Donkey Kong Audio Problems

Radford119

Well-known member

Donor 2011, 2023
Joined
Aug 15, 2010
Messages
1,869
Reaction score
876
Location
Indiana
I recently got a DK board up and running and the only sounds I am getting are the walking sounds and the jumping sounds. Does anyone know exactly what sounds are digital and what sounds are analog? This may help give me a better place to start.

I have cleaned and reseated 3F and 3H and even swapped them out for other known working 3F and 3H roms to no avail. I even installed a brand new audio cap kit from Bob Roberts as well just to be sure. Still nothing.

I can here the sounds that are missing, however they are very faint and almost distorted. I swapped another working board set into the cab and everything works fine. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
 
there's a Z80 chip that controls the sounds too. I had the same problem with my 2-board set, which strange as it may seem, I cleaned and reseated the Z80 to no avail. it was only when I swapped the same chip from my 4-board set (which DID NOT work) and reinstalled the original chip that it worked.

one of those unexplainable things, I guess. the 4-board set actually has 3 volume adjustments for the sounds, have you tried those?

you didn't specify which boardset you're having this with.
 
there's a Z80 chip that controls the sounds too. I had the same problem with my 2-board set, which strange as it may seem, I cleaned and reseated the Z80 to no avail. it was only when I swapped the same chip from my 4-board set (which DID NOT work) and reinstalled the original chip that it worked.

one of those unexplainable things, I guess. the 4-board set actually has 3 volume adjustments for the sounds, have you tried those?

It does? My cocktail (with a 4-board set) only has 2 audio pots, 1 on the little half audio board, and the one on the audio amp board on the monitor frame. It does have 2 other pots on the board set, but those are H-Pos and V-Pos, not audio adjustments. Also, I only have 1 Z80 chip, which I believe is the regular CPU, not audio. That's the one you remove when you add the Braze/D2K kit (and re-install on the daughter board). I think you might mean the 8035 chip, which I believe is the audio processor. Mine is located on the half audio board on the 4-board set. Looking at the site Zud posted, it sounds like the 8035 might be the culprit, since that's the one that generates music.
 
Last edited:
I recently got a DK board up and running and the only sounds I am getting are the walking sounds and the jumping sounds. Does anyone know exactly what sounds are digital and what sounds are analog? This may help give me a better place to start.

I have cleaned and reseated 3F and 3H and even swapped them out for other known working 3F and 3H roms to no avail. I even installed a brand new audio cap kit from Bob Roberts as well just to be sure. Still nothing.

I can here the sounds that are missing, however they are very faint and almost distorted. I swapped another working board set into the cab and everything works fine. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

There should be a pot that adjusts the mix of the digital and analog sounds. It may just be that the pot is turned all the way to the analog sounds. The analog sounds are walk, jump, and stomp. The rest is digital.
 
Thanks for all the input. I woke up this morning and replaced chip 7K on the board and now the sound works and is much clearer. However, the level of the other sounds is still lower than the walk/jump sounds. I am also still missing the pounding noise when kong stomps on the girders, which is annoying. You can hear the pound sound but it is very faint/muffled.

This is a 2 board set. It uses the 8035 audio chip not a z80. I also swapped a known working 8035 into the board and it had no change.

I forgot to mention that I also swapped a piece of 2114 ram on the CPU board from a DK Jr board I had at position 3C. I don't know if this has any change to the audio section or not. From what I read as long as the ram is the same kind and is faster and not slower you should be able to swap.

Thanks again for everyones help, I appreciate it.
 
There should be a pot that adjusts the mix of the digital and analog sounds. It may just be that the pot is turned all the way to the analog sounds. The analog sounds are walk, jump, and stomp. The rest is digital.

Awesome! I turned the pot at the VR2 position and magically I got my sounds back! I never knew what that pot did and now I do. Still missing kong pounding, I think there is a repair log over at mikesarcade that deals with that.
 
I have the 4-board version and I am currently missing some sounds. Some other sounds are garbled and seem as though in slow motion.

1. On power up, the sound continues to loop repeatedly. It's faint but it repeats.
2. Coin up sound works
3. Intro music works
4. Stomping sounds work
5. Teeth Gritting sounds are garbled (see video)
6. Intermission music does not work
7. Running and Jumping sounds work
8. Barrel pounding sound works


Problem sounds:
1. Power up sound loops
5. Teeth Gritting sound garbled
6. Intermission music does not work
 
Awesome! I turned the pot at the VR2 position and magically I got my sounds back! I never knew what that pot did and now I do. Still missing kong pounding, I think there is a repair log over at mikesarcade that deals with that.


That pot is to balance the levels for the analog and digital sounds.
The logs at mikesarcade will help troubleshoot the pounding sound problem or at least point you in the right direction. I think Scott Brassington (braze) has some logs on his site as well that might help.
 
I've read through the Braze stuff. I'm going to try to replace a couple items when they come in from Bob Roberts.
 
Back
Top Bottom