Paperboy - Sound Issues

FrizzleFried

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My Paperboy has some slightly annoying sound issues. First off, when I fire her up in the "background" you can hear an decreasing "eeeeeeeeewwwwwwwww" sound (similar to the sound you hear when you get to HS entry on Robotron). It's very faint but there... and very "electronic" sounding.

Anyway... that is just a very minor annoyance. Unfortunately the game also goes through periods where the sounds seem to have a "static" edge to them... not crisp as they are at other times...

I thought the issue was the ARIII... so I re-capped it... no change.

All sounds are present and accounted for.... and they sound great some of the time... but other times they sound staticy...(and not terrible... but bad enough to notice)


Any suggestions?
 
Sounds like a bad/leaking capacitor at or near the audio amp.



My Paperboy has some slightly annoying sound issues. First off, when I fire her up in the "background" you can hear an decreasing "eeeeeeeeewwwwwwwww" sound (similar to the sound you hear when you get to HS entry on Robotron). It's very faint but there... and very "electronic" sounding.

Anyway... that is just a very minor annoyance. Unfortunately the game also goes through periods where the sounds seem to have a "static" edge to them... not crisp as they are at other times...

I thought the issue was the ARIII... so I re-capped it... no change.

All sounds are present and accounted for.... and they sound great some of the time... but other times they sound staticy...(and not terrible... but bad enough to notice)


Any suggestions?
 
Sounds like a bad/leaking capacitor at or near the audio amp.

Isn't the audio amp part of the AR-III (Audio/Regulator III)? At least that is what I assumed... as I thought the same... and replaced all caps on the AR board.

:)
 
I'll probably just re-cap the mainboard. The sounds IS on the main board rather than the 2nd "vid" board... righto?
 
Have you run the sound test in service mode? Paperboy has two pokeys running the sound effects, and a dedicated Yamaha sound chip running music. When you are in the sound test, it will run through all three of these sources separately. This would help you figure out if you have a problem that is globally affecting all of your sound, or an issue that is isolated to one of the sound generators.

If you have something that is coming and going, I would suspect a bad socket, cap, or solder joint somewhere. Have you pulled any chips in the sound section? Reseating chips works wonders on System 2 stuff..
 
Thanks for the advise... I'll try to re-seat all sockets first, then move on to re-capping... I did check out the sound test... it seems to be the circuit that does the "sounds" mostly... not the music or voice.
 
Recapping the board is not going to help, the next thing would be to completely rule out the amp by feeding the audio input into an external amplifier - if it still sounds crappy then the audio source is the problem. If the crappyness is gone then the issue is with the amplifier section still.

If its the audio source I would hit up the audio generator chips, any YMs or DACs.
 
Was reading this post because I have no sound except during start up( dong) reseated all rooms and checked voltages are good. Makes no sound in doubt test at all? Any suggestions?
 
Was reading this post because I have no sound except during start up( dong) reseated all rooms and checked voltages are good. Makes no sound in doubt test at all? Any suggestions?

Did you put this in test mode for the sound test???
 
It goes into sound check but doesn't make any sounds just says 79 sounds and does nothing else. Am I suppose to do anything when it cycles to sound test. Number of sounds says 79 and current sound keeps cycling through all numbers and letters till 79 and starts cycling again.
 
It goes into sound check but doesn't make any sounds just says 79 sounds and does nothing else. Am I suppose to do anything when it cycles to sound test. Number of sounds says 79 and current sound keeps cycling through all numbers and letters till 79 and starts cycling again.

You probably should at this point make certain the speakers work and your voltages are good. Have you checked all fuses with a meter? Most amplifiers require +12 to work, but not all. It sound to me like it is power to the amp, connections, or bad amp.
 
Voltages to plugs seem to read right. You get a dong from speakers when you first fire up. Wheres the ampliphone? Could the sound roms be bad or need reborn?
 
Voltages to plugs seem to read right. You get a dong from speakers when you first fire up. Wheres the ampliphone? Could the sound roms be bad or need reborn?

The soud usually comes from proms that are much faster than roms. I would have to look at the schematics or the board to be much more help. Pics would help me also.
 
Try to swapp the pokey chips around and see if you get some sounds from the board. If that is not the there then you need to look at YM2151. The pokeys are TMS5220. Look over them parts and maybe switch them around. If you get no sound at all then may be the amp. I don't really think it is the amp. as you get some sound from machiene.
 
witch chips do i switch? #'s
 

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