Frogger error

Bee423

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Hey guys, I'm starting to have an issue with my Frogger board. The game boots and plays fine for maybe 20-30 minutes then it throws this error. Any ideas?

Thanks!
 

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Who works on Frogger? Sounds like there are different versions of the board. Mine is the SEGA/Gremlin.
 
Have you done all the basic troubleshooting steps, like checking your voltages, reseating connectors & socketed chips, etc.?
I agree, if it plays fine then stops working and it is reporting all CPU RAM and VIDEO RAM chips are faulty its most likely some simple maintenance (5V voltage rail, harness/edge connector or dirty CPU/RAM sockets.

Through the garbled message it shows ROM checksum ok, so ROMs and their sockets should be ok.
 
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It's funny, I swapped PS and fixed the issues about but now I don't have sound. These frogs sure can be a problem, lol. Guess I'll start troubleshooting that now.
 
What led up to replacing the power supply?? bad voltage? 5, 12 Or was it just a guess..
a lot of the Konami (it was really made by Konami, not Sega) games of the era have this thing where you have power coming into one board with edge connector and then the other board gets power daisy chained with 2 wires via a plug. on the Konami games they have like single +5V and ground wires, which is totally substandard for powering 2 boards. I sand the solder mask off the +5V and ground traces on both boards and solder 18 gauge red and black wires to them to go back to the power supply. that'll eliminate the voltage drop issue. a number of those old Japanese switching power supplies of 40+ year old vintage still work just fine. replacing the power supply with a new one and running it at like 5.8V and overlooking the wiring deficiencies is just a band aid.

games like Gyruss or Track & Field can burn the board edge if they're also left dirty or you juice the voltage output to make up for the core issue I've outlined. my method gives you 3 pairs of wires to work with.

I have visual aids, I don't have the energy to find them now.
 
Sound needs -5V, maybe you lost that.
Not sure if the rest of the boards need it too, though.
I had to fix sound on some Froggers over the years. replacing the CPU and AY3 sockets seemed to help a lot. I don't know about the integrity of the original caps but I think I wound up replacing those too.
 
Sound needs -5V, maybe you lost that.
Not sure if the rest of the boards need it too, though.
If you had sound and jacked up game and then only Switched power and now game works but sound doesn't I'd expect you are missing -5v on new PS per @Laschek above.

I would also flex ribbon, check all pins on both sides aren't corroded and clean the edge connector and put a thin film (put few drops between fingers and slide across) of deoxit across card edge.

It's not impossible that you broke something else with new power, any chance that you over-powered the board before dialing in 5v on new Ps?

Audio problems on Frogger in my experience are usually ram on audio board, then AY, then CPU then 741, last thing is amp

If you don't have an audio probe, search out pcb from @philmurr and build one, makes quick work of most audio repairs imo, especially on Frogger.

Also note, if you're working on Frogger on your bench, most Konami jamma adapter have a jumper that cuts off -5v, make sure it's in place to allow -5v through or you'll prob get hissing but. It full audio.
 
If you had sound and jacked up game and then only Switched power and now game works but sound doesn't I'd expect you are missing -5v on new PS per @Laschek above.

I would also flex ribbon, check all pins on both sides aren't corroded and clean the edge connector and put a thin film (put few drops between fingers and slide across) of deoxit across card edge.

It's not impossible that you broke something else with new power, any chance that you over-powered the board before dialing in 5v on new Ps?

Audio problems on Frogger in my experience are usually ram on audio board, then AY, then CPU then 741, last thing is amp

If you don't have an audio probe, search out pcb from @philmurr and build one, makes quick work of most audio repairs imo, especially on Frogger.

Also note, if you're working on Frogger on your bench, most Konami jamma adapter have a jumper that cuts off -5v, make sure it's in place to allow -5v through or you'll prob get hissing but. It full audio.
I don't think I over-powered it but anything is possible. I did test the PS and I believe I'm getting roughly -4.7V coming out of it. Are there test points on the board where I can measure the -5V as well?

I'll do some more testing and clean the edge connector also. Huge thanks for the tips!!!
 
I don't think I over-powered it but anything is possible. I did test the PS and I believe I'm getting roughly -4.7V coming out of it. Are there test points on the board where I can measure the -5V as well?

I'll do some more testing and clean the edge connector also. Huge thanks for the tips!!!
Also note, gremlin Frogger PCBs need a volume pot. So if you're testing on your bench and not in the cab, you can lick your finger and bridge volume pot pins to test audio.
If you have sega or Konami pcb you may not need the volume pot to test.
 
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