Area 51 resetting randomly

mrmekon

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I just got a non-working Area 51 upright that I'm trying to diagnose. I know *nothing* about coin-ops but quite a bit about the hardware (I'm an embedded systems engineer), so if you have any tips please be specific. Googling hasn't turned up anything relevant.

The first few times I powered it up I got a watchdog reset error, that dumped all the registers and showed them all as 00000000, and said "THREE TAPS AND YOU'RE OUT". I eventually figured out that 3 taps of the start button reset it, and after doing that 2 or 3 times it actually did load the game. It reset again during the intro. I've had it start a few times successfully, and even played the game for a few minutes, but it keeps resetting, and always at a different time. Sometimes it turns on and doesn't do anything, doesn't even show the watchdog reset.

I don't know what its history is, or if this is an original or some hack. The mainboard has a big daughter board with 4 ROMs and a Xilinx on it. The HDD light blinks, as does a light on the daughterboard. The power light on the mainboard is on, and the "low power" LED flickers a tiny bit every once in a while. I checked the +5V and it's solid at 4.95, but it could be an instantaneous drop under load I suppose.

Any tips on what to look for, or how to trace out the problem? Thanks in advance!
 
Probably the hard drive going south.

I agree,mine would go into the watchdog reset while it sat in attract mode.
I installed the Area51/Max force kit and it stopped resetting.
I figure the HD was going out as the kit came with a new HD.
 
That's good to hear, since I already have the Max Force kit on order. I never would have associated an unreliable drive with resets, I would expect that to show an error.

Before I put in new ROMs, is there anything else it could be? If it's something more serious I don't want to fry my expensive new chips.
 
Updated symptoms:

I used 'dd' in OS X to do a block copy of the old Area 51 drive to a spare 40 gig drive I had. I set the jumpers to '32GB limit' mode, plugged it in, and turned it on. Booted straight into the game, and I played joyously through two whole levels... then it froze. Graphics and sound jittered for 30 seconds, then it started the watchdog reset cycle. Power cycled it about 10 times and the game never loaded again, just a black screen.

Also, the "low power" LED flickers often, usually in sync with the HDD light, even though I don't see a drop in voltage. Is that normal?

Do these boards have self-tests that I can run somehow?

Thanks!
 
Find the watchdog jumper on the board and jumper it. See if the board plays without any more issues.
 
Found the watchdog disable and the self-test switch, but both of them are just pads so I'll have to solder some wires on tomorrow and test them.

I also found the operator's manual, which says the flashing green light I have means "Bad ROMs"! That could certainly be an issue...

The manual doesn't say what the voltage output is supposed to be, put the silkscreen says "+5V2", which should mean 5.2V. Apparently the original power supply has a screw to adjust the output, but mine doesn't. Mine looks like a normal PC ATX power supply with molex connector hacked off... is that right? The little bugger's fan is screaming like it's ready to die.
 
If the low power led is flickering, you need to find out why and fix it. Take a look at the watch dog timer circuit and you can see what can cause a reset. In general you should rebuild the power supply unit, which usually means replacing the capacitors and the fuse block (I'm not directly familiar with Area 51). Also check all of the connectors bringing power to the board(s) to be sure the connectors are not toast.
 
Sounds like a computer power supply and not a standard adjustable arcade type.

Not sure on the flashing LED if that is 100% what it is.

RJ
 
Thanks everyone for the help! Turns out the power supply did have an adjuster, and a slight adjustment fixed the low voltage light. That didn't fix the game, but a new Area 51/Maximum Force kit from toplessZ did the trick! All seems to be good now... if only I knew how to move the thing down a flight of stairs.
 
The problem came back :(. Random resetting with the new ROMs. It seems to be less often than before, but the game is still unplayable.

I watched the +5V, -5V, and +12V lines on a multimeter during resets, and none of them drop. The multimeter might not catch an instantaneous drop though.

Wiggling the JAMMA connector and the wires going in to it doesn't trigger a reset. All self-tests pass repeatedly in the rare times that the thing will stay powered on long enough to run them.

Jumpering "watchdog disable" pins didn't help.

Any ideas on how to narrow this down? What's a good way to test the power capacitors?
 
A proper replacement power supply from Happ is $80... a generic 200W AT power supply can be found for <$10. Is there any reason why a generic PC AT power supply won't work, as long as I verify it can source 20A on +5 and 8A on +12?
 
When I had my Area 51/Max Force board, I had to run it at ~5.2V for it to work properly, which I've also heard from several others. I'd try bumping the voltage up a little. If it makes no difference, turn it back down, but it's unlikely that you'll burn anything up by going up just a little bit in voltage, especially if just for a short period to see if it fixes your problems or not. Hard drive games in general seem to be more touchy about low voltage.

DogP
 
Sorry for bumping an old thread, but this seemed to be the best fit for my questions.

I recently picked up an Area 51 / Maximum Force combo, and have been getting similar resets with the Area 51. I can get 30 seconds to roughly 2 minutes into the game, and then it flashes the error codes, then reboots. But I can play the entire game of Maximum Force with no issues at all. Graphics are great, everything is smooth, just that rebooting problem with Area 51.

What could that be? Bad roms? Hard drive going corrupt? Thanks for any help with this.
 
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Check 5.2 at the board.
I had similar problem with a hard drive game, it was 5.2 at supply, 4.9 at board. Problem went away after I adjusted it
 
What could that be? Bad roms? Hard drive going corrupt? Thanks for any help with this.

I sold mine without ever having fixed it, but in my case I had both an HD and a compactflash version, and two full sets of ROMs, and every combination did the same thing. And my voltage looked fine at the board, and I tried raising it and lowering it slightly.

I was thinking it was probably my power supply failing to supply instantaneous power (i.e. a bad cap inside), but never replaced it.
 
Check 5.2 at the board.
I had similar problem with a hard drive game, it was 5.2 at supply, 4.9 at board. Problem went away after I adjusted it

it's funny you should mention this, the Area 51 board I'm running gets MAD at me if I feed it more than like 5.05. I'm talking the Power High light comes on and everything. when I gave it more, it watchdogged immediately. despite all this, the one I have runs perfectly fine like this, although the gun tracking isn't 100%, more like a 95%. just thought I'd throw that out there.

also, I heard on here that you need some 2 board variant of the game in order to run the Area 51/Max Force duo (which I assume is what Max Force came as), and other places say you can do it with any Area 51 board (the one I've got is a single) and I was wondering what the actual answer to the question is... can I upgrade this one to the duo? heh
 
i recently purchased a area 51/max force with issues that watch dog came up. i purchased a flash drive replacing the HD that it came with and had no issues with area 51 can play through the game no issues, but when i get to maximum force random freeze. security chip in it was an issues for me. this thread is very informative. :)
 
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