Gauntlet Dark Legacy Does Not Boot Up.

[vicjw66]

Weird, but after putting the battery back in and putting the original hard drive back in the game is up and running in mine...for how long I'm not sure.

 

[72Demon]

I will try the battery thing when I get home tonight - I really hope that does it. If not I will take some pix of all three PCBs. Maybe you will be able to see something I missed. There are alot of helpfull users here -Thanks again.

 

[72Demon]

Can someone please explain where the battery is? I had thought it would be one like on a computers mother board. I can not locate a battery on any of the pcbs. Where is it located on a Gauntlet Legends PCB?

 

[72Demon]

Okay, still going crazy. I took the 3rd board, the jamma harness connection board and new video board and connected it to the 2nd board, the middle board of my PCB that did try to boot once. I put the Dark Legacy roms and Hard drive in it. First time power on, I got a .8. Second time, I got it to boot! Heard the ping, was able to put credits, heard it play. Problem - monitor shows diagonal lines. Was able to adjust so no rolling and it filled the screen. But still could not really see anything. While rebooting and trying to adjust the monitor - now PCB gets struck on .8 again. It booted all the way three times total. But now stuck on .8 and will not boot past it again so far. So close but still so far away from playing Gauntlet Dark Legacy.

 

[CMAC]

I'm not going to re-read the whole thread to remember, but you did check all your voltages, right?

 

[72Demon]

Yeah I know - it has turned into quite the novel. But yes, I have checked the voltages. I even tried adjusting the p/s up & down to see if I could kick it into jumping the stuck .8 Pcbs - but no luck.

 

[demogo]

You either have a power or connector issue now.

You can check the voltages on a rom chip on the main board. Use the bottom left and top right legs of the chip.

Where exactly have you checked your voltages?

 

[72Demon]

I have checked the voltages at the jamma connector on the PCB and at the Pwr Supply. What voltage am I looking for at the ROMs? By the way, do you know where the battery is that they were speaking of earlier in the posts? These are all Atari PCBs by the way. Not sure if that makes a difference, but I believe there are some Midway PCBs also.

 

[demogo]

I have checked the voltages at the jamma connector on the PCB and at the Pwr Supply. What voltage am I looking for at the ROMs? By the way, do you know where the battery is that they were speaking of earlier in the posts? These are all Atari PCBs by the way. Not sure if that makes a difference, but I believe there are some Midway PCBs also.

A tiny bit over 5v.

The battery is a coin battery; check near the jamma connector.

 

[72Demon]

Okay, I checked the voltages for the Boot, Video, & sound roms. All of them had 5 volts at the two left & right forward legs. I still can not locate a battery on the boards. Can you think of what else to do to get to be unstuck on ".8" for the LED counter?

 

[demogo]

I have no idea of what a stuck .8 means.

I'd be thinking about finding someone else local and seeing if your boards will work in their machine. If it does then you have a power or connector issue.

Or you could try a wild stab in the dark and try buying a complete new wiring harness and seeing if that helps. Option 1 is your best bet.

If you'll post some pics of your boards we can point out the battery. I just got mine all back together last week and don't want to open it all back up again.

 

[MKFan4Life]

I have no idea of what a stuck .8 means.

I'd be thinking about finding someone else local and seeing if your boards will work in their machine. If it does then you have a power or connector issue.

Or you could try a wild stab in the dark and try buying a complete new wiring harness and seeing if that helps. Option 1 is your best bet.

If you'll post some pics of your boards we can point out the battery. I just got mine all back together last week and don't want to open it all back up again.

I think these sets have something like the "Dallas Realtime Clock", it's more or less permanently mounted on the I/O board and says "TimeKeeper" on it and is lithium. There's even an option in the setup that lets you set the time and date on the "RTC". It looks like a little black rectangular box.

Also, not to hijack the thread, but this is my first post and I read some year-old threads on here involving you demogo where you were trying to get 8-way sticks and the buttons working with a GL or GDL set. Did you ever get it to work?

If not (and this may not be what you were trying to do at all) did you know that switch 4 on U12, if set to OFF, would get your player's 3 buttons to function correctly on a normal JAMMA harness? I just tested a GDL set in my Mortal Kombat 1 cabinet with the 8-way stick setting, standard-res setting, and with this switch 4 set to OFF to get the buttons to finally work. Just thought I'd ask you about this.

I also did a short series of vids on YouTube experimenting with PC video cards to find one able to replace the Obsidians that go with these sets. I found one, just search YouTube for "Gauntlet Legends Video Card Substitutions". (if you didn't already know about these)

Cheers!

BTW: How DO you tell a converted GL set from a factory GDL set???

 

[demogo]

Yes, I got my 8 way sticks and buttons to work on my GL.

And yes, I was aware there was a dip switch to change to 8 way sticks. If that's the switch you're referring to then your comment makes sense, if you have a GDL CONVERSION boardset.

Regular GL/GDL boardsets will change to 8 way stick operation with the 8-way jumper thrown but the buttons are all mapped onto non-standard wires on the harness.

This was a point of confusion for me when I first set out on the project because someone else here just said it magically worked.

I ended up creating a very clean solution of replacement control panel harnesses with little boards that automatically routed the correct signals through to the joysticks and buttons without hacking anything up. I created a set for someone else here on KLOV as well and we've both had a great deal of luck with my solution.

 

[demogo]

Wait a minute -- switch 3 or switch 4 on U12?

The GL manual and the GDL conversion manual both list switch 4 on U12 as the switch 'normally open or normally closed' option.

Switch 3 is the 49-way or 8-way switch.

 

[MKFan4Life]

Wait a minute -- switch 3 or switch 4 on U12?

The GL manual and the GDL conversion manual both list switch 4 on U12 as the switch 'normally open or normally closed' option.

Switch 3 is the 49-way or 8-way switch.

Both of these manuals contradict themselves, not only in the function of U12 Switch #4, but even the GL manual (but not the GDL conversion manual) even calls "U12 and U13" "U13 and U14". There isn't even a U14 DIP switch set is there? LOL!

DETAILS:

GDL Conversion Manual, Pg.40 & GL Manual, Pg.3-11 BOTH coincide properly with each other and are identical. Both of these charts show U12 Switch #4 as the "Normally Closed/Normally Open" selection for your buttons.

GDL Conversion Manual, Pg.27 shows a mock-up of the screen in your Test Section for DIP Switches, but is vague on some of the switch uses. In the ACTUAL screen in your game, it will show MORE info. (This is how I discovered this!) But this page DOES show Switch #4 as a cabinet-type selection, not NC/NO button selection. (And it properly shows DIP Switches as U12 & U13)

GL Manual, Pg.1-26 shows a mock-up of the screen in your Test Section for DIP Switches, but is vague on some of the switch uses. This page ALSO shows Switch #4 as a cabinet-type selection, not NC/NO button selection. (But, it WRONGLY shows DIP Switches as U13 & U14) LOL!

And finally, there are a couple of those switches which the manuals are vague about that have interesting uses.

U13 switch #6 says 8 Meg DRAM. Although it didn't say "VRAM" I changed it to "On" to see if it might up the video memory usage to "10" since I know these Quantum cards have 10 Megs of memory on them. That simply stalled the boot-up procedure, so I switched it back.

U13 switch #7 is to select Quantum card version -04 or above, or -03 or under. Mine was set wrong, although it ran fine, as -04. I changed it to -03 or under since there appears to be a revision number on a sticker in the upper right-hand corner of my card that ends in "-03B". I have an extra one that DOES end in "-04" though. I don't know the difference, but after I did this, I noticed no change in the game at all.

U13 switch #8 when set to "OFF" states "PM dump watchdog resets only" . You tell me and we'll both know what the heck this is??? "Primary Memory Dump"??? I didn't change it.

I did notice the manuals say you can change these DIP settings while the power is applied. Cool.

Well, if you have never changed U12 #4, I can tell you in the DIP Switch Test menus it changes from "Midway Cabinet/Harness" (when ON) to "JAMMA cabinet and harness" (when OFF) and at least in my MK1 cab with a standard JAMMA harness, it WILL enable your TURBO, FIGHT, & MAGIC buttons for Player 1 & 2. (3 & 4 will still need something done since the JAMMA harness doesn't even have enough wiring to support 2 more players). My cab uses High Punch, High Kick, & Block for the 3 Gauntlet buttons on Player 1 & 2. (Low Punch & Low Kick on MK1 are connected to a kick harness.) And, of course, just have the switch for 8-way sticks set properly and BAM, you're now playing GDL just fine in a 2-player JAMMA cab. You can find an option in the menus also for the amount of players to enable so there will only be 2 spots in the stats area at the bottom of the screen.

Hope this helps, 'cause I STUMBLED upon it while just trying to test this GDL set I got for cheap recently. I have not tested this on my board set (GL) in my 27" dedicated cabinet. But I am still left wondering, IS THERE a difference in the set that came in a GDL dedicated cabinet? I know the cab exists as I have seen them b4 and have seen the stickers on the back of a cab once (in an auction pic) that from the factory said the game was Gauntlet Dark Legacy, not Gauntlet Legends.

The mystery continues! Lol! Cheers!

 

[demogo]

Incredibly cool information that I've not seen elsewhere regarding the switches, thanks!

Now the $1,000,000 question is if the switch 4 trick works on the dedicated boards as well as the conversion boards? And does it work on all of the versions of the dedicated and conversion boards or just after a certain point in production?

I'll test this on mine and confirm your theory (at least partly) but I just got the damned thing closed up after about 6 months so I'm not eager to open it right back up again to do testing.

Atari documentation really sucks, apparently.

Some of the conversion kits came with boards set for 8 way stick operation (and the buttons on the standard wires). Some of them came prepped for 49 way sticks.

These are all great catches on your part.

 

[MKFan4Life]

Incredibly cool information that I've not seen elsewhere regarding the switches, thanks!

Now the $1,000,000 question is if the switch 4 trick works on the dedicated boards as well as the conversion boards? And does it work on all of the versions of the dedicated and conversion boards or just after a certain point in production?

I'll test this on mine and confirm your theory (at least partly) but I just got the damned thing closed up after about 6 months so I'm not eager to open it right back up again to do testing.

Atari documentation really sucks, apparently.

Some of the conversion kits came with boards set for 8 way stick operation (and the buttons on the standard wires). Some of them came prepped for 49 way sticks.

These are all great catches on your part.

Still though, how can you tell if a Vegas board set was a Dedicated or Conversion GDL set?

 

[demogo]

After it's been pulled out of the original cab or conversion kit? I don't have any idea. The various manuals DO list part numbers for the boards but mine didn't match what was in any of the manuals which isn't a big surprise because they didn't get much right in the manuals in the first place, apparently.

 

[MKFan4Life]

When you swap out GDL on a GL board set, do you just need the boot ROM chip (U18), the PIC chip (U37), and the correct GDL hard drive with same version to make the swap? I thought I read about someone talking about an additional audio chip? Would this be a chip needed also, or are they likely talking about swapping from something like War: Final Assault to either version of Gauntlet? So I guess I mean, is there an audio chip both GL and GDL use that doesn't work with other Vegas 777 games?

 

[demogo]

When you swap out GDL on a GL board set, do you just need the boot ROM chip (U18), the PIC chip (U37), and the correct GDL hard drive with same version to make the swap? I thought I read about someone talking about an additional audio chip? Would this be a chip needed also, or are they likely talking about swapping from something like War: Final Assault to either version of Gauntlet? So I guess I mean, is there an audio chip both GL and GDL use that doesn't work with other Vegas 777 games?

> When you swap out GDL on a GL board set, do you just need the boot ROM chip (U18), the PIC chip (U37), and the correct GDL hard drive with same version to make the swap?

Yes