Ghosts n Goblins from Hell

channelmanic

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Does anyone have any experience with reparing this game? It's driving me batshit crazy.

Talon2000 even brought the Fluke over but the board was so f****ed that we couldn't get the boardset figured out. It appears that you have to hit a memory location to properly bankswitch the ROMs or they just don't sit in the proper address space. (WTF???)

We replaced several chips on it and got it to where it will boot with just the CPU board and not the video board. I replaced a bad 74LS74 and 2 bad 74LS245s on the video board that interface it to the CPU board and got it to boot finally. This was figured out by taking a spare 50 pin interconnect cable and pulling signals until the boardset would boot when connected.

The board plays for awhile then dies with a solid white screen. I replaced 2 more 74LS245s on the CPU board and it plays even longer, but still dies with the solid white screen.

I'm spending too much time on this as I don't like to get beat. I'm behind on shipping things because I'm spending so many hours on this pain in the ass.

Any ideas?

I have the schematics - they are available on the web.

RJ
 
probably not much help but I thought mike's arcade actually offered the service of fixing these boards. While I'm sure in many cases they simply send a replacement board i would imagine they have to fix some. So they may be able to shed some light and give some insight. Maybe even have a repair log on their site.
 
His repair log entry is "i straightened a pin and reseated a connector"... Not much of an in depth repair.

RJ
 
I should also say that every RAM except the 3 2148 color RAMs were bad.

Something very bad happened to this board.

It's still crashing to a white screen so I replaced yet another 74LS245 and am letting it burn in yet again. This one was latching the data bus lines where they come into the video board from the CPU.
 
Look on the bright side, you have only helped it so far. That is more than I can say about some of my (recent) board repairs. Take a break for a bit and go back to it, that usually helps.
 
I think I may have it. (Crosses fingers, knocks on wood...)

The board has been running for over an hour now while I'm working from home.

I have a surplus of 74ALS245 chips and used them in the repair and they work great for 99+% of 74LS245s to be replaced... HOWEVER... for this ONE chip on the GnG board, you must use the 74LS245. The timing of the ALS245 is too fast for the board and is why it was glitching and randomly crashing. The 245 on the board was bad... so the video board worked after getting this one replaced, but was glitcy with the faster chip.

The GnG board is strange. When it crashes it tends to go to a white screen. If you pull the PROM at location 2E then you can see the screens, but items are missing off of it since it is the color PROM for the data coming from the video board. It crashed once with the screen showing instead of the damn white screen and that showed me it was a problem in the scroll section which is where the 74LS245 that controlled the /RDB line was. That was the line that was causing the crashing in the first place.

The other side of the 74LS245 is tied to +5v so when the chip is active and passes data from the scroll section back to the CPU the /RDB line is tied high. This is a strange way of controlling signals... but the whole board is like that. They've done some strange things which makes it difficult to troubleshoot.

So... Replaced 3 ICs in the control line circuitry, replaced 1 EPROM, 1 6264 SRAM, 2 6116 SRAMs, 6 2114 RAMs, and 74LS74, and a handful of LS245s to fix the board set. There were a few other ICs that were replaced along the data and address busses too while trying to narrow down where in the heck the pesky problems were.

Something bad happened to this board to blow that many RAMs. The only RAMs not damaged were 3 2148 in the color RAM circuit and 2 CXK5808 RAMs in the line buffer section. Once the CPU board was booting by itself the rest of the repair fell into place.

Oh, and those CXK5808 are pesky chips in and of themselves. I sent an email to Sony looking for a datasheet on those old RAMs and they asked if I had the part # correct. They showed no record of them. DOH! They are 1k x 8 bit and they are in the schematics so I'll document the pinouts of those in my repair logs. :)

WHEW!

WHAT A BITCH. And I'm glad it's looking like it is done. I'll pronounce it done if it doesn't crash before the end of lunch.
 
What a great repair log, I wish I had your skill. Thanks for posting one in depth. And enjoy the game, it's great (and the sequel too).
 
ARRRRRGH...

Crashed AGAIN.

Back to the drawing board.
 
Nice work so far RJ.

I've have boards like that before (not Ghosts 'n' Goblins though) - I persevere like you, but sometimes you need to call it quits. It's tough though to stop when you've done so much.
 
I read the post fast during lunch break and didn't catch it. I thought for sure RJ said Ghouls. Sorry.
 
S'OK. I appreciate the thought.

It's been running for a couple of hours now... I think I know what the problem was and why it would take so long for it to show up.

My test bench has an ISO and the arcade power supply was hooked up through it. Well, it was so hot you could fry an egg on it. It was like that when it was pulled out of the game it was in. Probably why it was in a box of parts years ago when I got it. ;)

I pulled the ISO out of the wiring and hooked the power supply up directly.

Sigh.

Chalk it up to a combination of glitchy, too fast chips... power supply woes, and a handful of problem chips.

If this board crashes again, I never ever want to see it back on my bench. ;)

To top it off, it pisses me off when playing as I SUCK at playing it. It takes forever to get past the first level... and when I do, I can't get past the houses. I even watched that maddening 1cc video to get pointers.
 
I have my fingers crossed for you (and the board!) RJ. :)

As for playing the game - it IS a toughie! Then again, I also found Ghouls 'n' Ghosts to be tough after the first couple of levels (although I remember enjoying it more).
 
Nice job RJ on the board.

Both games are miserable to play, but I love the series. These two are probably 2 of my favorite games along with cough cough Gladiator.
 
My GnG was doing something similar. I would play for 5 minutes and the game would reboot. It was driving me nuts! I checked the PS with a multimeter and sure enough, it was off. I adjusted the voltage up a bit and all has been well. I think the Capcom boards are touchy and not so forgiving when it comes to the voltage settings.

Good Luck!

-Muel
 
It ran stable for 4 hours continuous this morning... :)

I'm calling it done.
 
Well, on the plus side, you've successfully diagnosed an issue with your tools. That's always important.

I've got a few dozen boards I'd like repaired. You got any spare time? :D
 
I've got boards rolling out and more rolling in. I'm trying to slowly let the floodgates open so I don't get overwhelmed.

Raymond
 
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