new star wars pcb installed... still no picture or sound...help!!!

vader1979

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new star wars pcb installed... still no picture or sound...help!!!

So I got my new star wars pcb today... I had tried installing my empire strikes back kid on to my other star wars pcb... and when I plugged it in I got nothing... no picture or sound. So I sent it off to get fixed and bought a spare in the meantime... got it 2 day.. plug it in.. and same exact thing happened no picture or sound. I don't know what to do.. help me please!!!
 
Is your power supply working? Have you checked the voltages at the PCB? Do any of the lights come on? Is the edge connector on your wiring harness good? Are you sure the little "joiner" board is properly seated on the stack?

-Ian
 
Yep, time to follow power. Make sure AC is making it to the ARII board. Test, test, and more test. Get out the multimeter.

With these Atari transformer block assemblies, I've found that they can sometimes go dead by jostling the cab around a bit. Temperature changes can cause it too. On two separate occasions (in a Centipede and a Missile Command) I had success in unplugging every connector, inspecting them, and plugging them securely back in again. It's almost like there's some kind of deposit buildup that breaks the power connection, and the act of unplugging and replugging back in again is enough to wipe away that deposit.

So that's my suggestion - unplug and replug everything on the power block assembly AND the ARII board.
 
Is your power supply working? Have you checked the voltages at the PCB? Do any of the lights come on? Is the edge connector on your wiring harness good? Are you sure the little "joiner" board is properly seated on the stack?

-Ian

I echo what Ian has said. Do you get ANYTHING that lights up? Marquee? Coin lights? Monitor glow? If you get nothing, that means your power issues are further upstream than your gameboard. If your game's PCB or harness is dead but your power brick is OK, you should at least get coin lights, marquee, and neck glow. No activity at all means AC is not making it through the transformer block assembly.
 
Yes the power supply is working... fan comes on marquis light comes on... light on the chassis comes on... just nothing on the monitor or sound... double checked the edge connector and that was good... just went out and bought a multi meter today




QUOTE=RetroHacker;2035141]Is your power supply working? Have you checked the voltages at the PCB? Do any of the lights come on? Is the edge connector on your wiring harness good? Are you sure the little "joiner" board is properly seated on the stack?

-Ian[/QUOTE]
 
"Yes the power supply is working... fan comes on marquis light comes on... light on the chassis comes on... just nothing on the monitor or sound... double checked the edge connector and that was good... just went out and bought a multi meter today"

That's not good. That's your spot killer. It means you are not getting X and Y vector info to your monitor's chassis.

Time to meter your ARII board - verify that the voltages are correct at all the test points on the board, and report back with what you find.

Has that ARII board been rebuilt at all?
 
Spoke to Vader on the phone, and walked him through testing his ARII board with his meter. He does have 12v, but the 5v line is all outta whack. Zero volts under load, and floating 10v without the PCB connected.

He needs a new ARII board, or a repair of is existing one. He has ARII model number A035435 in his game. I told him to throw up a wanted to buy post for an ARII board, and I'm sure someone out there can give him a hand.
 
Ok....talked to smalltownguy.....found out I need to fix my ARII board...gonna buy a spare for now. Then rebuild other...thanks smalltownguy!!!
 
Just an update to this thread - I got Vader's ARII regulator board in the mail last week, with a Bob Roberts rebuild kit in the box. I went ahead and shotgunned the whole board as asked, but I'm fairly certain there were 3 issues that contributed to the demise of the board in the first place:


  • One of the 3300uf caps, on the 5v side, was pulled off the board. The positive lead was severed completely. The cap was no longer in circuit.
  • The bottlecap transistor at Q3, a 2N3055, was shorted.
  • The capacitor at C23 was way out of spec for its ESR.


I went ahead and reworked the whole board, and it fired up great in my SW upright. I'll get this back off to Vader right away next week.
 
Not to sound like a jerk, but if you are going to collect games, you really need to learn to do the basics like check the +5 volts. These threads where people plug in a second working board without checking any voltages just kill me. Especially when it's a Star Wars boardset or something equally rare and hard to come by. Buying a second board set before buying a meter is not how it's done. Stop buying spare parts and learn to test things.
 
He knows that now ;)

And I DID show him how to test voltages, so he should be good in the future.

Arc's right, though. This hobby will get very frustrating and expensive if you don't learn basic troubleshooting skills. You simply cannot own this 30 year old eqipment and expect it to work flawlessly. Cripes, sometimes it didn't even work correctly BITD when it was released.
 
Not to sound like a jerk, but if you are going to collect games, you really need to learn to do the basics like check the +5 volts. These threads where people plug in a second working board without checking any voltages just kill me. Especially when it's a Star Wars boardset or something equally rare and hard to come by. Buying a second board set before buying a meter is not how it's done. Stop buying spare parts and learn to test things.
Couldn't agree more. If you look in the suggestion box you'll see that I have already complained about the amount of people who don't check the basics before making a post.
 
Sorry for not being totally confident and knowing exactly what to do and when. This was only my second machine that I have restored so I am in the learning process. How the hell am I supposed to automatically know what to do right away? U can bash me all u want.. but I am learning alot. .fast. but imi have not been working on machines for several years like some of u have. Remember...u who are bashing me...at one point YOU didn't know anything either! Give ne a break
 
Sorry for not being totally confident and knowing exactly what to do and when. This was only my second machine that I have restored so I am in the learning process. How the hell am I supposed to automatically know what to do right away? U can bash me all u want.. but I am learning alot. .fast. but imi have not been working on machines for several years like some of u have. Remember...u who are bashing me...at one point YOU didn't know anything either! Give ne a break

Eh, don't sweat it. Everyone here takes a different approach to how they communicate. Some are more openly helpful, others want for newbies to do lots of reading first.

Just remember there are real people on the other side of the keyboards here, and I don't think anyone has true malicious intentions. Most of the time the bark is worse than the bite.
 
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