Capcom CPS questions

YellowDog

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I just picked up an X-Men vs Street Fighter Capcom CPS set (both A & B). My questions are:
1) If I just plug it into a JAMMA harness will I at least be able to test it, or do I need to invest in the kick harness as well?
2) Is this one of the suicide battery systems?
3) If so, how will I know if it is OK or if it needs a new battery?
4) If the battery is dead, I seem to recall somebody that was fixing them, does anybody have the link?

Sorry for the basic questions, but I just want to see if I wasted $30 or not.

Thanks,

ken
 
Yes you can plug it into JAMMA and test it, you just won't have any kick buttons. All CPSII boards have suicide batteries and if the game is still working when you test it, then you know the battery is okay. :) I believe with this system people say you should replace the battery while the game still works but I've read they can be revived, but I don't know who does that off the top of my head.
 
those lithiums will keep thier voltage at 3.6V right up to the end. so testing them to see if they ok will not tell you anything about how much life they have left. they are not like AA batteries which slowly deplete over time.
when you replace the lithium battery you will have an hour to do it before the ROM's lose thier encryption and become corrupted.

here's a link:
http://cps2shock.retrogames.com/suicide.html
 
If you plug it into the JAMMA HARNESS, you'll be able to test everything except the kick buttons and Q-sound output. Yes, this is one of the suiciding CPS-II boards. If the game boots up and plays, then you don't need a new battery. If the battery suicides, the board can still be revived. You can have these boards phoenixed so that they no longer suicide. I'm not sure who performs the service, but Battlesmurf on these forums knows a guy.
 
If the game boots up and plays, then you don't need a new battery.

how long do you think the battery will last? the battery is a ticking time bomb and the battery WILL fail and you will lose the ROM's. if the board boots up, all that tells you is the battery hasnt died yet. CHANGE THE BATTERY. phoenixing is installing a new battery is all that is.
some people think that a CPS2 board is worth more if the battery hasnt been changed because its original. now how dumb is that?
 
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how long do you think the battery will last? the battery is a ticking time bomb and the battery WILL fail. if the board boots up, all that tells you is the battery hasnt died yet. CHANGE THE BATTERY. phoenixing is installing a new battery is all that is.


Unfortunately this isn't true. But it is.

What i mean is that YES, you want to replace the batteries on your working CPS2 machines that you don't know how old the battery is...

So that is the "But it is" part.

The "Unfortunately this isn't true" part is the claim that "Phoenixing is installing a new battery is all that is". Nope. Phoenixing a CPSII board entails replacing whatever encoded ROM that requires the battery to keep the decryption info handy with a ROM that isn't encrypted thereby not requiring the decryption info that uses the battery to keep on hand.
 
Thanks everybody. I thought that the discussions of Phoenixing were related to the CPS systems, but I wasn't sure.

I guess I need to finish my JAMMA test harness again so I can try it (my last one got installed in a cabinet when I needed one fast and I haven't needed one til now).

ken
 
i have a STREET FIGHTER 2 PCB that looks very close to the CPS 2 system boards. i wonder if the non encrypted ROM's will work in a suicided CPS 2 STREET FIGHTER 2 ?
 
Not all CPSII games use the kick harness... A few four button games use a Neo-Geo pinout.
 
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