Problems w/ Asteroids Hi-Score Save

Shavenyak

Well-known member

Donor 2023
Joined
Apr 16, 2008
Messages
3,352
Reaction score
611
Location
Sarasota, Florida
So I got my kit and installed it and now the game doesn't act right. For a few games the fire button would reset the board. Then that stopped happening and I started getting garbage along the top side of the screen.

I've got a rev. 2 board and its installed correctly, the best I can tell. Any ideas or suggestions before I ask Arcadeshop to take it back???
 
Maybe: http://www.brasington.org/arcade/products/hs/asteroids/trouble.shtml

Make sure you 6502 is good, and has clean legs. Make sure it is fully seated in the socket, and that the daughter board is fully inserted into the PCB socket.
Any chance you could have accidentally damaged a trace under the 6502 while you were removing it?

I'd estimate that the odds are higher that the problem lies on your PCB than on the HS save kit. (It chould, in fact, be defective... I'm just saying I'd be more suspicious of the old hardware than the new.)
 
Adjust the voltage

I had this happening on an Asteroids upright.

Realized that I wasn't getting enough voltage to the PCB. There's a pot on the sound board that you can adjust to get a little more voltage. I forget what the range is but I'm thinking 4.9 volts is where you want to be. Anyway, that fixed it for me.
 
I had this happening on an Asteroids upright.

Realized that I wasn't getting enough voltage to the PCB. There's a pot on the sound board that you can adjust to get a little more voltage. I forget what the range is but I'm thinking 4.9 volts is where you want to be. Anyway, that fixed it for me.

This is interesting. And the game worked fine before installing the kit? Cause mine was working fine until I did the install.
 
Maybe you were right on the edge of acceptable voltage?

I have heard the tolerances are slim for where the voltage should be - it's posted here somewhere, I just can't recall... I think it's like 4.8-4.9. I don't know if the installation of the kit could cause a minor drop in voltage, but that is what seems to be happening. I'll bet that you have about 4.5 volts at the PCB.

Maybe removing and reinstalling the board introduced some edge connector wear, causing a little resistance? Either way, I think there's a test point (I am at work) for the +5 on the ARII board. There should be a ground lug too. Set for DC and see what your voltage is.

Search some threads on how to check this, I know I'm being cryptic, but I can't think today. I can let you know later on, I still have an Asteroids Deluxe cocktail at home that I can look at.
 
Found the problem. Cleaned the legs on the 6502 and everything looks good.

Well it worked good for a little while anyway.

It started acting up again so I got a new 6502 since the legs were so tarnished. Now the game resets whenever I fire and get ready to hit an asteroid. I'm getting 5.1 on the A/R board. Any other suggestions? I can take the kit off and the game works fine.
 
You've got 5.1V on the AR board, but what's the voltage on the game PCB?? That's what really matters (well, it's also good to check the AR output voltage to make sure it's not too much higher than what you've got at the game PCB).
 
You've got 5.1V on the AR board, but what's the voltage on the game PCB?? That's what really matters (well, it's also good to check the AR output voltage to make sure it's not too much higher than what you've got at the game PCB).

I'm getting 4.8 on the board. BUT I'm still getting 4.8 when I take the HS save kit off and the game works fine. There's some glue or something on the one pot on the A/R board. Dare I fool with the pot???
 
I'm getting 4.8 on the board. BUT I'm still getting 4.8 when I take the HS save kit off and the game works fine. There's some glue or something on the one pot on the A/R board. Dare I fool with the pot???

The manual refers to the only pot on this A/R board as a 1K ohm cermet trimpot, Bournes series 3352V-1-1K. If I adjust this and it breaks, can these pots be replaced? Anyone know where to find them?
 
I'm not sure a replacement kit would solve the problem. Sounds like the two
items are not cooperating, so I would suggest goofing around with it more
before you give up, as my guess is another kit will do the same thing.

I've had issues on my Missile command kit with low voltage, seems my
MC kit is more sensitive than the original board, but that is a different board.
And the MC issue happens around 4.7v.

The only thing I can think of why it resets when it does is maybe because
when it goes to play that sound, that it draw more current at that instant
and you are just at the threshold. I cant think of anything in software related
to the fire button or when you are about to hit an asteroids, only that the
software triggers the sound at that point.

Try also removing the CPU eproms, I only say this because maybe then the
board will draw a tiny less current. However, you need to put them back
in to revert (undo) the kit. So keep track of their socket locations.

-Scott
 
Well I went ahead and took the plunge and adjusted the pot to 5.0. Guess what? It works!!!!! Crossing my fingers hoping it stays that way. Thanks for everyones' input.
 
Back
Top Bottom