Need for Speed U restore questions. Monitor, Power supply, Nytric" I/O

Spunky_Bruiser

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Need for Speed U restore questions. Monitor, Power supply, Nytric" I/O

So I am hoping to restore a need for speed underground, but I am running into a few snags. Went into it knowing the monitor was shot. I looked over the old one after I took it out and I can only guess leakage ruined the WG chassis.

I have a 27 inch crt TV I took the back off and will fit perfectly in the old cabinet But it does not have a vga connector, just s cable and audio jacks. Is there an "easy" solution to attaching the tv to the arcade machine... That will be one problem down.

Second problem, The 24 v power supply that runs the force feedback motor. It is only kicking out like 3 volts, and even the red light does not go on, so that will need to be replaced. Problem is, they are not exactly cheap. Other PS were not so bad, but this one is around 50 bucks. I did notice a switching power supply 24 v 5 amps, for LED's for a fraction of the cost but their front wiring looks like this. Do not want to wreck anything, but wondering if anyone else tried something like that. Not a big deal right now, just after I bought the machine, life happens and drained my bank account more than I hoped.

On to the last problem, The shifter does not work. It s connected and even the e brake is not working that is next to the shifter. Another thread pointed me to the nytric board and faulty chips. How does one go about getting new chips to replace them or fix those,.. I am total lost with that.

Pictures are of the Led PS, Old monitor chassis vga, and new monitor with the s cable.
 

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Bad news #1 - Your TV is standard res while the system needs a high-res (VGA) monitor. You're not going to be able to use that TV for the monitor.

Bad news #2 - $50.00 IS "pretty cheap" in this hobby.
 
These machines really suck but anyway, a few ideas?

Is your tube bad, or chassis? It is medium rez, an lcd may be better, as a donor crt will be hard to find, plus those WG chassis are bad models to have.

24 supplies are easy enough to come by, but I find it odd to have a bad force feedback. Pretty rare problem.

The nytric board is definitely your issue. They go bad on these a lot (so do the crt pcbs, the pc motherboard) but there are folks that can fix them. Send it off. Im pretty sure it is smd mount.
 
Figured it would be some bad news some where down the line, and yeah 50 is pretty cheap in retrospect, but when going into things with some idea of a price and then turning out 3x sucks for the power supply.

Force feedback I am not sure if there is a problem with that, and have an extra FFB motor anyway from an arctic thunder cab if there is a problem, so I just hope the PS swapped out would be the end of that problem.

Sucks about the tv though, really thought I may have gotten lucky having one of those laying around. I thought about upgrading to an lcd tv or something, but finding one that fits just right with the plastics and all seems to be the hard part. That and finding even a decent LCD that would fit and have a vga input. Most all switched over to hdmi. Same issue with the Pump it up machine and size proportions was not even an issue.

To be honest I have no idea if the tube is bad and not even sure how I would even go about testing one out without a back up chassis laying around. I am sure I will go back to the lcd idea now that I know the tv is not going to work. Thank you for the reply two. :)
 
Not sure if you are still working on this, but sounds to me like you are not in too bad shape.

I've restored a few NFSU that were pretty crappy. They look and play amazing now.

What sucks, is you need to get that 24v power supply to verify what is and isn't working. And if certain components are not working, it could end up being a money pit. Do a google search, you should be able to find an 24v power supply for less than $50 shipped.

Keep in mind that NFSU runs on standard PC hardware, except for the nytric card, which technically is standard pc hardware, but not a common component that would ship in a store bought PC. The game runs at 800x600, so, you can directly connect an LCD monitor. This gives you the option to instantly verify what is an isn't working. No need to modify anything right off the bat. Just hook up the LCD monitor, set it on the floor or on a table, and see what happens. From there you can troubleshoot any issue, since you can now at least see what is going on.

The pitfalls of getting a NFSU up and running are:

A) Motherboard. Does it work? #1 NFSU problem is bad motherboard. Check my DG41TY post for exact instructions how to easily upgrade the computer.

B) Dongle. Do you have one, and does it work? These magically disappear from non working NFSU, due to the fact they can be easily sold for $100+. Game will not boot without it.

C) Nytric Card. Do you have one and does it work? Again they get pulled and sold from non working NFSU. The surface mount controller IC can go bad, as well. This can be fixed pretty easy if you have the right tools and soldering skills.

D) Emersion PCBs (There are 2 of them) Do you have them and do they work? Another set of parts that get pulled and sold due to value. I had one go bad, but overall they seem to be a solid pcb. But you are dead in the water if one goes, and they ain't cheap, if you even find one for sale. Global VR sells the set for $350 brand new. You also need the new harness which they sell for $150.

For the most part, out of the 5 NFSU's I've totally rebuild, the motherboard has been the #1 problem. #2 problem has been the nasty, sticky, deteriorating steering wheel rubber cover, and number #3 has been the monitor. I've had good luck with the Nytric and Emersion boards working fine. The one Emersion board that died, was actually one I bought as a backup. I put it in to test it, and it died about an hour in playing.

Motherboard, steering wheel and monitor are pretty easy fixes. They will cost you some $, but the fixes themselves are pretty easy. Bad dongle, nytric and emersion boards could be deal breakers, due to how much they cost, and availability. As far as monitor goes, my personal fix is to pull the CRT, mod the cab and install a 32" LCD off center, and run it at 4:3 to eliminate the stretching a 16:9 full view gives. The bezel can be modded to mount plexi flush to the shroud. If done correctly with a quality LCD, you will get a perfect 26" 4:3 picture that looks much better than a CRT, and is more reliable.

Here's a couple pics of one I just finished a couple days ago. Still needs tmolding, and I installed the NOS plate and button last night. it's an "arcade" restore, not a collector restore. Meaning it's far from perfect, since it's going to get beat up in my arcade. But it's cosmetically good and mechanically very solid.

You can see where I installed a monitor protection "box" on the side. Since the 32" LCD needs to be installed off center to run at 4:3, the cab had to be cut and the monitor sticks out the side about 3.5 inches. I installed a wood cover box for protection. Once in row with the other games, and lights dimmed, you don't even notice it. On one of my other NFSU machines, I printed NFSU art with a plexi overlay on the front of the protection box. It actually looks factory.
 

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Speaking of Need For Speed Underground, mine is working, however, when you power the switch on, on the back of the cabinet, you also have to open the back door and press the power button on the front of the computer tower inside. The power switch on the back of the computer tower is on, but you have to press the one on the front for the computer to start up.

Would it be a bad thing to bypass that stupid front switch, so the complete thing turns on when you power it on from the back of the cabinet without having to open the damn thing up every time?

If anyone ever runs into one that won't boot up properly, you may just need to change the coin battery on the pc board too. Mine sat in the shop for a bit behind a couple rows of games and I finally pulled it out the other day and it wasn't working, turned out I just needed to put a new coin battery on the pc board, plug in a keyboard to go into the settings and change the date to the current date.
 
Would it be a bad thing to bypass that stupid front switch, so the complete thing turns on when you power it on from the back of the cabinet without having to open the damn thing up every time?

Go into the BIOS of the computer and adjust the power on settings to turn on when it sees power (I forgot the actual wording).
Or wire the green wire to ground black wire coming off the PC power supply.
 
Perfect. Works like a champ now! Made note to change that setting along with the date and time when the pc board coin battery dies again.

Thanks guys!
 
You can see where I installed a monitor protection "box" on the side. Since the 32" LCD needs to be installed off center to run at 4:3, the cab had to be cut and the monitor sticks out the side about 3.5 inches. I installed a wood cover box for protection.


Nice Hack :) how large of hole did you have to cut into the side of your cabinet ?
 
First off thank you Sirsalt for your in put and time. So Here I am on the project, After i finally got paid for some jobs and things I picked up a 24v power supply. Hooked it up and as soon as I did, I heard a pop and some smoke and turned it off. Noticed a resistor and tiny tiny what transistor, something blew. I had some help from here and replaced the blown parts and soldered them in place and Pow, force feedback. The nytric board I think is still shot. (how I found out someone responded to this looking to buy another one maybe) The game now plays great outside of the shifter not working and the e brake not working. I was going to replace the monitor with a much bigger lcd. Crazy thing is I have a 27 tube, from a parts arctic thunder I picked up at the same time, And the broken chassis from this game still I was figuring I can replace the caps and see if that works.

Cleaned the Steering wheel with some good gone and it seemed to clean up pretty good.

Sirsalt your work looks good. I am not a, mint collector but still hope that it will look nice. I am more worried about does it work, plays nice, then work on the looks.

I had to change the battery and update the bios as well once I was able to play it with reliability but I figured that out with some frustration. Thank you for your input.
 
Make sure all your cables are connected and seated well inside the seat compartment. Maybe shifter isn't working due to being unplugged. I actually had that problem a few months ago. Seems odd all other buttons are working, but not anything off that harness.

Found a pic of the cut slot with LCD monitor mounted.

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Looks like hell as is, buy after installing cover and art on the front of the cover with plexi over top, it looks good.
 
Some NFSU cabs were originally NFS GT. I heard it was possible to run either GT or Underground on the same pc hardware. I myself prefer the original game in the original cab unless the upgrade kit was the same game but with a lot of bugfixes, balancing and additional content. In other words, if I see an NSFU cab that was originally a GT, I'd prefer to deconvert it back into NFS GT.
 
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Some NFSU cabs were originally NFS GT. I heard it was possible to run either GT or Underground on the same pc hardware. I myself prefer the original game in the original cab unless the upgrade kit was the same game but with a lot of bugfixes, balancing and additional content. In other words, if I see an NSFU cab that was originally a GT, I'd prefer to deconvert it back into NFS GT.

I run NFS U and NFS Carbon in the same cabinet... GT isn't worth me adding a 3-way switch to be honest... that game sure looks purdy but pretty much sucks gameplay wise...

You can read more about it at my blog if you're interested... link is in my signature... or a direct link to the blog entry is here... http://aha-forums.com/wp/2016/02/21/need-for-speed-test/
 
At the rate operators destroy these NFS cabs, I'll take what I can get. I normally don't use LCD, cause they look like ass and get bad display lag with converters on standard res. But NFS runs 800x600 natively, so it is actually an upgrade.
 
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