Crazy Climber Taito US sprites issue.

Mahoneyt944

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I recently bought a crazy Climber machine. When I went to pick it up, It was working but the screen was slightly glitchy like there was some interference or something. When I got the cabinet home. I used a test LCD screen I had and the game looked identical on the new screen. I spent some time cleaning the inside of the cabinet with a light bar inside and fixing some questionable wiring the PO had done when he installed a new switching power supply some time ago. Now when I turn on the cabinet I notice Im missing certain sprites and some of the colors get goofed up. I since have put it a new power supply with the same issue and verified power at the board to be correct. I'm thinking one of the rom chips or another chip may have been erased, corrupted, or damaged somehow. My best guess is that the light bar inside the cabinet could have done this, as it was glitchy when I bought it so I probably added to it. I know there are 13 chips on the board. 7 - 13 being on the top board (game side) facing the light. 1-6 are on the video board. The game works as far as the sounds, controls, and maybe half the images... Such as the building, Windows moving up and down, score, some text. I'm just missing some sprites like the player, birds, building name at the bottom. Does anyone know which chips I should be looking at to diagnose this? Which chips 1-13 are which exactly? Thank you!
 
Mame is good here.
If you replace a rom in mame with blank files then run the game mame will show you how having that eprom missing will affect the game.
 
Where did you verify what voltage on the board because it sounds like you have a voltage problem.

Power off the cabinet

Re-seat the ribbon cables the interconnect the boards.

Disconnect the harness from the edge connector

Power on your cabinet and adjust your power supply so that you are getting about 5.1 at the +5VDC lug on the power supply.

Power off cabinet and reconnect the edge connector

SLOWLY and CAREFULLY readjust your power supply (using a screwdriver not your fingers) so that you are getting +5VDC at the ROM on the main board at pin 24 on one of the 24 pin EPROMS.
 
Where did you verify what voltage on the board because it sounds like you have a voltage problem.

Power off the cabinet

Re-seat the ribbon cables the interconnect the boards.

Disconnect the harness from the edge connector

Power on your cabinet and adjust your power supply so that you are getting about 5.1 at the +5VDC lug on the power supply.

Power off cabinet and reconnect the edge connector

SLOWLY and CAREFULLY readjust your power supply (using a screwdriver not your fingers) so that you are getting +5VDC at the ROM on the main board at pin 24 on one of the 24 pin EPROMS.

I have +5 volts on both boards checking at various eproms right at the chip. Im pretty sure the voltages are correct or at least where I checked are correct. There could be a dead chip somewhere though that my random chip selection didn't find. I checked about 10 or more different chips.

Could anyone burn me 1- 13 eprom chips to swap in and see if that fixes it? I have the u.s. taito version. I'm willing to compensate for your time, materials, and shipping.
 
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Mame is good here.
If you replace a rom in mame with blank files then run the game mame will show you how having that eprom missing will affect the game.

Any chance you can try blanking ROM 8 then seeing what you get? Screen shot it? I don't have mame set up. ROM 8 is my suspect because the sticker covering the eprom top was pealed back some and I was using a uv light bar inside the cabinet.
 
Looking at the mame crazy climber U.S. roms 1-6 are the graphics roms and 7-11 are the main program roms with 12 and 13 being the sound samples so I'm betting if rom 8 was corrupt the game would not run or crash.
I'll have a play with blanking the graphic roms and see if I get any results like yours.


EDIT:
A blank rom2 gets rid of the name at the bottom of the building and parts of the bird but non of the other roms missing gave ALL the problems you described and nothing got rid of the player entirely-just his head.
I also tried blanking rom8 and the game doesn't crash.I just got no enemies apart from the closing windows.but there was also no helicopter when I got to the top!
blanking rom12 removed some sound effects and blanking 13 mixed up some sounds.
Blanking the other program roms resulted in an unplayable game so unfortunately it looks like this isn't going to be fixed by just replacing the eproms.
 
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I have +5 volts on both boards checking at various eproms right at the chip. Im pretty sure the voltages are correct or at least where I checked are correct. There could be a dead chip somewhere though that my random chip selection didn't find. I checked about 10 or more different chips.

Could anyone burn me 1- 13 eprom chips to swap in and see if that fixes it? I have the u.s. taito version. I'm willing to compensate for your time, materials, and shipping.

You said you're pretty sure. Double check the voltages at the chips again to be sure. I've seen this exact issue and it seems very likely it's a voltage issue. Also press down on the 5101 RAM and make sure it's seated. No point in swapping eproms until you're sure. The game worked great until you got it home so it's probably something simple.
 
You said you're pretty sure. Double check the voltages at the chips again to be sure. I've seen this exact issue and it seems very likely it's a voltage issue. Also press down on the 5101 RAM and make sure it's seated. No point in swapping eproms until you're sure. The game worked great until you got it home so it's probably something simple.

I definitely have +5v at the board . Where would the 5101 ram be exactly?
 
I definitely have +5v at the board . Where would the 5101 ram be exactly?


OK because you said you were "pretty sure". So just making sure you have 5V at the board at the VCC pin of each ROM. I believe the large RAM is socketed on the top board. Check your voltage there too.
 
Looking at the mame crazy climber U.S. roms 1-6 are the graphics roms and 7-11 are the main program roms with 12 and 13 being the sound samples so I'm betting if rom 8 was corrupt the game would not run or crash.
I'll have a play with blanking the graphic roms and see if I get any results like yours.


EDIT:
A blank rom2 gets rid of the name at the bottom of the building and parts of the bird but non of the other roms missing gave ALL the problems you described and nothing got rid of the player entirely-just his head.
I also tried blanking rom8 and the game doesn't crash.I just got no enemies apart from the closing windows.but there was also no helicopter when I got to the top!
blanking rom12 removed some sound effects and blanking 13 mixed up some sounds.
Blanking the other program roms resulted in an unplayable game so unfortunately it looks like this isn't going to be fixed by just replacing the eproms.

Well what's interesting is it sounds like blanking ROM 8 is similar to what is happening to me as I'm missing the enemies except the windows too. The difference might be that my rom isn't blanked but corrupted at a certain point causing a few other glitches as well.
 
OK because you said you were "pretty sure". So just making sure you have 5V at the board at the VCC pin of each ROM. I believe the large RAM is socketed on the top board. Check your voltage there too.

I just don't want to roll anything out until I confirmed the issue for sure. So anything I test good at this point is a "as far as I can tell" kind of thing.
 
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Can you post a couple of pictures of the wiring? E.g. specifically at the switching power supply and the edge connector
 
Well what's interesting is it sounds like blanking ROM 8 is similar to what is happening to me as I'm missing the enemies except the windows too. The difference might be that my rom isn't blanked but corrupted at a certain point causing a few other glitches as well.

When you said missing sprites I thought you meant that the enemies were there you just couldn't see them so maybe you do have a problem with rom8.

It's strange how some code missing could still let the game run but I'm still new to this myself so I've learned something today as well.
 
When you said missing sprites I thought you meant that the enemies were there you just couldn't see them so maybe you do have a problem with rom8.

It's strange how some code missing could still let the game run but I'm still new to this myself so I've learned something today as well.

I'd be curious to see your screen shots missing rom 8 for in game and the logo screen of the game.
 
Can you post a couple of pictures of the wiring? E.g. specifically at the switching power supply and the edge connector

Yeah when I get home tonight I will. I know at the game board harness I have 4 red +5v wires that go to the power supply , there's also one more red wire running from a small board near the control panel that hooks up with the other +5v wires at the power supply. Then I have 4 black ground wires from the game board harness that go to ground at the power supply. Theres 2 black wires jumped off of 2 of those grounds going to the speaker and one to the upright conversation ground also on the game board harness. Then there are 4 ground wires coming from the control panel, coin door area that connect up with the other grounds at the power supply. There are two 12v wires on the same pin on the game board harness where one goes to the power supply and the other goes towards something near the coin door. The rest of the harness wires are for the controls, buttons and audio out which all work as they should.

One thing I'm not sure about is the FG ground at the power supply. There's 2 green wires attached there which one goes to the speaker chassis and the other runs to the just about every other metal object in the cab. The AC power going into the cabinet runs though a small box that drops the ground and only has the power white and black wires going out, then after they make their way through the switches end up powering the switching power supply. I've jumped a ground from the plug that goes to the wall to the switching power supply FG point inside the cabinet for testing but no changes occurred, so I took it back out.. I took the isolated transformer out as I'm testing with my lcd screen currently so it's not in the cabinet as of now, which I don't think should matter since the crt isn't hooked up at this point to anything.
 
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Here's some images
 

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Update:


Here's what I got. I checked every chip on both boards and got +5.1 to +5.2v on every chip except 2 socketed chips on the bottom video board labeled PCD5101P 138201 MfM9823. On these two chips I only have about 2v. See picture, that's how I measure the voltages obviously while the chip is installed with the game on. Every chip checked this way I get the correct voltages except these 2. If I probe the 5v side of these 2 chips while probing a ground on another chip I get the 5 volts. Is the left pin being probed in my picture on this 5101 chip suppose to be a ground like every other chip on the board?
 

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Pin 11 isn't GND. GND is pin 8. ;)

http://www.jrok.com/datasheet/mcm5101.pdf

Do you die if you've been hit by an enemy?

As far as enemies goes. I lose lives but I can't see my player so idk what is actually killing me and except for the windows moving I can't see any enemies

This confirms power at the board though at every chip. It almost has to be the roms then or a dead chip still receiving power right? How can I tell if the socketed chips are actually working with basic resources? Lol
 
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