My New DK, Needs some HELP...

smokinfish

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So I picked up my first Nintendo cab at lunch today. It's an original Donkey Kong in decent shape. Sure it needs so love and attention, but thats the way I like them.

Here's where I need the help:

The screen comes on but nothing shows up, no sound either.

Looking in the back there seems to be wires with connections that aren't connected to anything.
For all I know they are supposed to be like that. but something tells me that may not be the case.

The first is a brown wire coming off the board at P10 it a black 2 wire connector with one wire coming out of it and the other end of the wire is bare and not connected to anything.

There is a rainbow of wires connected to a large molex plug that is zip tied to the wires going to the monitor and the other end has a small flat plastic connector. Neither connector is connected to anything.

There is another brown wire coming down that looks like it contains two wires to a molex plug that is also not connected to anything.

In the power supply box there is a spot where it looks like something should be connected but there is nothing. Is that supposed to be empty?

I took pictures for reference you can see them here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48400772@N04/sets/72157624395570566/

Thanks for you help!
 
The first is a brown wire coming off the board at P10 it a black 2 wire connector with one wire coming out of it and the other end of the wire is bare and not connected to anything.

If memory serves, P10 is your audio out, and you want to connect it to the audio in on the left side of your monitor chassis. On the left side of the chassis, there's a small circuit board with your monitor adjustment knobs, then the small circuit board above that is your audio board -- there should be a small connector on the left side of that board.

There is a rainbow of wires connected to a large molex plug that is zip tied to the wires going to the monitor and the other end has a small flat plastic connector. Neither connector is connected to anything.

Second Edit: I'm about 90% sure that this cable has nothing to do with anything, as it doesn't look like part of the original wiring. It's much newer wire, and I definitely don't have any 6-pin molex connectors like that anywhere in my DK. This is pure speculation, but the presence of an anachronistic wire like that usually tells me that somebody A) tried to ghetto-rig a solution to B) a problem they didn't know how to fix properly.

There is another brown wire coming down that looks like it contains two wires to a molex plug that is also not connected to anything.

See if that's maybe plugged into the audio board I mentioned above, it sounds like another audio cable.

In the power supply box there is a spot where it looks like something should be connected but there is nothing. Is that supposed to be empty?

Pretty sure it should be empty, yep. I have an empty connector on my working(ish) DK.
 
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Thanks for the info...

I took the bezel off and it looks that the monitor used to be a TENNIS game. At least that is what it burned into the screen. So the rainbow wire harness attached the other monitor harness may be from the monitors previous game.

Are there fuses in a DK, if so where are they, I plan on checking those next.
 
The brown cable that is hanging off your board is the sound cable. There should be another one that connects to the end of it that goes up to the sound board on the monitor.
 
That looks like someone put a horizontal monitor in that DK.
That whitish flat cable with the spots is the video cable.
Is it hooked up to the monitor?
 
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Yea the tennis burn in is running from top to bottom so the monitor was definitely horizontal at one time. I'll look tonight if the video cable is hooked up.

I'll try connecting the two brown wires as well. Makes sense.
 
Checked out the video cable, the connection pins on the monitor side have been electrical taped to the plastic plug. When I untaped it the pins just slipped out.

I thought AH HA, but then when I reconnected it, same blue screen.

Looks like the 2 brown wires do go together, same colors. I'm going to try and find a new plastic connector, so it connects correctly.

I guess the next step would be to take out the boards and check that everything is connected and clean.
 
You poor soul. That wiring has been tampered with badly. And you have connectors that will not longer mate properly because of it.
This pic:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48400772@N04/4750044037/in/set-72157624395570566/
Wrong connector for sure - can;t see where it is attached on the PCB either.

Looks like you're missing the rainbow cable which is used to get power to the video board from the CPU board. If that's not connected it makes sense why you're not seeing anything on screen. See pic:
http://www.everybodytothelimit.com/donkeykong/dk_2board_cpu_10m.jpg

This pic:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48400772@N04/4750044083/in/set-72157624395570566/
Yep - audio cable (Here's a stolen pic to show you how it should looked when all wires are properly connected to the audio board)
http://i565.photobucket.com/albums/ss94/NicholasRoedl/DSC_0369.jpg

If you apply power to the machine with the video cable disconnected you'll at the very least get a white screen. If you're not even getting that you have even more issues.
 
Looks like you're missing the rainbow cable which is used to get power to the video board from the CPU board. If that's not connected it makes sense why you're not seeing anything on screen.

I believe you only need the rainbow cable,that runs from the cpu to video board,if using the edge connector type harness.
There is a cable that runs from P3 to the power supply.
If it was me I would make the harness all original and go from there.
That way you would know it is not the problem.
You could just buy a full harness from someone or just the pieces that are missing.
Here is a pic of the DK wiring diagram that shows what cables are needed and where they go.
attachment.php
 

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