Help with Donkey Kong / Blitz 99

B-boy Tekken

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I have been lucky to find a Dedicated Donkey Kong arcade cab and I can't get the sound to turn up at all. I know there is sound coming out, I just can't get the volume to turn up. I think all is orginal and I haven't did anything to mess with it. I did locate the volume nob on the monitor and turned it both ways and nothing. Any help would be appreciated.

Also***

I have a Blitz 99 and can't get any video or sound to come out. The board powers on but no sound playing as to see if the game is going or not. I did have a wire unplugged and when I plugged it up, 1 bright line is going horizontally across. The board it self has 3 from what I can see, LED's lit up. It is a dedicated 4 player set up. When I tried to get it going, I did not have the stick panel plugged up or connected what so ever. Any Suggestions?

Again. Any help will do. I have no Experience working on any arcade machines and I was Lucky and I do mean Lucky to find these great machines. Lucky, I know but they did come to my possession and I'm ready to fix these bad boy's. It's like a calling if you will. lol. Appreciate all the help and thanks so much in advance.
 
can't really help ya with the dk sound issue but 1 of the resident guru's should chime in to help ya.

as for the blitz.....need to get a bit more info to help ya.....

#1..... when ya turn it on.... does the hard drive kick on??....and if it does.... after being on for about a min or so do ya hear a loud bong kinda sound??

#2.... where was this wire that you reconnected??

pics of things would also help a great deal.
 
I can't offer anything for the DK, but the Blitz sounds interesting!

the bright horizontal line across the screen almost sounds like the remote adjustment board for your monitor is unplugged. basically, the remote board has some adjustment potentiometers on it that adjust the way the picture shows up on the screen. without it, it's just a horizontal line that comes off looking very bright because the entire video signal is squashed into it.

it's a small board probably in a plastic holder mounted to the inside wall of the cabinet that has 9 or so knobs on it. you can follow that cable that connects to it back to the monitor chassis board (the large board mounted in the metal tray underneath the CRT).

if this board is present and plugged in properly, then I guess we'll move on to the next item...

Blitz uses a game board that has no game content stored in ROMs, instead it's all stored on a hard drive. there are still ROMs on the game board, but I think they're strictly used for a boot rom and I think a sound system rom, and maybe one other... I'm not too familiar with the Midway Seattle boardset like that. if the hard drive ever fails, the game will simply not load. there's a few factors involved in a hard drive failure however..

one can be lack of sufficient power, or maybe something as simple as no power cable being plugged into the drive. if you don't know how to use a digital voltmeter/multimeter, you will not be able to tell if you're getting a sufficient amount of power to your game board, which can also contribute to it not booting up. (older power supplies, and I'm willing to bet this machine has one, lose their potential to output enough power like they used to. sometimes you can simply raise the +5V adjustment knob back up to a 5.10V reading at your board, but others you will have no choice but to replace the unit). either way, if you know how to use a meter, I advise you run a google search on "JAMMA pinout" for best results, the red power wiring is for +5, yellow for +12, and the black wiring are grounds. also verify on the hard drive power connector that you're getting +12V out of the 4th pin.

check the hard drive ribbon cable. while I doubt it came out, you'll also have to consider that one of my Blitz machines had the hard drive held in with ONE screw, and that's the one that has file system errors and periodically results in game resets from time to time. :)

the other option is that your hard drive may even just be bad. this can be attributed to either a mechanical failure (does the drive sound reminiscent to that of an electric razor??) or file system errors (or some other form of the disk media going bad) which either may cause the drive to not boot up properly.

I think you need to get us pictures and let us know to which extent you can use a meter. if you don't, there's some fine people here that can help you learn how, and really, don't be afraid to do any of this. I've only been into this for 2 years now and I've done and seen all kinds of crazy shit. :)

pictures will be helpful in diagnosing what wires you have unplugged.

also always feel free to PM me if you have any questions. I work every single day, but this is one of the first sites I go to when I have downtime!
 
Thank you fella's. The arcade machine's are in the garage with no AC and it's hot as hell. I will try to go up in there and take some pictures. I did see 2 power supplies and I'm not sure if it was changed due to one of them going out. With the new one, they didn't order the right one and tried to change it out. I will surely work on getting pics up for some help. This thing is bad especially since it's a 4 player and I got this bad boy for free. I want it up and running and I thank you all for helping me.

As for the DK machine. Please don't cancel it out and if you could link or send any info on it, would be much appreciated. It's for my Father and I am trying to get that sound on it. I also got it for free and It was just the perfect Birthday gift for him. Thanks so much.
 
Well fella's. This was the best I can do for pictures right now. Sorry but you do get to see what I see and when I have a chance, I will be posting a video instead of pics. I think that would help out ALOT more. As for now, here are the only pics I was able to get. Any suggestions???

blitzline.jpg


blitzboard2.jpg


blitzboard1.jpg


Thanks for the help fella's.
 
I've never seen anything like that before. it's funny, you can see red/blue/green separated, I thought green was supposed to be the middle one??

anyway. does your vertical size pot do anything? try going up and down with that. turn your brightness and contrast down... that looks painful for me to see here. lol

see if you can find a tag on the monitor chassis (the big board on the monitor) that says like WG 2550 or 2575 on it, determining what kind of monitor is a big help. these games shipped originally with Wells-Gardner U5000s and K7500s.

as asked previously, do you get any sound from the game? like the bootup "BONG!" sound?

your Donkey Kong problem might have something to do with the sound amplifier needing to be re-capped. how does the picture itself look? does it have any foldover or any other abnormalities in it? this process can be a little daunting for the new guy, you can try asking around for help though, might be another KLOV user nearby that can make the repairs for you.

but there's nothing more gratifying than fixing it yourself though. :) took me a lot of reading on here to get the balls to do some of the things I do now. LOL
 
For the DK, I'd suggest rebuilding the audio section... from Bob Roberts: http://www.therealbobroberts.net/caps.html : Nintendo Audio Board Repair Kit . Depending how much skill you have in soldering/repair/etc , you might want to find someone with some experience to help you out.

For the Blitz, don't leave the game on very long with the horizontal line or you'll burn a dark line across the middle of the monitor. You have vertical deflection failure, but to help any more, we need to know what model the monitor is. If you can post a pic of the back of the monitor, we can probably identify it.

DogP
 
For the DK, I'd suggest rebuilding the audio section... from Bob Roberts: http://www.therealbobroberts.net/caps.html : Nintendo Audio Board Repair Kit . Depending how much skill you have in soldering/repair/etc , you might want to find someone with some experience to help you out.

For the Blitz, don't leave the game on very long with the horizontal line or you'll burn a dark line across the middle of the monitor. You have vertical deflection failure, but to help any more, we need to know what model the monitor is. If you can post a pic of the back of the monitor, we can probably identify it.

DogP

would you think caps could fix such a monster? or perhaps it's a cold solder thing?

and yes, don't leave it on like that, it'll burn in real quick.
 
would you think caps could fix such a monster? or perhaps it's a cold solder thing?

and yes, don't leave it on like that, it'll burn in real quick.

Assuming you're talking about the Blitz... my guess is that it's a U5000 with a bad vertical output IC, and needs the vertical sweep upgrade (includes the IC and a few other components): http://www.wellsgardner.com/products/details.asp?iCat=4&iSubCat=22 . Just a guess from experience and the limited information here.

Also, if you can post a picture of the connector that was unhooked, that would be useful.

DogP
 
Assuming you're talking about the Blitz... my guess is that it's a U5000 with a bad vertical output IC, and needs the vertical sweep upgrade (includes the IC and a few other components): http://www.wellsgardner.com/products/details.asp?iCat=4&iSubCat=22 . Just a guess from experience and the limited information here.

Also, if you can post a picture of the connector that was unhooked, that would be useful.

DogP

yeah, I must have gotten lucky with all my U5000s. :D I have 3 of them, I think they might have all the necessary upgrades. I got one that's like pristine. bought it off another local KLOV user last year after the Polo in one of my cabs took a shit. (and has thus shit the bed 3 times after professional repairs ... maybe the yoke is garbage on it).

cadillacman sold me a 27" one a couple months ago, but that's like a whole other monster, pincushion board and all. :p
 
On the DK it's common for people to over look the audio cable not being present. Typically a brown coated wire. One molex connector being black (PCB connector) and the other end has a white connector which plugs into the audio board.
 
As for the DK machine. I do hear sound when i put the speaker right to my ear but I want to turn it up. I turn the knob both way's and I don't get nothing different. But I will go and check on that wire and find out if both are connected. Thanks. :)
 
As for the DK. I second the audio repair kit from Bob Roberts. It has the caps plus the transistors. Also all the pots on the nintendo monitor tend to go bad, so the volume pot might need replacing. Bob Roberts sells a pot kit for the 20ez that includes the volume pot.
 
There is also a second volume on the PCB. It controls some of the audio, but it could cause your problem. It's the adjustable pot where the audio connects to the PCB.

You could also have a bad volume knob at the monitor.

And, as others have said, the sound amp on the monitor might need a cap kit.
 
Thanks fella's. Dog7. I just spent 4 hours reading and watching vids from your link on your signature. Wow, I'm tired. I will be posting up some new pics after I try out some of the helpful tips you all have posted. Thanks again to everybody.
 
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