ESB Kit Problems

jbacon1054

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I bought a ESB kit for Star Wars and after installing it the SW game does not work but the ESB game works. I ran the self test for SW and receives 15 good beeps and the last one is a bad beep. The SW doesn't have any video or audio. I looked at the ESB kit and noticed the red bar next to the party toggle switch had only one contact point that was soldered. Should all the contact points be soldered? Other suggestions to diagnose/fix the problem?
 

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The red bar with one contact soldered (on one side) is a bunch of resistors (a single-in-line resistor network). It's supposed to be like that.

Plan A: I'd look at reseating the EPROMs. Specifically, the EPROM on the upper right of your picture looks like it's not fully-seated in its socket. (See how the left-hand side of the chip is riding a little high relative to the right-hand side of the chip?)

Also, from the Star Wars docs:

1) RAM 2F/H on the CPU board (a 2Kx8 for the CPU)
2) RAM 5F on the CPU board (a 2Kx8 for the Matrix processor)
3) RAM 5H on the CPU board (a 2Kx8 for the Matrix processor)
4) RAM 3L on the AVG board (a 2Kx8 for vector RAM) ***
5) RAM 3M on the AVG board (a 2Kx8 for vector RAM)
6) RAM 4P on the AVG board (a 2Kx8 for vector RAM)
7) RAM 4L on the AVG board (a 2Kx8 for vector RAM)
8) RAM 4M on the AVG board (a 2Kx8 for vector RAM)
9) RAM 4P on the AVG board (a 2Kx8 for vector RAM)
10) NOVRAM 1E on the CPU board (a 2212 Xicor 256x4 NOVRAM)
11) EPROM 1F or 1M on the CPU board +++
12) EPROM 1 J/K on the CPU board
13) EPROM 1 K/L on the CPU board
14) EPROM 1F or 1M on the CPU board +++
15) EPROM 1 H/J on the CPU board (The daughtercard for ESB)
16) EPROM 1 L on the AVG board ***

Obviously, some of those ROM locations won't apply to you because many of the chips have been replaced with the larger chips on the daughterboard, but the 16th beep indicates an error in the bank of the vector ROM associated with the Star Wars half of the conversion, and errors there will result in games able to run self test, but unable to display the results.

Which brings us to...

Plan B:

I haven't seen this conversion kit before, but I'll bet that daughtercard is supposed to plug into the CPU board, not the AVG board.

So if reseating that EPROM on the daughterboard doesn't work, check the AVG board at 1L, and see if there's anything weird going on. I'll bet there's a 2764 there with a couple of pins bent out, and some wires soldered to some of the overhanging pins.

The game select pin should be pin 2 of AVG-1L, if I recall correctly - I'll bet that a wire soldered to there is hanging loose, or wasn't connected to the rest of the kit. Could also have gotten knocked out when putting the board set into the card cage. Could also be just fine... but the wire that connects it to the daughterboard has been disconnected from the daughterboard. Or the switch that selects Star Wars to ESB. All depends on how the kit was intended to be wired up.
 
Thanks for the suggestions.

I exchanged two PM with Mark but he hasn't responded to the last pm which was a couple of weeks ago.

I reseated everything and checked the wires and still a no go. Good to know about resistors so I won't screw that up.

The kit has three different boards which plug into each of the 3 pcb's - the one pictured plugs into the CPU. I downloaded the ESB/SW avg rom from the MIT website and burned a new avg chip on the AVG daughtercard to see if that was the problem and it was not.

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
 
How would I test the wire between the daughtercard on the CPU to the daughtercard on the AVG that would switch between games? Is a pulse sent that I would be able to detect?
 
How would I test the wire between the daughtercard on the CPU to the daughtercard on the AVG that would switch between games? Is a pulse sent that I would be able to detect?

I'm not familiar with this style of kit (and I also don't know if the ROMs for all the various third-party kits are identical), but if there's a wire there, it'll read either +5V or GND, depending on how the switch is set.

What I was getting at is that if there's no wire there, but there's supposed to be a wire there, you'll have problems. My hypothesis is that because of a wiring issue, one board is still trying to play ESB (regardless of the position of the switch) while the rest of the set is playing Star Wars.
 
Thanks for the suggestions.

I exchanged two PM with Mark but he hasn't responded to the last pm which was a couple of weeks ago.

It's hard to keep up with messages when the admins are fond of capricious bans for misinterpreted comments.

If the rom checked good and ESB works, then chances are it's just developed a bad connection on the wire between the AVG daughter board and the CPU daughter board.... replace that wire and try it again.

Unfortunately, my laptop (with the schematics on it) stopped booting into windows on friday (love that BSOD), so i don't have any other tech details handy to tell you what the state of the 'switch' wire is for SW and/or ESb.
 
It's hard to keep up with messages when the admins are fond of capricious bans for misinterpreted comments.

The capricious admins are going to start getting a little more ban happy when people call them biased, capricious, or anything else disrespectful.
 
The capricious admins are going to start getting a little more ban happy when people call them biased, capricious, or anything else disrespectful.

Perhaps if you re-read and understood my statement, you'd note that I called the bans capricious, not the admins.

...but it's good to see that you agree with me....
 
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