Games with the most unreliable hardware

[Mark Hooks]

I vote for Victory. I could never keep the background generation working. I finally gave up and sold it broken.

What games are notorious for having consistant hardware problems? Just thought this might make an interesting thread.

Games I know of:

- Vectorbeam's Sundance and Barrier / Used a rare type of monitor who's tubes were coated with defective spray, which is why they're so rare

- Pole Position 1 & 2 / power supplies go and edge connectors overheat/burn off

- Omega Race / leaking batteries in the worst possible location

- Marble Madness / Trackballs supposed to be unusually quick to wear out their bearings

- Looping / would thermo-cycle their main processors to death until the legs would literally fall off, I've seen this personally

- Victory / problems with background generation circuits

- Atari System 1 / ARIII regulator/sound board issues

- Monaco GP / power supplies go

 

[Mark Hooks]

no one said berzerk

Funny I have owned two of these and they were on opposite ends of the spectrum. My first one wnever worked more than a game or two. The one I have now is rock solid.

 

[Tornadoboy]

I vote for Victory. I could never keep the background generation working. I finally gave up and sold it broken.

I know, I traded you for the boards!

Say a prayer for me...

 

[Black Matrix]

Qbert....I win. Game over man! Game over!!!!

Never have I had a game that has been more cantankerous, a bigger pain in my arse, or a deeper money pit. I currenly have less money in my working Star Wars cockpit than I do in my Qbert. And I am still not 100% satisfied with the Qbert.

 

[spacebaby]

Q*Bert!!!!!!! Damn you Q*Bert, Damn you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[OregonPacman]

Oh, yeah. How could I forget Ampliphone monitors? I hear that Matsushitas (Pole Position) are real buttholes too.

 

[SanTe]

Taito classic power pcb's are terribly unreliable.

You're not kidding. Jesus, how could I have forgotten this. I own four golden era Taito cabs. Three of them have newer switching power supplies and they all work. My Elevator Action has its original PS board and it's dead due to no +5V.

On the other hand, Dokert has owned a Zoo Keeper since the '80s that still has its original PS board and it still puts out a rock solid 5 volts. Go figure.

But in general I've learned that Taito's early '80s power supplies are not to be trusted.

 

[Gary Vincent]

Anything with a laser disc player in it

Gary

 

[LeeB99]

I'd have to say that the damn RAM chips/sockets on the Williams games (Defender/Stargate/Robotron/Joust) are a ridiculous hassle. I have also had bad luck with color vector monitors in the old Atari games, namely Tempest and Space Duel. I have also had several different issues with ONE SIDE ONLY on my Daytona USA twin. The "player one" side seems to work just fine, but the second player side has died on me three times now...

 

[joeycuda]

I've had a couple of classic Taito games, and only way I got them to work was with a switcher and reset circuit hack.

I may overdo it on rebuild p/s, replace connectors, replace caps, etc.. but my stuff tends to be reliable after that. Some of the recommended upgrades/fixes take care of original weaknesses and lame design decisions.

 

[tigerstyle]

Mortal Kombat's soundboard. What a piece of crap, most auctions on ebay are about 'working game board, but the audio board is reporting errors', and i personally went thru 3 boards sets before getting a working one :O

The NBA JAM game is working on the same board..and it has the same problems

 

[channelmanic]

Sockets and flat resistor pack problems on early Midway games: Galaga, Pac Man, and others of that era.

Capcom CPS-3 games. They die if you breathe on them wrong and you can't resurrect them. VERY expensive boat anchors.

Any game with a NiCD battery.

Lithium barrel type batteries on CPS1.5 (Q-Sound) and CPS2 games. When they leak the boards are destroyed. It's pretty damn catastrophic what lithium does to the boards.

Williams games: Defender, Stargate, and others on that same hardware platform and their power supplies. When the power supply connectors crack their solder joints you'll toast RAM chips. Those tri-voltage 4116 DRAMs do NOT like it when their voltages come & go. They will die.

RJ

 

[pookdolie]

Bomb Jack: sound amplifier.

And it seems like Time Pilot boards don't age well in the sound department, either.

 

[mjenison]

By far, the Sega G80 vector games. More post-development modifications were done to those boards, monitors, and power supplies than any other arcade hardware I've seen out there. Those games went out into the field with bad monitor designs, had tons of hacks, a monitor replacement program, tons of field modification memos, and lived fairly short lives in the arcades. Plus, I think the only hardware system that I can think of that has allegedly started a game on fire.

 

[Choosterbuck]

My tekken 4 does not seem to work very well

 

[simpsons99]

Stern PS! Stern pin and arcade boards