HELP! I failed at installing my Highscoresaves Multipac kit

drksd4848

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HELP! I failed at installing my Highscoresaves Multipac kit

Followed the instructions as closely as possible. Powered up and got this screen (see attached)

One thing: the EPROM 4A from the kit had a bent leg when I opened up the package. I straightened it and it seemed to fit just fine. Hope that's not the cause of this.

Anybody know what's up?
 

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i would have to look at whats all in kit first, but if i was you i would put everything back to normal and see if it works, like before you started. That is if it did in first place. Did you put ic in backwards or a pin off ?
 
Ya, I rushed and screwed mine up to. Had a chip installed backwards..Blew a fuse instantly. Now screen just shows garbage. Pissed at myself.
 
i would have to look at whats all in kit first, but if i was you i would put everything back to normal and see if it works, like before you started. That is if it did in first place. Did you put ic in backwards or a pin off ?

To me it looks like all the pins are in, notches are in the right places, etc. I heard back from Joe at Highscoresaves (nice that he got back to me on a wknd) and he seems to think it's because the syncbus card pins are bent. It seems with the Multipac that you have to finesse the syncbus card on top of PROM 7F. I reinstalled it two more times and I'm still getting the screen. Frustrating.

Ya, I rushed and screwed mine up to. Had a chip installed backwards..Blew a fuse instantly. Now screen just shows garbage. Pissed at myself.

Ugh. It was able to power on after a blown fuse? Is that the same screen you saw?
 
[repeating what nuterP said ...]

At this point, I'd remove the kit and return the PCB to its original state.
Test and confirm no bad RAM have occurred. I assume you are following good ESD procedures when working on your boards. (LOL)
You did not confirm that the original state test is a PASS.

Then if the main boardset is playing correctly, I'd add back the kit taking my time to insure it has no bent pins and is installed correctly.

Did Joe confirm he pre-tests these kits prior to sending them out? (private joke)

(YMMV)
 
Sorry, forgot to mention that it was working prior to my botched install. It had the Doyle 96-1 multipac installed. BTW. If i have to put back the old proms, does it matter which chip goes where (like any chip can go into 4a)? I forgot to keep track of the ones I removed.

Also, if a PROM is bent, is it permanently damaged? Or can it be fixed with bending the leg back into place?
 
I tried to take as many detailed pics as I could. I focused on the syncbus card. Let me know if you want any other pics.

I'm going to start from scratch one more time and if that doesn't work, I'll reinstall the Doyle to make sure I didn't mess something up on the PCB
 

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After I took those pictures, I uninstalled the kit, then reinstalled it. Now I get to this screen (see attached). But that's it. It won't budge from there. It won't enter the startup screen.

At least it doesn't show a screen full of gobbly gook.
 

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Great!
Now that you have a stable screen, with the power off, hold player 1 start while powering on. This will get you into the settings screen. Release when told to.

You will want to clear the dips to default and high score table. Save it.

Reboot by powering off, then back on. Nothing to hold down.

Report back please.
 
Great!
Now that you have a stable screen, with the power off, hold player 1 start while powering on. This will get you into the settings screen. Release when told to.

You will want to clear the dips to default and high score table. Save it.

Reboot by powering off, then back on. Nothing to hold down.

Report back please.

I did it just like that, and as soon as I release P1, I get frozen on this screen (see attached). It never arrives to the setup menu .

Do you think maybe the dip switches on the PCB are not right? It worked fine with the Doyle 96-1, but maybe the switches need to be set differently for yours?

I only wonder this because it gets to one screen, then freezes.
 

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Great!

Now that you have a stable screen, with the power off, hold player 1 start while powering on. This will get you into the settings screen. Release when told to.



You will want to clear the dips to default and high score table. Save it.



Reboot by powering off, then back on. Nothing to hold down.



Report back please.



Joe I emailed you yesterday. This is exactly what my kit is doing. It's installed properly and have tried on two working Pac-Man boards. Hitting the red service button on the PCB resets the game and it boots.

Mike
 
OK, a whole bunch of problems:

After my last post, I waited an hour, then switched on the game again for giggles. It booted into the start up menu. I went through the dip settings, saved, and it booted into... Pengo.

Pengo is nice, but not what I bought it for. I wanted to get out of it and play real pacman, so I held down player one for 4 seconds, released and nothing happened. Held it again, nothing. All it would do was start a Pengo game.

Pressing the red reset button did nothing, so I shut it off, started it again. It came back to Pengo. Pressing player 1 was useless, so I shut it off once again, then booted with P1 held down. I got back into the settings and reset the dips to defaut, saved, and shut down.

Started again, back into the menu. Set it to pacman, started and... back into the frozen Jochen hippel screen.

Shut down, started again with player 1 pressed. Frozen on "Entering Setup", like my last attachment. I did it two more times, same result. And this is where I'm at.

Joe, I'm grateful that you are helping us on a weekend -that's great service - but I'm not going to lie, this is getting really aggravating. I'm assuming if I don't get a garbled screen and can boot into a proper game (like pengo) the install itself was successful?
 
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Aggravating? I agree.
Dent you a pm requesting your number to call and walk you through.
Hope that helps!

The fact that you're on top of this - on a weekend, no less, really helps! Thanks for hanging with me through this!
 
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SO.... It's working... most of the time. Trouble is, every so often, when I power on the machine and press P1 to get into the setup menu, it hangs. It will get stuck on "Entering Setup"

If I power off then power on, usually it will enter into the menu. But I don't want to keep powering on and off a machine with 38 year-old parts.

Also, are there individual menus for each game? The pacman dip settings menu seems to be global. As in, I want to set Pacman plus to five lives, and Pacman to 3 lives, but I can't do that. They will all have the same setting. If I changes the number of lives, it effects all pacman games. I'd like to have individual setting for each game.
 
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Could be your power supply.
Did you measure the +5V on the kit and main board (carefully)? Did you measure the ripple? Using original linear or a switcher?
 
Check the 28 pin socket.

I recently ordered both the Gorf and the Galaga highscore kits from highscoresaves. I had trouble with the socket they supplied, and ordered round hole tin machined sockets from mouser, and everything worked great after that. I was getting stuck on screens, and sometimes would get garbled images.

That said,

I can't get over how awesome Joe is. He also talked to me for about ten minutes to help me with my kit.

Awesome highscore save kits.
 
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