Ms Pac PCB eBay fail - from a shady place in Cedar Park, TX :(

vintagegamer

Well-known member

Donor 2024
Joined
Sep 1, 2007
Messages
21,092
Reaction score
2,602
Location
Bear, Delaware
Ms Pac PCB eBay fail - from a shady place in Cedar Park, TX :(

I won a board on feebay for my Ms Pac #2, it was listed as missing one of the daughter boards and the ribbon cable, otherwise complete.

I wrote the seller, asking if they could provide more info, so I could better evaluate if it was just someone's trash or something saveable.. They replied that they had pulled the board to install a 48 in 1 in their machine..

I pulled the trigger and bought the board, it arrived yesterday, and sadly it does not work. I tried swapping multiple components off of another board that I have, but no luck. Up by the edge connector there has been alot of resoldering, and one of the traces on the back up by the connector has already been jumpered. An additional trace near the jumpered one has a rusty scratch across it, so I guess I have to try to jumper that one and see if it will come up.

I'm getting moving garbage on the screen, but it won't boot. I swapped out quite a few 2114's last night hoping to resolve the issue, tried swapping daughter boards, ROMs, everything. No improvement.

As I was concerned would probably be the case, it looks like I bought someone else's junk. I guess the whole reason I wanted to post this is, try to be considerate of the fact that who you're selling to might be another KLOVer (if in fact the seller is a member here - but I'm suspecting they are). :(
 
Well HOPEFULLY you paid what a crap board missing components is worth. If you overpaid expecting a magically working board, that is your fault. The mere fact you are posting this in frustration says you did the latter.
Sorry!
 
Actually it was a fair price for what was described. I'd had a similar offer from another KLOV'er, but they were requesting for my original board as a "core exchange" as part of the deal, and I've been hoping to learn how to fix the board myself rather than give it up. So, I went down this path instead.

It hasn't been a total loss, I was able to see different errors I would receive depending on what components I swapped out, which has been a good learning experience (one of the things I'm in this hobby for).

The reason for my post was simply to remind everyone that not everyone has alot of money to devote to this hobby, and it would be nice to get a true story from someone selling parts if at all possible when you're trying to spend the little bit you have the safest way. I've been watching the for sale ads here, but the prices were unfortunately out of my reach at this time.
 
you should have bought one of Riptors boards ,his stuff is nice. I had a problem with my ms pac last night also. I bought a new rom set and installed it,now I have garbage. I just gave up on it and bought a whole new one. If you wanna buy my old one let me know. It worked perfectly before I installed the new roms. Very weird.
 
you should have bought one of Riptors boards ,his stuff is nice. I had a problem with my ms pac last night also. I bought a new rom set and installed it,now I have garbage. I just gave up on it and bought a whole new one. If you wanna buy my old one let me know. It worked perfectly before I installed the new roms. Very weird.

Bad sockets...
 
There used to be an awesome Pac troubleshooting guide, back when we were more likely to use the term "world wide web". Is it still out there?
 
"They replied that they had pulled the board to install a 48 in 1 in their machine.."

Did they say that it had been working prior to the removal of the missing parts? Perhaps they bought a machine where parts had been removed from the PCB and they didn't want to or know how to fix it.
 
"They replied that they had pulled the board to install a 48 in 1 in their machine.."

Did they say that it had been working prior to the removal of the missing parts? Perhaps they bought a machine where parts had been removed from the PCB and they didn't want to or know how to fix it.

Here are the actual quotes:

"Hi, can you share more as to why you have this board if you don't have the arcade game? Did you get it at the same time you got the cabinet? I'm interested, but don't really want to buy someone else's junk, and alot of people who post things as "untested" know they are dead so, I'm just looking for more details if poss."

well, i sold the game with a 48 in 1 pcb that i converted it to. so i took this original board out when i did that but the ribbon cable and satellite board got lost when i put it up. so it did work when i had in in the game but i sold the orignal cabinet with the 48 in 1 pcb in it.
 
Well it seems like you won't buy from that shady place again! But everybody is different you know.
 
Sorry to hear that, sadly the world is full of shady dishonest people. Please believe that it will come around and they will get theirs!

Good luck on your project though
 
Back
Top Bottom