Notoriously "problem" arcade games

DarrenF

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So in the (relatively few) years I've been collecting, I've heard/read storys about some of the games notorious for being particularly difficult to repair, almost always dead, or otherwise have major design problems:

1) Pole Position and PP II, by Atari; not sure what the common ailment is.
2) Omega Race; common battery acid damage IIRC.
3) Gottlieb System 1 pins; problematic and irreplacable 1970s era Rockwell ICs, I think.

What other video games (or pinball machines) are infamous as problem children?
 
Battlezone is my nemesis. I've had very little trouble with Pole Position II (aside from the damn NVRAM losing my high scores from time to time).
 
Mine took a crap recently. Vectors all over the place. :D have the braze kit and the cpu socket really isn't great for those pins so I replaced it and it is fine now.
Battlezone is my nemesis. I've had very little trouble with Pole Position II (aside from the damn NVRAM losing my high scores from time to time).
 
Battlezone is my nemesis.

Interesting. Mine hasn't really been a problem. Every since I just replaced Q609/2N3792 in the monitor, resoldered the monitor headers, installed a cap kit, replaced the HV diode & adjusted the HV, rebuilt the AVG/AUX interconnect, resoldered the cracked interconnect header pins, replaced a bad LM324 @ K5 on the aux board, replaced a bad RAM @ D1, and replaced a lot of crimp-on pins throughout, it's been rock solid. Easy fix :p
 
RAM chips marching out of their sockets on Williams games. My gameroom has temp flucuations due to it being outside and unheated/uncooled. But it's so cal so it's never that cold. It happens to all three I currently own. Every once in a while I have to pull the board and reseat all RAM chips and I'm good to go for a while. 2 of the three have the RAM upgrade BTW....

Qbert - yes problems but the game can be made to be reliable.
Spy Hunter - game is a pain in the ass, sold mine, good riddance.
Sega Gun games - sensors and gun hoses are issues on these. not a cheap game to fix.
Stat Trek SOS - edge connectors need to be cleaned once in a while.
 
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