Rush The Rock - Voltages

FrizzleFried

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OK... so I'm running RTR last night and "pop"... the game resets.

I check the +5 and it's at about 5.08. I lower it thinking that may be the issue and the system immediately resets. Whelp...not the way to go.

I also notice that there is "static" graphic corruption behind the "PRESS PEDAL TO START" and a few other things (the time at top for one). As I INCREASE the voltage the static goes away. I twist until the static is all but gone... check voltages... 5.22! Damn... seems a bit high. I play... after a bit of time the static issue appears again...though not as bad... then, eventually... RESET. I, again, adjust the PS until the "static" is gone... check... 5.25v! I play more... and after about an hour the static starts to crop up slightly... but not bad... it never reset.

NOW... I am not too keen on pumping 5.25v in to the boardset... not so much for the boardset as for the CF drive that is also running off 5V.

Do I have anything to worry about? Is this normal for Rush The Rock?
 
Where are you measuring the +5? At the power supply? At the board connector? At the chips? Have you reseated any of the chips?
 
Where are you measuring the +5? At the power supply? At the board connector? At the chips? Have you reseated any of the chips?

....at the molex where it connects to the CF reader... and at the molex where it connects to the board harness.

There aren't really any "test points" on this board.

I have not re-seated any of the chips. Any I should look at? The game plays fine... but requires a lot of voltage or I get that garbage and resets...
 
Well, checking the voltage at the chips will tell you if you are getting any voltage drop off through the connectors and the board. You may have 5.25 at the connector, and only 5.01 at the chip. Not sure what the CF can handle, but I think your glitchiness is going away due to increased voltage at the chips, and not the CF. Maybe pulling and cleaning the chip legs, or pushing down on them to see if they are firmly seated, will help. Or bumping up the voltage to 5.2 at the chips (if they aren't already). I have no idea whether this will harm your CF or not (if you have to get the PS to 5.4 or something in orded to get 5.2 at the chips)...
 
Checked the molex - 5.22vdc

Checked one of the chips - 4.89vdc

OOps...

Cleaned up the edge connector... removed and re-attached all molex connectors a few times each...

I now have the VDC at the molex at 5.15vdc and I'm getting 5.01vdc at the chip. I am guessing this shouldn't be an issue?

Also... monitor related (I may post in the monitor section) -

I am getting a funky moving "ghost-like" line down about 1/3 of the left side of the screen. The edge is dynamic...seems to move around depending on what is on screen.... it's not terrible noticeable but once you notice it it's hard to ignore.

Sync issue?
 
i think that model just has the composite sync input, right? It should be sync-sensing. I assume you have a good ground to the frame?
 
Well now I am getting, after some time, some resetting with various errors popping up. Mostly READ errors... they appear to be referring to the CF reader... they're the types of errors you'd get with a funky hard drive. I'm starting to think the 5.15v at the CF reader may be too much. The reset/errors happen randomly and are not replicable ... where it errors out on a track during one game may play fine for 5 or 6 more games only to error out on a different track/location later.

I may drop it down a hair more to get the CF reader down to 5.08 or so... but that would put my voltages at the chip around 4.93 or so.
 
FYI, according to the ATX standard, which is what most CF adapters are built for, the +5VDC tolerance is +4.75 to +5.25. So on that end, your voltages are fine. If you're really that worried, you could run the CF card off a separate power supply and bridge their grounds. You might still have a borderline/cheap adapter or CF card though...
 
FYI, according to the ATX standard, which is what most CF adapters are built for, the +5VDC tolerance is +4.75 to +5.25. So on that end, your voltages are fine. If you're really that worried, you could run the CF card off a separate power supply and bridge their grounds. You might still have a borderline/cheap adapter or CF card though...

Thanks for that piece of info... then there is a chance I'm still not pushing enough voltage in to the main PCB... it's barely sitting at +5DVC...
 
just skimming here..
if you already replaced the power supply good.
if still problem repin your edge connector..
not enough current.
 
One of mine occasionally has a reset problem. It'll be fine for maybe 2 or 3 months and then it will start resetting every few minutes. I reseat all the connectors and the problem goes away for another 2 or 3 months. I haven't isolated the particular connector simply because it always seems to happen when I have a large party and my only goal is to get it running ASAP (so I just reseat them all), but my plan has been to begin replacing connectors, ideally after determining which one is problematic. Connectors are the #1 problem I've run into with my games. If you've got a big voltage drop going from the wiring to the board then I would replace the connector on the wiring side and replace/rebuild the connector on the pcb side.
 
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