BERZERK help needed - not crediting up

vintagegamer

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I just got my BERZERK home, played about 2-3 games, went to hit 1 player again and........... nada. The game is currently set to free play but neither the 1 player or 2 player switch will work. I did the following troubleshooting:

1. popped the control panel to make sure all connections were still on (it just bounced around in the back of my truck for 3 hrs). All connections are still on switches.

2. tried bringing the leaf switches together manually to see if the game would recognize them- it didn't.

3. Disconnected and reconnected CP harness that connects to wire harness. No change.

4. the game is getting all 8 beeps on power up (and the first one is loud as shit)


I guess I can clean the switches to see if that's the problem, but something's telling me it's further down the line somewhere.

I'm in the process of trying to get the manual online for the game, but if someone could tell me how to flip it from free play back to coins so I can try seeing if that will work, that would be great.

VG
 
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Update I found that if you hit the "switch #2" on the main PCB when the monitor is displaying the high scores, it will allow a game to credit up. When you hit this switch though, it totally bypasses the 2 credit buttons that are causing the problem I'm having. The good news is, once the game starts, the joystick and fire buttons all work fine. So the problem is currently isolated to the 2 credit buttons while in free play mode.

I'm still trying to figure out how to get it off of free play, and after that I'm going to see if the credit switches are still not working. So, any feedback will be great.
 
I myself could never find a free play setting on my Berzerk or in the manual, unlike all my Atari games which have it clearly spelled out for dummies like me. I always assumed there wasn't one. Since pushing the "Bookkeeping Clear" button when the high scores are displayed (pg.11 of the manual) is a pain, even with the Stern style slide-out door, I just always activated the switch/wire in the coin mech to give me free credits. I usually give myself 40 credits at a time.
This probally deosn't help you much, but maybe others can chime in. I could use help in this area too.
Take care,
-Dave
 
I myself could never find a free play setting on my Berzerk or in the manual, unlike all my Atari games which have it clearly spelled out for dummies like me. I always assumed there wasn't one. Since pushing the "Bookkeeping Clear" button when the high scores are displayed (pg.11 of the manual) is a pain, even with the Stern style slide-out door, I just always activated the switch/wire in the coin mech to give me free credits. I usually give myself 40 credits at a time.
This probally deosn't help you much, but maybe others can chime in. I could use help in this area too.
Take care,
-Dave

I have a feeling that even if I get it back to where the coin mechs will show credits on the screen, the player 1-player 2 buttons are what specifically are not working. So, the credits will most likely show, but I can't start up a game.
 
Just checked both leaf switches with my DMM, and both read 4.9V. Do they need to be at 5.0 to kick off the game? Mother of God please help me :(
 
And now, the short answer: SHE'S FIXED!

I must have played 30 games of her tonight, while polishing the coin door and CP in between games. My daughter loves it too.

Off to bed..
 
So how do you set Berzerk up for free play? Because I always have to put coins in.

I didn't think there was a free play setting.
 
I don't think there is a free play setting on Berzerk. If you don't have a battery connected, then it will boot up with a random number of credits. Once those are gone, you'd have to reboot the game to get another load of random credits, which is probably what Vintagegamer experienced.

On mine, I rigged a switch behind the coin return button that gives a credit when you push it.
 
No free play that I know of. If there was, surely Brett would have had his set to it at CAX last year. As many who tried to play that particular Berzerk machine know, it ran out of credits and sat idle for a couple hours until he unlocked it and added more. Mine has no free play setting either. You probably just ran out of credits and it wouldn't let you select the number of players because of that fact.
 
I don't think there is a free play setting on Berzerk. If you don't have a battery connected, then it will boot up with a random number of credits. Once those are gone, you'd have to reboot the game to get another load of random credits, which is probably what Vintagegamer experienced.

That is EXACTLY what happened. I was told the game was set to free play when I bought it, and I didn't even remember it showing a number or credits total on the screen. But yep, once they went away, I was confused. I figured "no problem, I"ll just set it to quarters". Couldn't find a setting to put it back to quarters, because I never even found a 'free play' setting. So, I went to the next step of dropping a quarter in the right-side slot.. Nothing happened. I started getting freaked out at this point. I checked voltages at the leaf switches of the player 1 and player 2 buttons, both buttons were getting a healthy 4.9V. I checked at the source, the RCR-1000 board, same voltages coming out from there. To date this game has been the one I've paid the most money for yet, I drove 3.5 hrs each way to get it, and after it stopped playing after a few games, I was starting to turn green and my shirt was starting to rip in the back..

So after reading as much as I could, and trying all that the KLOV Jedi Council has told me over the years, I finally tried the one thing I hadn't done yet: I put a coin in the LEFT-side quarter slot and......................... up comes a credit on the screen. I hit player one and VOILA, I'm back in the game. All I could say was, "you've gotta be fuking kidding me". Apparently there are some voltage issues with the right-side quarter slot, so it's not working. Had I tried both slots, I would have saved myself the brain tumor I got.

The weird part is, that night I powered down the game, and yesterday morning when I brought her up again, there was an "F" at the bottom center of the screen. I wondered at first if that meant I simply FAILED the Berzerk test. :D As I played the game, that letter went down from F to E, D, C etc.. When it went past 'A', there were no remaining credits already in the game. So that's the random bookkeeping piece hatrick was talking about.

It never ceases to amaze me how much these games are like women. Every one has its own different set of rules! :D
 
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