Joust, Missing Colors [SOLVED]

@Fynflood I need you to move 2 times faster! LOL
haha, man I wish I could... Probably be another couple hours before I can get to it again, but I do have a question - should I want until the garbage starts to show up before pressing on the decoders, before, or both?
 
@Fynflood I need you to move 2 times faster! LOL
Ok, with the cabinet pulled out and the door wide open, I was able to play for about 20min with no glitch. Ended up surrendering my last life, and when I saved my modest score of 46k I saw the first hint of glitch on the highscore screen.
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Thinking maybe it was a heat thing, I closed the door and put the back on. Started glitching almost instantly. Perhaps the harness at the bend there is to blame? Then I had a big brain idea - I faced it toward my computer so I could fiddle with things and keep an eye on the screen with my webcam. Pressing the decoders made zero changes. Wiggling various wires and ribbon cables, no changes.
Closed it back up, glitching pretty quickly.

Then I had a galaxy brain idea - I could just reach in through the coin door and fiddle with things while keeping an eye on the screen. At this point I've lost track of any meaningful testing. I can't correlate pressing on the decoders with any change in the screen. I think I can correlate heat however.

I've left it on with the door closed, but the top off while I type this, and doing other stuff. It's _mostly_ ok. I will see the occasional glitch but it goes away after a moment. Busted out the laser thermometer; the CPU and two Decoders are pretty warm but not in what I'd consider harmful, around 100F(38'ish C), ambient in this room is around 70F.

Wondering if a couple 12v Noctua's might be an answer.

Something else I noticed, it's saving my settings but not highscore. I've got it set to 3 lives per credit and freeplay. That's staying fine. Highscores are wiped out every time. Always 0 on the ROM LED.

Update: after hitting send, I hit start and learned the sound was out. I've turned it off to let it cool down and see what happens when cold.
 
I'm watching this with interest. Not a Williams expert so I can only suggest cutting a hole in the side of the cab and installing a window AC unit. 🤷🏻
 
Not much to add to the technical discussion... but if you look above the monitor, I believe there should be an angled mirror-like piece of metal. If you take the bolts out of the monitor tray and slide it back to the next set of bolt holes, you can see the monitor's reflection in that mirror from the back of the cabinet.

I'm going completely by memory from how my Joust is, but I'm almost certain that was a factory feature on all Joust cabs.

DogP
 
@brad
Not much to add to the technical discussion... but if you look above the monitor, I believe there should be an angled mirror-like piece of metal. If you take the bolts out of the monitor tray and slide it back to the next set of bolt holes, you can see the monitor's reflection in that mirror from the back of the cabinet.

I'm going completely by memory from how my Joust is, but I'm almost certain that was a factory feature on all Joust cabs.

DogP
That's true. I've yet to use this feature! Feels like a solid use case for it lol.
 
Not much to add to the technical discussion... but if you look above the monitor, I believe there should be an angled mirror-like piece of metal. If you take the bolts out of the monitor tray and slide it back to the next set of bolt holes, you can see the monitor's reflection in that mirror from the back of the cabinet.

I'm going completely by memory from how my Joust is, but I'm almost certain that was a factory feature on all Joust cabs.

DogP
gamefixer and I extracted them from games to just use as mirrors. it's only good if you're standing at monitor level, as it was intended to adjust the monitor from behind.

also I can assure you heat has no effect unless you have failing parts. the 4000 scores on high score table may be indicative of something else being wrong. are you using a switching power supply? does it routinely give you the factory settings restored message when you turn it on?
 
gamefixer and I extracted them from games to just use as mirrors. it's only good if you're standing at monitor level, as it was intended to adjust the monitor from behind.

also I can assure you heat has no effect unless you have failing parts. the 4000 scores on high score table may be indicative of something else being wrong. are you using a switching power supply? does it routinely give you the factory settings restored message when you turn it on?
Yeah those temps are well withing spec range and don't bother me alone. Add this weird problem and I start getting ideas lol

I do have a switcher installed. It's got the arcadeshop adaptor on it, was installed when I got it (I've asked @braedel if he has any of his left). It was giving me the factory settings restored message until I fixed the battery holder. It's pretty clean, but the middle battery contact was destroyed. Fresh batteries in, and it's not complaining any longer. As noted, scores are not saving, but the settings are. Might also be worth noting that the highscores seem totally random and different each time I turn it on. Not sure if that's normal or not.

1718514292616.png
 
Yeah those temps are well withing spec range and don't bother me alone. Add this weird problem and I start getting ideas lol

I do have a switcher installed. It's got the arcadeshop adaptor on it, was installed when I got it (I've asked @braedel if he has any of his left). It was giving me the factory settings restored message until I fixed the battery holder. It's pretty clean, but the middle battery contact was destroyed. Fresh batteries in, and it's not complaining any longer. As noted, scores are not saving, but the settings are. Might also be worth noting that the highscores seem totally random and different each time I turn it on. Not sure if that's normal or not.

View attachment 749353
it isn't. that means the 5514 CMOS is failing. this can show as 3-3-3 errors on the rom board error display on boot or you can get a CMOS FAILURE message on the 3rd screen in test mode.

Arcadeshop adapter it's entirely normal for it to eat away at scores, but you presently have numbers for initials and that's probably not good. I wanted to engineer a CMOS article for my site a couple weeks ago, just didn't do it.
 
it isn't. that means the 5514 CMOS is failing. this can show as 3-3-3 errors on the rom board error display on boot or you can get a CMOS FAILURE message on the 3rd screen in test mode.

Arcadeshop adapter it's entirely normal for it to eat away at scores, but you presently have numbers for initials and that's probably not good. I wanted to engineer a CMOS article for my site a couple weeks ago, just didn't do it.
 
Sometimes, more strange than others. 5514 is easy enough to replace. Looks like the NVRAM kits are sold out everywhere I know to look... any leads on those?
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apparently Jameco doesn't sell them anymore. https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/rochester-electronics-llc/HM1-6514S-9/12095588

ditch the AA battery holder and go lithium

I've got a CR2032 holder, a full set of 74166's and a handful of 5514s on order.

I turned it on today and played a bit. Thought I'd leave it on for a while, so gave it a couple of hours. Screen had eventually glitched and froze. Now on a reboot I get All Systems Go (0 on the ROM board) and then it shows the Factory reset screen. I cannot get past it - it resets before the game loads :(
 
I've got a CR2032 holder, a full set of 74166's and a handful of 5514s on order.

I turned it on today and played a bit. Thought I'd leave it on for a while, so gave it a couple of hours. Screen had eventually glitched and froze. Now on a reboot I get All Systems Go (0 on the ROM board) and then it shows the Factory reset screen. I cannot get past it - it resets before the game loads :(
video now
 
your CMOS is toast, sir. it's crash/resetting on the high score table because it's THAT corrupt. I've seen this happen mostly on Sinistar, never on Joust.
So in theory the 5514 will get me back into business? I just noticed that 1C on the board is a HM4334P-3, but in the schematics it's a 6514 - I assume 5114/6514/4096 would all work, yeah? Or maybe I go with an NVRAM adapter?
 
they came as 5114, 5514, and 6514. they're all low power variants of standard 2114 ram. (which if you have an 18 pin socket and a 2114 ram, minus the batteries, you can see if that fixes the issue) your high score table corruption was among the worst I've ever seen. lol
 
IC's came in today. I swapped the 74LS166 with a 74166, added a lithium coin battery socketed and replaced the HM4334P-3 with a 5114. Brad's power adapter is showing up tomorrow.
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Unfortunately, this didn't solve all my problems. The CMOS appears to be doing it's job now - settings and high scores are saving.
It'll last a lot longer now than it did before - going from about 4min before glitching graphics to about 6.

 
you have to manually do Restore Factory Settings, Clear Bookkeeping Totals, and High Score Table Reset and see if the blank 4000 point scores go away. if they keep coming back then the switcher is probably messing it up.

what was your procedure for replacing the shift register? how did you decipher that particular one was bad?
 
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