machine shuts down, you probably have an issue with the power switch section of the mobo. It's ok, just use the paperclip bypass, you won't harm anything.
If the power supply is good, and you put it in the game, and the game still doesn't work, (providing the bill acceptor and monitor work), does the cpu fan spin? How about the two (or three) exhaust fans on the back of the cabinet? That will tell you if you have 12 volts from the power supply. At the least, it's a start.
Check and make sure your monitor is good. Plug in a laptop or desktop to the monitor, ad check for a picture. It's just a VGA monitor, after all.
If all that is ok, and the game still doesn't power on, it should at least make some noise, or give you some text garbage on the screen. If it beeps, it's giving you an error code. Research it online, you can find the codes (I can't remember where right now, but you can get it). If you get text garbage on the screen, it should be able to help us diagnose your problem here.
If it works out that you have a board problem, basically (in my experience), you're kinda stuck. Merit (who built the stupid things) won't support Maxx anymore. That goes for ANY maxx....Emerald, Maxx, Blue Maxx, Diamond, Ruby Sapphire, Crown, Jade, Etc...Most repair shops (at least the ones I've found) won't do anything with them either. The good news is that any Maxx board is interchangeable. So, a Ruby PCB will work with your emerald, or so on, etc...but you'd need to find a board. Sometimes Ebay is ok for this, just be sure it's tested first.
The connectors that are hanging around are probably not used. The bigger one you were talking about comes off the harness that plugs in to the I/O board (the one closest to you looking at the machine from the back), right? The other connectors you'd have to get me pics of, but they most likely aren't used either.
Start with this, and see what you can do from there.


Shawn -

The fans do not spin with either power supply as well as the hard drive does not even kick on. My initial thought was that because the fans weren't working, and were so caked with dust and cigar smoke that the power supply over heated leading it to fail. I will try that trick with the monitor and my laptop to check the monitor. I didn't even think of that. I figured the loose connectors I had were not used but wasn't positive so I didn't know that if that could be the start of my problem. I know that the other motherboards for the Maxx are interchangeable. I will take some pictures of the loose connectors in a minute just to verify with you guys that they are not needed as well as check my monitor. The problem actually got worse when I put the new power supply in as my bill acceptor no longer cycles on. My monitor however still has power. I know that themegatouchstore.com will repair a motherboard so if I have to send it off for repair, then thats what I have to do.

pics will be loaded in a minute.
 
I plugged the VGA cable into my laptop and got a bunch of gibberish - white gibberish all over the screen.

Heres a picture of the connectors.

Now the bill acceptor is cycling on now with my new power supply when it wasn't doing this earlier.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0860.jpg
    IMG_0860.jpg
    95.4 KB · Views: 31
Okay, so I put the paperclip in to short out the black and green wires and while the paperclip was in the fan ran and once I pulled it out, the ps shut off.

I guess this rules out that my ps is not the problem. So is the last thing to rule out my motherboard? Any other tricks I should try before I send it off?
 
Well, you could add a permanent jumper there, instead of using a paper clip. All that does is bypass the "soft" power switch on your motherboard. It's not really necessary for the soft motherboard to be functional on your Megatouch, because you're not using another power button on the front like regular computers use.

If your game boots up with the jumper in, I'd just make the jumper permanent and leave it like that. Your power switch on the back will still turn it on and off...
 
But putting a permanent jumper in there isn't really going to change anything because it's not going to jump start the game. I may be wrong but I am just trying to make sense of what's going on with this.

I'll try to get another motherboard off of ebay or something and see if that will fix it.
 
I plugged the VGA cable into my laptop and got a bunch of gibberish - white gibberish all over the screen.

Heres a picture of the connectors.

Now the bill acceptor is cycling on now with my new power supply when it wasn't doing this earlier.

I just looked at my machine. The y cable on the left comes off the power supply harness and powers my hard drive. The yellow wire on mine is connected to the power supply harness that comes from the MB to the game.. Green,black,white wires.. This is probably why the fans or HD aren't powering up.

I don't have that other harness on my machine, so I'm not sure what its for.
 
But putting a permanent jumper in there isn't really going to change anything because it's not going to jump start the game. I may be wrong but I am just trying to make sense of what's going on with this.

.

What? :confused: I don't know what your talking about.

This is an overly simplified explanation:

When you turn on the power switch on the back of the game, it's supposed to start your game. What happens is that power goes through the switch to your power supply. Then it goes to the motherboard to check that it's connected (a load is applied), then comes back to your power supply and says "Yes, everythings good, turn on."

Right now you're not getting the okay from the motherboard - hence your PS not turning on. Now, adding the jumper simulates the "okay" and tells the PS to turn on. Since YOU know that the board is connected, you can bypass the load check manually.

There is no "jump starting" or whatever. You still turn the game on and off via the switch on the back, just like before. All you did was eliminate one non-working step in the power-up process that was keeping everything dead. You don't need to spend a bunch of money on a new board, or repair of yours, unless you just want to.

I've done these jumper mods before for an operator who didn't want to spend a lot of money, and as long as the PS is good (and not an old crappy one coated in cigarette residue), they work just fine. Some he's had in a bar for over 5 years since I did the jumper mod, and still working fine...
 
That looks like a unicorn motherboard which tend to have caps that fail. Check if any of the green caps on the motherboard have bloated tops.
 
Back
Top Bottom