MK1 board, good roms, not working

bigbadmiker

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Hi, maybe someone knows or has seen this before.

I bought a MK1 pcb with soundboard (ribbon cable only) on eBay from Captain Chris (aka Bill Burger, bbu######) in Anaheim. Anyway, I should of known it was gonna have issues when the listing says "all roms are green" but it didn't say "working".

OK, so the board boots and checks the roms. They are all green. Then it shows the Mortal Kombat title screen, then...scrambled picture, reboot, checking roms again. It does this over and over. What the hell?

The board is missing the cmos battery, but I wouldn't think that would affect anything but settings.

Any help or advice is appreciated. Thanks...

If anyone wants to buy this off me...make me an offer. I have no idea how to fix it, but maybe some of you do.
 
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well I guess it's your mistake for buying a board from him that's not listed as tested working, when he has GOBS of MK1 boards that are listed as working for sale in his store. :(

I've bought multiple boards from him, that were tested working, and have had zero issues. one such item, Mortal Kombat 1.

I'm not trying to be a dick, but don't slander the dude, he doesn't post shit to scam people. check his stock sometime, he has thousands of items, if he lists something as working, it works. that's all.

is the board dirty at all? I forget if I linked you to that vid on revisionx.com that shows how to remove/seat roms, I'd try that first, maybe clean the sockets too if need be, the TI CPU is removable on this particular board if I'm not mistaken, you could try popping that out too (use a smaller flathead to lift up each of the 4 corners, then it'll come out)

of course make sure you place everything back in the way you took em out. these boards are generally very durable. you said you only got the ribbon cable with it? if you hooked up the sound board with just the ribbon cable and not the power harness, it MIGHT cause your problem too. try running the board without the ribbon cable.

PM me if you have any other questions. just tossing this out... I have an extra MK1 board. the sound board's power connector is hardwired right now though, doesn't affect it any, just can't disconnect it.

NINJA EDIT: do you know if your board is a Y-unit or T-unit one? cause he had both. the T-unit's CPU is NON-removable.
 
Yeah, I knew I was taking a gamble, but for $44, at least I got a working soundboard and a manual. Working soundboard...I know it is because when I fixed that Mortal Kombat dedicated cab, the sound had static, so I swapped it out with the one from him, and it was fine.

I've actually met Chris before at their warehouse in Anaheim. I bought a empty cab from him in the past (for my first mame attempt). I know he's legit, but some of their practices are a little funny. I've seen his feedback. It just sucks that I can't exchange it, that's all. But, it's cool.

I'm pretty sure it's a T-unit (revision 3.0), but have to check. I'll try messing around with the rom chips. I didn't even think about that...never done it before.



-Mike
 
try flipping the Test dipswitch, see if it boots into the Test mode.

if it's version 3.0 then it'll be Y-unit. actually, if it's a T-unit, it'll look just like your MK2 board minus the expansion board, or like an NBA Jam board.

I'd still try running it without the ribbon cable, that might cause some kind of interference if you're connecting the boards without transferring the juice.

and I know what you're saying about his feedback, I'm just saying his stuff that's advertised working that I've bought has worked perfectly fine. he's just the guy that's got a massive stock of shit that no one else does. :D

cool that you saw the warehouse. he ships ungodly fast too. I can't believe how fast his packages arrive from Cali to Chicago.
 
Okay, thanks, I'll work on this tomorrow and try the test dipswitch, around the football games :)


I know what you mean about the fast shipping. I paid on Sunday, he shipped Monday, it arrived Tuesday. I live in CA, but I did appreciate that he shipped it the first available business day.

It's a big warehouse...and just happens to be down the street from Fry's...ah...convenience.
 
gonna be some brutal games, I hope. games last week, sans the Jets/Chargers one were pretty lopsided and no fun.

ever played High Impact Football? I actually bought that one off quarterarcade.com, I'm a sucker for most of the older Williams/Midway games, that one certainly brings back memories of when I was 7. Smash TV's another one I'd like to acquire someday, but right now I got all the MKs and I bought NBA Jam TE off Bill Burger, never got to use it, cause I won a Sportstation board off ebay.... kids love that one.

getting back on topic though, my MK2 board gives me all kinds of shit, like if one of the chips is ever so slightly not seated right the board will freeze up and reset a lot. had a scary experience where it kept playing the baby crying sound for all the sounds in the game. you'd be amazed at what a world of difference reseating the chips will do on those. my grandparents had an MK2 machine back in '94 that exhibited the same problem.... too bad my 11 year old counterpart didn't understand that stuff back then. could've saved them a trip of sending it out to get fixed, cause I know that was the gd problem.
 
Mk1

I have a MK! board that does the exact same thing. If you hit the start button at the end of the boot screen. (When Midway is shown on the screen) It will play. Verry irritating. I have not looked into it yet. It just started happening. Please update this post if you figure it out before I do.
 
I've never played high impact football, mostly just blitz. I'm looking forward to the games today...just a few minutes away now. I'm predicting Colts and Vikings at SuperBowl...I hope.



Aaron,

I'm going to try reseating the rom chips. I'll post my results after I do. But, I think you should try doing the same. Then we can compare results.
 
MK

I cleaned the edge connectors, reseated all the chips and verified voltage at the board. That chamged nothing the other day when I looked at. I have not done anything past that though.
 
Aaron,


It seems we have the exact same problem. I just got the board to work by hitting start right when it hit the title screen. But, on mine, it's not set to freeplay, so I had to add a coin/credit right as I was hitting start. It worked though.

So, how the hell do we fix this thing? I haven't reseated the rom chips yet. How do you get them out? A flathead screwdriver?
 
MK

I dont think it is a reseating thing. Might be but, it is not completing the boot sequence for some reason after the ROM check. There is something in that sequence that is not getting power or is failing. It might be a week or so before I can look into this but I will let you know what I find out. I just got this game last week and It booted fine where I picked it up. Booted fine in my show room once then this problem started. I assumed it was from the move and did all the usual stuff to no avail. It is something on the board. Hopefully simple. I have someone that wants this but I have a few in front of it to go through first.
 
miker, the battery fortunately is a very common one you can find at any store like Walmart or something, it's a lithium CR2032. I get em in an Energizer 2 pack.

now, you could do away with the power up test (I think that's what you're all talking about where you hold Start) with dipswitch settings. you could set free play too I think. I'd definitely entertain dropping a battery in though, just cause. it won't have any bearing on the problem you're having.

did you both try running the game WITHOUT the sound board hooked up to see if there was any change? you'll obviously have no sound, but that's not necessarily the point.

another point of interest to note... if you have an MK2 cab with the black and red service buttons, you have to hold the Test switch to stay in test mode in MK1. so if you have any lengthy adjusting you wish to make in test, I'd advise you use the "Service Mode" dipswitch.

I'll get you all the settings you seek in a few.

for future reference if you're looking for manuals, I always check out http://arcarc.xmission.com. most other guys on here prefer crazykong.com, but I think that's cause they like all the older classic stuff ;)
 
Check the power supply voltage at the board.
I've seen MK series boards act weird if the voltage is just a tad low.
Some needed the 5v bumped up to like 5.3v
 
UJ1 (Dipswitch bank 1)
turn switch 8 to "on" ... all other switches in this bank should be turned off. turning this switch on will disable the Power On Self Test (this is the one that's ON that says UNUSED)

UJ2 (Dipswitch bank 2)
turn switch 8 to "on" to enable Test mode. make whatever adjustments are necessary once you install a new CR2032 battery. if you have an old comp laying around you can probably rob the CMOS battery out of it in a pinch, but you'll blank all your settings on that comp. :)

I'll attach the Dipswitch Test page from MAME

attachment.php


when finished in Test, flip the UJ2-8 switch back to off. it should automatically exit back to game mode.
 

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Okay, I just reseated the game rom chips (just the 2) and the processor. Then I went into test mode using the dipswitches. I also set the dipswitches for free play. Now, when it starts, I get the "cmos ok dipswitch settings used" screen, then MK title screen, then it goes back to the cmos ok screen...and then MK screen over and over. But, now I can just hit player 1 or 2 and it goes to character selection screen and plays fine from there on.
 
I wonder if there is something wrong with the game roms, the one that has the whole intro on it...just a thought. Because the game plays fine.

I haven't thrown a cmos battery in there yet. I think I have a motherboard laying around that I can steal the battery from. I'll look around.
 
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miker, the battery fortunately is a very common one you can find at any store like Walmart or something, it's a lithium CR2032. I get em in an Energizer 2 pack.

This may differ between T and Y units. I've got a rev 5.0 T-unit board and the battery in mine is a 2025 not a 2032. Harder to find at a random store, but Radio Shack has tons of 'em. Was annoying when I wanted to replace it when I first got the board, as I have a ton of 2032s around. Is the board you have that takes a 2032 a Y unit?

I forgot to mention...

The soundboard was not connected during these different tests.

That isolates that at least, so many people have reported weird crap going on when something is going on either with the connections to the sound board or with the sound board itself.
 
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This may differ between T and Y units. I've got a rev 5.0 T-unit board and the battery in mine is a 2025 not a 2032. Harder to find at a random store, but Radio Shack has tons of 'em. Was annoying when I wanted to replace it when I first got the board, as I have a ton of 2032s around. Is the board you have that takes a 2032 a Y unit?



That isolates that at least, so many people have reported weird crap going on when something is going on either with the connections to the sound board or with the sound board itself.

I replaced the battery on my MK2 board with a 2032 and it's fine. for what it's worth, I've replaced batteries on the Williams/Midway Y-unit, Midway T-unit, Midway Wolf unit, Midway Zeus and Midway Seattle with 2032's and they all worked. :)

I think the 2032 is the standard type.

miker, you might need to do all the graphic roms too. it won't hurt any. take the board out and put like some bubble wrap underneath it to brace it and not let the board flex, and just press both ends of the roms down with your thumbs. if you hear like a "creeeeeeeeeeek" sound, then that's good. that means your roms were probably loose. :p

the rom check that the board goes through is a very basic one I think, like there's a lot of times where the roms will show all green, but the game will still exhibit weird behavior like yours. the reason the game is resetting is because there's a hardware error, it's called a "Watchdog", unfortunately there's no Audit info for watchdogs on MK1, but that's what it's doing.

if any roms aren't making good conductivity it will do what it's doing.

I've heard multiple accounts that Y-unit boards are very solid, so if anything your problem is most likely rom-related. do the graphics scramble up at all when it's about to reset?
 
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