Madden Motherboard Upgrade and Boot Sequence Help

Sirsalt

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Hi,

I picked up a GVR Madden that wasn't working. Previous to this, I've successfully upgraded multiple Need For Speed Underground systems. Meaning I replaced the motherboard with Intel DG41TY and GeForce 9600 video card. At this point, I can upgrade NFSU hardware and install the drivers in my sleep. BTW, my NFSU cabs now run silky smooth and reliable.

So, when I came across the non-working Madden, I figured it would be a good next step to increase my GVR repair skillz. Figured it wouldn't be too tough to upgrade it and get it running, since I confirmed the monitor worked, and it's the same pc hardware as NFSU.

So I pulled apart the crappy pc, installed a DG41TY motherboard, and installed the pc back in the Madden cab with all components connected. I then ran the emergency recovery disk and updated the drivers for the DG41TY. Up to this point everything was identical to upgrading NFSU. After reboot, the PC was up and running with the Global VR background. I then ran the Madden install disks. once the Madden install disks were complete, the system rebooted and didn't do jack $h1T. The system boots to a black screen with the windows task bar at the bottom. The task bar disappears after a minute or so, and it just sits there at a black screen.

If I press the windows key on the keyboard, I get the limited start menu, just like on my NFSU system, and can use that to navigate windows. The limited WinXP Embedded OS is running fine and is nice and snappy. I have no windows based errors in any of the logs and hardware looks good. So my guess is that there's something wrong with the Madden install, dongle or something.

What makes this tough, is I'm getting no on screen alerts or errors. NFSU at least shows that the game is starting, checking components, and kicks out some kind of message if something goes wrong, ie. Can't find dongle. On this Madden rig, all I get is blank screen.

So, can anyone tell me:

1) What exactly does a working Madden do at boot?
2) If there's a dongle problem, does it display a message?
3) If I there's a dongle problem, will it not boot and just sit at blank screen?
4) Is there a specific bios setting needed for the paralell port to recognize the dongle (currently I have it set to ECP. Didn't have time to run any other tests, since it was late last night).
5) Is there any dongle version/Madden version link? Meaning does the dongle and software have to be the same version. My dongle is version 1.3 (I think) and Madden is version 1.2 (I think). I'm using the dongle and disks that came with the cab.
6) Has anyone upgraded the motherboard?
7) If someone has upgraded the motherboard, what model did you use?

Thanks in advance. Searching the forums for some info, but can't seem to find any detailed posts about updating Madden.

-John
 
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Can someone at least comment with the boot sequence, so I know what I'm supposed to see?
 
Someone has to be able to throw me a bone here....

I have no clue what to do next, since I get nothing on screen after installing the game disks. The PC is working fine, since I had it in my NFSU, and I can navigate WinXp Embedded just fine.

Can someone who owns a Madden take a video of the the game starting up, so I can see what the heck it's supposed to do? And a video booting without the dongle?

If I had a video with normal boot, and a video of no dongle boot, It would really help. I have not frame of reference here, since the game manuals have very little detail.

-John
 
Desperate times call for desperate measures....

I have $1.00 in my paypal that will go to the first person to help me out.
 
Not sure where your at on this, but hit the windows button and "shutdown Global VR", this allows the background apps to be seen, usually a "new hardware is added". Also, in device manager, any conflicts....are generally bad.

I'm trying to rebuild a NASCAR PC board for board, and something is screwy in it and it cant play past the track loading screen.
 
I just got back on this project.

I can get all the drivers updated, but it never even tries to load the game after I install it. It just sits at the global vr screen.

I'd love to have a working drive image. At that point, I could just update the drivers like I did for NFS.
 
What version of the game software are you using ?

I'll be at a location that has one on Saturday.

JD
 
I'm trying to install Season 2 on a DG41TY.

I had a slight breakthrough last night. I was originally trying to install season 1, and had not clue if the dongle was any good. Was thinking that may be the prob.

I recently aquired a Season 2 standard and season 2 pro dongle. No clue what the difference is. Maybe the new rosters, since the dongles came with the roster update disks also.

Anyway, I figured I'd just install the recovery disk, then install the game, without updating drivers, to see if going season 2 standard with the new dongle would make a difference. After installing disk 2 of the game, it did some data base stuff, then went to an initiating screen. It sat there for a while, then failed to initiate. A "call Global VR for technical assistance" alert popped up. I never saw that before, and it leads me to believe it was initiating the nytric cards and controls, which were not hooked up due to it being on my test bench. So next step is to see what happens when it tries to initiate in the cab. Gonna do that after I close the arcade tonight.

If you can take a video of the game doing a complete boot from off to attract mode, regardless of the version, that would be an amazing help to me.

Thank,
John
 
I know for a fact of one or two on the Nytric boards are bad
it will say it can't find them. I saw that last week when I forgot to
plug in one board.

I'll try to remember to shoot a video of the boot tomorrow.

JD
 
Finally got back to this project. I've been buying lots of Global VR stuff off collectors and operators over the last year, and one of them had a couple PS36-BLs. I pulled out all my GVR junk and was able to put together a working PC with a Gforce 6600.

Once I was happy it was working good on the bench, I stuck it in the Madden cab and loaded my season 2 disks, with what I thought was the correct dongle. I have 3 dongles, and not sure which is which. I had to install the video card drivers after the recovery disk install, which went fine. Game disks loaded, and game booted right up.

So at that point, at least I knew what the boot sequence was and where exactly the game should start to play. I jumped on to see if I could actually start a game, and noticed an intermittent clicking from inside the cab. Thought it was the hard drive at first, but it was coming from the bottom coin door. I didn't have a key, but I could tell form the clicking it was the coin counter.

When I got on the controls, the screen would jump from the options menu back to the game and then pause, depending on what position the player 2 stick was in. I was able to get it dedicated test mode with the player 2 stick set to the left, and test the controls. All controls worked accept stick 2 seemed to be mapped wrong. I also was unable to activate the options menu from the operators button. It basically did nothing when pressed. I swapped cards to the other controls set, and had the same issue on the other control set. I was able to use the operators button when it was on the other card. My guess is, from previous experience with GVR games, is the IO card is bad. I have extra IO cards from another lot of parts I bought. I'm gonna swap out the suspected bad card and see what happens. Not sure when I'll be able to test, since my schedule it super tight until Monday.
 
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Had a couple hours to work on this while one of my PS4s updated for Street Fighter V tournament at the arcade tomorrow.

Installed a replacement controller I/O board, and all the eratic control and options menu behavior stopped. Only problem, the player 1-2 and 3-4 positions were swapped. Noticed the I/O boards had dip switches. Checked the manual and found the correct dip settings for each player set. Set the dips, and it's now 100% working!

Just need to give it a good cleaning, and it's ready for the arcade.

Next step is to come up with a good compatible computer upgrade.
 
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