Anybody with DK repair experience?

Riptor

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I fixed a Jr board and now working on a DK board for a friend. The DK board had/has several problems. I got the board booting and its fully playable now but the walking sound and climbing sounds are missing. All other sounds are fine.
Second remaining issue is the DK's face is orangish and lacks detail. There is also a rectangular pink box right above the top ladders. The box is only there on the gameplay screen and never goes away.
 
Could it be a color PROM? The pink box on top of Kong's ladder is normally there, but it's black, so he goes behind it. When it's not there, Kong disappears in segments as he goes off the top of the screen (it does the same thing on Crazy Kong, which doesn't have the black box. Apparently that was how they fixed it on DK, by hiding it with a black box ;) )
 
Check those pesky sockets for corrosion as it's a common problem.
 
I was wondering about the sockets, they are a unique design. Actually I did have to replace a couple of the 40 pin ones on this board. I will go ahead and replace the color prom sockets to rule those out.
On the sound I replaced the op amp and dac but really have no direction on where to look from there.
 
The walking/climbing/jumping/DK Stomping are all analog and have different circuitry than the digital sounds (background music.) Before you do anything drastic check the dial on the soundboard (this is different than the volume dial on the monitor) to make sure the volume is mixed right between the analog and digital sounds. If its turned all the way you might just have the analog sounds turned off. See the manual for more detail.
 
The last PCB I looked at, I used mame to simulate a fault

It was river patrol.

I had color issues, so I was thinking it was a prom.

1. extract the mame zip file for your version
2. Do a backup of the roms in the DK mame zipped folder, onto the desktop (eg)
3. Identify which locations are PROMS on your boardset
4. Open up a notebook file and rename it as <prom1_Name> inluding the file extension
5. Insert the new blank prom file into the dkong unzipped folder (overwrite it)
6. Re-Zip the folder and replace the file in your mame rom directory
7. Don't do a mame audit.

Just run the game in Mame

Observe. If the fault is similar, then replace that prom (On the PCB)

Keep going with all proms until the similar fault appears as your fault, after each prom is tested, insert the relevent backup prom file back into the unzipped folder.

IE only do 1 replacement prom file at a time

On the river patrol, some of the proms did sound and graphics, some did sounds only, and some did graphics or colors

Any questions please ask :D
 
The walking/climbing/jumping/DK Stomping are all analog and have different circuitry than the digital sounds (background music.) Before you do anything drastic check the dial on the soundboard (this is different than the volume dial on the monitor) to make sure the volume is mixed right between the analog and digital sounds. If its turned all the way you might just have the analog sounds turned off. See the manual for more detail.

Excellent info - :cool:
 
Well thats another issue I forgot to mention. The pot on the board seems to be working fine but it has to be almost all the way up to get any volume out. Does anyone have a CLEAR set of schematics for a DK? I havent been able to find any that are legible on the net.
 
Well thats another issue I forgot to mention. The pot on the board seems to be working fine but it has to be almost all the way up to get any volume out. Does anyone have a CLEAR set of schematics for a DK? I havent been able to find any that are legible on the net.

Have you tried arcarc? They seem pretty clear, but still could be improved on the formatting a bit.
 
Well thats another issue I forgot to mention. The pot on the board seems to be working fine but it has to be almost all the way up to get any volume out. Does anyone have a CLEAR set of schematics for a DK? I havent been able to find any that are legible on the net.

For the 2 board set? The ones from Mikes Arcage are legible but it helps to zoom in on adobe acrobat.

I've never been able to find the schematics for the 4-board set.
 
Looks like the stacked barrels are wrong too, as well as the lady's dress, and the floor beams are missing the red (there should be a row of pink, then red, then the diagonal truss in pink, then another row of pink, then another row of red)
 
Stupid question, but you're hooked up to a 100% known working sound amp?

Yes, its my JR cab and tried another JR board in it too...both work fine.

Anyone know the checksums for the proms or have the prom images they could send me?
I already verified all the roms.
 
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Update:
Found the prom files in mame and verified both proms on the cpu board. I went ahead and burned new ones since the legs on the originals were tarnished and brittle. No change, problem still exists. Im going to check the prom on the other board now. Replaced sockets for proms already too.
...nope, other prom is good too.
 
Well thats another issue I forgot to mention. The pot on the board seems to be working fine but it has to be almost all the way up to get any volume out.

If this is something you already know disregard this message, but the pot on the board only affects the "balance" of the analog v. digital sound. The volume (which adjusts volume for analog and digital sound) is on the board for the monitor.
 
Ok, so it seems the analog section of the sound is whats at fault. Are there any common culprits reguarding this?
Getting ready to give up on this one. Its not a paying job, a favor for a friend.
 
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