Mario Bros Sprites

Stevea83

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Hi, I have a Mario Bros Wide that has a problem with the sprites flickering randomly on the screen. I just did a cap kit on the monitor and all the colors look good and the text on the screen is fine but no sprites. I'm new to any kind of arcade repair but have basic knowledge of electronics. I tried reseating all roms on the board and chip tma1-c-5b had some evidence of excessive heat on the pins. Which is the one chip that one of the pins actually snapped off on me. But prior to that the screen looked like thisImageUploadedByTapatalk1349736580.801291.jpg and was also missing sprites prior to cap kit. I would appreciate any help. Thanks, Steve
 
Now I'm not at all good at this, but if one of the chips was getting a little hotter than it should be (and has a leg bust off on ya). You might need to have another one of those chips burned for you. I'm almost 99.9% positive that chip is whats giving you those graphical errors. Cap kits wouldn't have fixed that since they only affect the monitor
 
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I checked and that chip is a bi-polar prom. Is that where the sprites are stored or are they are stored in another chip?
 
On DK and DKjr, the proms contain the color tables.

On Mario Bros, no one seems to know just what that particular prom is used for. Older MAME versions didn't even load it.
 
What would cause my screen to look like that? I know I need the prom because the game wouldn't boot after the pin broke but I don't know if I should order just proms or a whole other board
 
If you are seeing random sprites but the sprites are identifiable (not just random pixels but actual sprites or characters) then the problem lies in or around the video ram. The sprite roms contain the sprite info (I.E. what they look like) but not where they go. That's dictated by the info located in the video ram.
 
Which chips cover the video ram

Looking at the schematics it looks like character ram is probably located at 3D and 3E of the video PCSB. Sprite RAM looks like it's prob at 8B, 8C and 8E.

Now whether it's the ram or the logic that surrounds the RAM... I can't say without looking at the board but I can say that very rarely have I seen an actual problem with the RAM. Usually it's the TTL that goes first.
 
I know this is a old string but i need some help

I'm looking to repair a Mario Bros Board and the TMA1-C-5B Chip has about half the legs broken off.
All the rest of the chips on the entire board are good but that one. I cant find any info anywhere on it. Does anyone have any ideas how to replace it or find another Chip.
 
You can try using a Dremel to expose the legs and add donor legs. That chip on the CPU is a bi-polar ROM. Steph at HobbyRom's can probably fix you up. He is a member here or you can search HobbyRom's.
 
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