KI blue screen and danger

cid143ti

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Hello,

I am brand new here and as well to arcades. I recently purchased a Killer Instinct arcade from craigslist (I'm sure that was probably not the best idea but i was trying to relive my youth) anyway, the machine worked well at the sellers home. I had it delivered to my house and it displayed a blue screen when powered on. I tinkered with some of the internals and got the machine working (I think a chip was loose). I turned it off that evening and the next morning the screen was flickering wildly. I tried to adjust the screen using the two knobs in the back...this did little. Next, I applied some pressure to a metal brace holding the monitor and it stopped flickering. Not sure what I did, I'm guessing something else is loose. Anyway, after these issues I decided to leave it on over night. Big mistake, I was startled awake around 3 AM with the the sound track on full blast and it displaying a blue screen. Now when I try to turn it on, it displays a blue screen for a while, says danger and then starts flickering the rare logo. Any ideas on this?

Additionally, since i am new and don't know what I am doing, could you direct me to an intro thread on parts, acronyms and tools needed to do repairs? I'm willing to learn but don't know where to start.

Thanks,

W. Smith
 
When you turn KI on it will always display a blue screen fill and play 1 loud tone if it boots up properly and then display the KI/Rare logo and go into attract mode. If it keeps displaying the blue screen your hard drive is failing and you probably want to replace it with a CompactFlash adapter. Go into the diagnostics tests and run the disk check as it will probably report errors.

Is this a dedicated KI cabinet? If so there is a monitor control board located right at the bottom of the screen. You will have to open up the control panel to access it. The connection to that control board is probably loose or the monitor signal cable itself is loose. The monitor controls ("two knobs in the back") shouldn't be messed with unless absolutely needed. BE VERY CAREFUL sticking your hands anywhere around the monitor as you can get a nasty or fatal shock even when your machine is unplugged and has been off.

Visit this site for lots of KI information and a good guy to buy CF kits from: http://www.revisionx.com/ki.html
 
Thanks for the reply. I think it is a dedicated cabinet. It has Killer Instinct graphics on the side and you can only play KI on it. I found what I think is the monitor control board which stopped the flickering and helped improve the image. It was hanging down...I guess so it could adjusted while looking at the screen. I think this is what I was looking for when I was twisting those black knobs on the monitor. Do you think I may have messed something up using those black knobs?

Will I need a manual to run those tests? I know that it has 4 buttons on the front locked area (where the coins go)...I think one of those will get me to the testing mode.

I had no idea that the monitor could be so dangerous. Thanks for the warning.

Oh, any idea why the sound all of a sudden went from lower volume level to full blast? I had it turned down and it had held the volume level for both days that I've had it. I turned the volume level down. But now the game is no longer on free play. Why would this happen?

Thanks,

W. Smith
 
Here is an electronic versioin of the manual.

http://arcarc.xmission.com/PDF_Arca...s/Killer_Instinct_(16-40047-101_Nov_1994).pdf

If the machine lost the settings it is likely that the memory back-up is failing, most likely it is a small battery on the main board.

just to throw this out there is no battery backup on KI, the settings and high score information is actually stored on the hard drive itself.

so if you're getting blue screen danger and lost settings then your hard drive is probably going bad.

it also wouldn't hurt to check the +5 voltage as well. particularly if you have one of those grey Peter Chou power supplies. ;)

you can access test mode even if the hard drive is failing, that's stored in ROM unlike later games with hard drives that generally had ALL the software in the hard drive and the ROM was merely used as a boot rom. if you go under Diagnostics, there's a Hard Disk test in there, try running that.

if you have disk errors, it will tell you. and if the drive doesn't recognize at all (the part where it displays the Hard Disk Revision will be blank) well... it'll tell you.

I highly recommend the compact flash replacements. I've bought my KI one from RevisionX and KI2 one from ToplessZ on here, but I don't know if he's around anymore, he was talking about taking a hiatus (air force or something) and although I've seen him post in recent months, I don't know if he's still making kits.
 
"Danger danger danger" on startup is bad hard drive. Could be a connection issue or boot rom issue but bottom line is that hard drive is not talking to the board.
 
Thanks for the replies. I will go through the manual. It seems to play for about 10 minutes then goes to a blue screen. If I turn it off then back on it will be playable for a little while.

Actually, yes, I did get it in Houston.

I'm not sure what the +5 voltage is. Is there a thread or diagram that explains this? How would I check it? And what would I do if it needs to be changed?

I've been looking at the compact flash replacement from that site. But wasn't sure if that was something I needed or not.

Thanks for the info. I will let y'all know the results of the tests.

W. Smith
 
Compact flash upgrade is the way to go. I like to use the CF adapter that plugs right into the pcb and eliminates the need for a ribbon cable.
 
The reason I ask, was I told that guy I would take it on wednesday and said I would have someone pick it up on Sunday. He said cool, contact him on sunday to arrange a time.

When I contacted him to get his address on Saturday he said he sold it. Had to cancel my trailer reservation and everything.

Not that is your fault, you had no idea. It just pissed me off.
looked like a nice machine, if you decide you don't want it let me know.
 
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