Arctic Thunder troubleshooting guide

ManCaveArcade

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ARCTIC THUNDER TROUBLESHOOTING NOTES:
I just went through the repair job from Hell with a pair of Arctic Thunders that I picked up cheap and thought they would be an easy fix. I have been working on them for about a week straight and almost got them ready for the Arcade. During this process I was searching this forum and the web for information to help me figure this out and couldn't find much so I decided to document my troubleshooting notes to help others that may have these problems. I had to replace both monitors, fix the steering feedback on both, calibration, repair damaged wires, replace both power supplies, Replace CPU battery and adjust BIOS settings, replace both network cards and some other stuff…. So with that being said here are my notes:

GAME BOOT SEQUENCE:
• Top power toggle switch on
• Motherboard detects power at computer power supply input and turns on power to computer.
• You should see the CPU fan and case fans spin and led's on motherboard
• Motherboard boots up and goes through its normal checks according to the BIOS settings.
• HD boots into windows 2000 and goes through normal boot procedure
• Game program begins and displays a "MIDWAY" screen
• I/O check Game checks for communications with the substitute I/O board
• If communication is established then the game goes into a "TESTING" screen and starts counting down. During this test I know it is testing for network connection but still unsure about what else it is testing.
• * NOTE: If you try to make a backup copy of the HD then it will get to this screen and display white bars on the screen where the testing words should be and freezes the game. I believe the HD code is somehow married to the hard code serial number on the drive and can't be duplicated.
• If all testing checks are good, then it proceeds into the "Attract Mode" of the game

GAME DOESN'T BOOT:
• Did the computer turn on (case fan & CPU fan spin, audible tone)?
o YES: Proceed to next step
o NO: Try to push the power button on case and/or directly jump PWR pins on motherboard. Did it boot up?
 YES: Motherboard battery is dead or low and BIOS settings went back to default settings. Replace battery, plug in a keyboard, boot into the BIOS settings and change the power management to boot on after power failure. You will also need to change the setting to "HAULT ON: NO ERRORS" so it will ignore the keyboard not present or any other errors.
 NO: Replace power supply
• Make sure your monitor is not bad by unplugging VGA cable from monitor and test on a standard computer monitor for video. If you see motherboard boot up sequence but doesn't boot, check HD.

WILL NOT SELECT PLAYER OR STAGE:
When you start a game, you are asked to select a player/stage with the steering and hit the throttle to confirm selection. If it doesn't confirm your selection and time out then most likely your throttle pot is out of adjustment and will need to me calibrated. Go to the test menu and select calibrate feedback. You can't just adjust the throttle; you are forced to do the entire calibration. The first step it will ask you to press and release throttle and then it goes into the steering calibration by itself. * Note: If your feedback doesn't work then calibration will fail (See Steering feedback section)

STEERING FEEDBACK DOES NOT WORK:
If your steering feedback stops working then DO NOT TRY AND CALIBRATE! If you do then it will fail calibration and when you reboot the game it will display an error "CALIBRATION FAILED" and will not start the game until you can successfully complete the calibration. Now that you are in this situation (like I was) you are forced to fix the feedback.
• Start with the driver board located in the back of the cab on the left side. Check all fuses with a meter. I got lucky on one and was just a bad fuse. I always get nervous when there is a bad fuse because most of the time there is another problem that caused that fuse to pop but in this case it seems to be holding.
• If fuse is good then go into test mode and select test feedback left or right. This should send power to the motor so you can test voltage at the Molex connector at the motor. If voltage is present and motor doesn't move then it is a bad motor.
• If there is no power at the motor connector then disconnect the brown wire at the driver board and test voltage directly at the board to rule out the wire connection.
• No power leaving the board? Check power coming into the board. If you have power coming in but no power going out then either the board is bad or it is not receiving the command to send power to the motor. I had one game that had this issue and someone put the connector on wrong from the substitute board to the driver board. Make sure the Red line is on the right side of the harness at the connector on the substitute board and facing the top of the driver board (I'm going off memory so I hope I said that right)
• No power coming into the driver board? Check your power board on the left side of the cab at the very top. Refer to the manual for voltage values and LED indicator lights.
 
Troubleshooting guide part 2

GAME FREEZES OR REBOOTS:
• Anytime a game freezes or reboots, I always start with the power supply. Stick your test probes inside the connector at the black and red wires. Test them at power up and after the freeze. Sometimes the power supply will heat up after being on for a while and start to drop voltage. If it is dropping below 5v then replace it.
• If the power supply is good then it is most likely a bad hard drive. If you have another game swap hard drives and see if the problem follows. I had one bad hard drive that reboots after it finishes the attract mode cycle and one that was an older version 1.001 that would freeze up after left on with no activity for a while. Replaced both hard drives and it solved the problems.

GAMES WILL NOT LINK UP:
• Go into test mode on both machines and make sure each one is assigned a unique linking number. If only two game, make them 1 and 2. If the number changes after reboot then chances are that your motherboard battery is low or dead and it is dumping the settings. Change battery and re-assign the proper number.
• Make sure you are using an actual crossover cable and not just a standard Ethernet cable. You can also use two standard cables with a crossover hub in between. I believe this is how the game normally comes. Best test is to borrow a crossover cable from another set of games so you can 100% rule this out.
• If neither of these work, start looking into the network cards. I just had a pair of these with 2 different video cards and they were both bad. All of mine except this one has the "DLINK" brand card so I think that is the factory card.
• * NOTE: During a network test in the game test mode I noticed something strange while trying to test the video cards. The game with the good network card didn't display "packets" on the screen but the one with the bad card did. I tried it on another working set and the same thing happened. This could be very confusing making you think the wrong video card is bad.


GAME DISPLAYS "TESTING FAILED" during the testing screen at boot up:
• This one had me going crazy for a whole day. I was swapping parts back and forth with a known good machine to try and isolate the problem. I tried exchanging the computer, substitute I/O board, power board, driver board and some cables. I'm not sure everything that is being "tested" during this 60 second countdown but I know for sure it checks the network connections and switches.
• Problem turned out to be a stupid oversight. The start and attack button wires were attached to the N/C side of the switch instead of the N/O side. It must have detected a bad or stuck switch and instantly stopped testing everything else and went directly to "TESTING FAILED". So if you experience this error, I would check all of your button switches and coin switches to make sure there is none stuck or wired incorrectly.

-ManCaveArcade
 
Thanks For Posting Helped with setting bios after dead battery

Thanks For Posting Helped with setting bios after dead battery .Your post may say this but the setting to turn on computer is set for CNTL & F1
Thanks
 
Thanks For Posting Helped with setting bios after dead battery

Thanks For Posting Helped with setting bios after dead battery .Your post may say this but the setting to turn on computer is set for CNTL & F1
Thanks
Explain this for me
 
ARCTIC THUNDER TROUBLESHOOTING NOTES:
I just went through the repair job from Hell with a pair of Arctic Thunders that I picked up cheap and thought they would be an easy fix. I have been working on them for about a week straight and almost got them ready for the Arcade. During this process I was searching this forum and the web for information to help me figure this out and couldn't find much so I decided to document my troubleshooting notes to help others that may have these problems. I had to replace both monitors, fix the steering feedback on both, calibration, repair damaged wires, replace both power supplies, Replace CPU battery and adjust BIOS settings, replace both network cards and some other stuff…. So with that being said here are my notes:

GAME BOOT SEQUENCE:
• Top power toggle switch on
• Motherboard detects power at computer power supply input and turns on power to computer.
• You should see the CPU fan and case fans spin and led's on motherboard
• Motherboard boots up and goes through its normal checks according to the BIOS settings.
• HD boots into windows 2000 and goes through normal boot procedure
• Game program begins and displays a "MIDWAY" screen
• I/O check Game checks for communications with the substitute I/O board
• If communication is established then the game goes into a "TESTING" screen and starts counting down. During this test I know it is testing for network connection but still unsure about what else it is testing.
• * NOTE: If you try to make a backup copy of the HD then it will get to this screen and display white bars on the screen where the testing words should be and freezes the game. I believe the HD code is somehow married to the hard code serial number on the drive and can't be duplicated.
• If all testing checks are good, then it proceeds into the "Attract Mode" of the game

GAME DOESN'T BOOT:
• Did the computer turn on (case fan & CPU fan spin, audible tone)?
o YES: Proceed to next step
o NO: Try to push the power button on case and/or directly jump PWR pins on motherboard. Did it boot up?
 YES: Motherboard battery is dead or low and BIOS settings went back to default settings. Replace battery, plug in a keyboard, boot into the BIOS settings and change the power management to boot on after power failure. You will also need to change the setting to "HAULT ON: NO ERRORS" so it will ignore the keyboard not present or any other errors.
 NO: Replace power supply
• Make sure your monitor is not bad by unplugging VGA cable from monitor and test on a standard computer monitor for video. If you see motherboard boot up sequence but doesn't boot, check HD.

WILL NOT SELECT PLAYER OR STAGE:
When you start a game, you are asked to select a player/stage with the steering and hit the throttle to confirm selection. If it doesn't confirm your selection and time out then most likely your throttle pot is out of adjustment and will need to me calibrated. Go to the test menu and select calibrate feedback. You can't just adjust the throttle; you are forced to do the entire calibration. The first step it will ask you to press and release throttle and then it goes into the steering calibration by itself. * Note: If your feedback doesn't work then calibration will fail (See Steering feedback section)

STEERING FEEDBACK DOES NOT WORK:
If your steering feedback stops working then DO NOT TRY AND CALIBRATE! If you do then it will fail calibration and when you reboot the game it will display an error "CALIBRATION FAILED" and will not start the game until you can successfully complete the calibration. Now that you are in this situation (like I was) you are forced to fix the feedback.
• Start with the driver board located in the back of the cab on the left side. Check all fuses with a meter. I got lucky on one and was just a bad fuse. I always get nervous when there is a bad fuse because most of the time there is another problem that caused that fuse to pop but in this case it seems to be holding.
• If fuse is good then go into test mode and select test feedback left or right. This should send power to the motor so you can test voltage at the Molex connector at the motor. If voltage is present and motor doesn't move then it is a bad motor.
• If there is no power at the motor connector then disconnect the brown wire at the driver board and test voltage directly at the board to rule out the wire connection.
• No power leaving the board? Check power coming into the board. If you have power coming in but no power going out then either the board is bad or it is not receiving the command to send power to the motor. I had one game that had this issue and someone put the connector on wrong from the substitute board to the driver board. Make sure the Red line is on the right side of the harness at the connector on the substitute board and facing the top of the driver board (I'm going off memory so I hope I said that right)
• No power coming into the driver board? Check your power board on the left side of the cab at the very top. Refer to the manual for voltage values and LED indicator lights.
So I have this problem with the force feedback. I've tried 3 boards. I get 0 volts everything is plugged in on the board. But if I unplug the red and black wires going into it I get voltage to the motor. When I plug them back in the voltage goes
Away
 
What are the expected values for testing the steering and throttle? I think theres something wrong with my throttle and on the testing menu it only switches between 58 and 61 fully pressed. I assume it should be further apart than that. Is that a bad pot?
 
Can anyone post a photo of pins that need to be jumped to get game to boot up?

Had a dead cr2032 and replaced and totally dead now.
 
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