Sinistar Help Needed

72Demon

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I am hoping someone can help me with a non-working Sinistar I bought. It will power on, and originally showed a darkish blue screen with about 10 vertical lines going down the middle of the screen, no sound, will not go into test mode, will not take credits. I did some research and found a similar problem on another old forum thread where an owner of Sinistar brought his one out of storage and had the same looking screen (sorry I do not have a picture of that screen). It said to check the voltages at the 4116 ram and his was too low. He changed out the P/S and all 4116 ram. After that his worked. I checked my voltages at the 4116 ram and mine was to low: 11.08, 4.02, -4.18. I replaced my p/s with a switcher & adapter and all the 4116 ram. Checked voltages and they were still low. I adjusted the switch p/s to approx 12.02, 5.05, and -5.12. Now I have the attached picture on the screen. Still does not go to test mode, does not enter credits, etc. At one point It did make two beeps. But would not do it again if I turned it on or off or let it run for awhile. The boards look good, and I do not see any damage caused by the batteries. They were replaced at some point. Does anyone know what I should check next or what would be causing this screen. I appreciate any help you can offer.
 

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There should be some led's, or a couple displays on the rom board that will give you a code, you can look the code up in the manual and see what the board is saying is wrong with itself.
 
I am hoping someone can help me with a non-working Sinistar I bought. It will power on, and originally showed a darkish blue screen with about 10 vertical lines going down the middle of the screen, no sound, will not go into test mode, will not take credits. I did some research and found a similar problem on another old forum thread where an owner of Sinistar brought his one out of storage and had the same looking screen (sorry I do not have a picture of that screen). It said to check the voltages at the 4116 ram and his was too low. He changed out the P/S and all 4116 ram. After that his worked. I checked my voltages at the 4116 ram and mine was to low: 11.08, 4.02, -4.18. I replaced my p/s with a switcher & adapter and all the 4116 ram. Checked voltages and they were still low. I adjusted the switch p/s to approx 12.02, 5.05, and -5.12. Now I have the attached picture on the screen. Still does not go to test mode, does not enter credits, etc. At one point It did make two beeps. But would not do it again if I turned it on or off or let it run for awhile. The boards look good, and I do not see any damage caused by the batteries. They were replaced at some point. Does anyone know what I should check next or what would be causing this screen. I appreciate any help you can offer.

Wow, just Wow. I am very impressed.

You have done most of the work for us. You did some reading, checked voltages (with readings), repaired/adjusted supply voltages and attached the picture of the problem.

Did I say I am very impressed.

the next step would probably be to re seat all of the socked chips and or verify the roms as well as clean/check all connectors.
 
After reading through the manual more, Is the screen it is showing the "Rug Pattern"?

no rug pattern looks like this:

rug1.gif



Anything you can find/read for joust, robotoron, stargate, bubbles pretty much applies to sinistar..

there is 7 segment window on the rom board. Does it light up and do anything? If working corrrectly, it will display 0. If there is a problem it will flash a code. write down what it flashes. The error codes are 3 long(Something like 1 3 1). Report back what you see..
 
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Ok, I will check the segment window. I do not recall seeing anything there, but will check again tonight, not sure if I paid attention after I changed the P/S. Thanks for the help so far!
 
You might also press down on the ribbon cable connector at the MPU board end. When people unplug the ribbon cable they usually grab the ribbon cable and tug. This will cause wires to come loose. If you press down on the connector it will frequently help the system to begin to boot. If it does help, then carefully pull the ribbon cable by using a flat bladed screwdriver on the side of the connector. Insert it between the tabs and used the corner of the screwdriver to dig into the connector and lift it up, then repeat on the other side. Once it is loose then pull to remove the connector. It should then be recrimped in a vise to reseat the connector pins.

ken
 
Do you own another Williams game (Joust or Robotron)?? ...or know someone who has one of these nearby where you live??

You could take your MPU board and test it on a Joust or Robotron to see if it works...

Same with your Sinistar ROM board, you could also swap that into a Joust or Robotron to see if the problem lies with the ROM board itself.

A functioning ROM board will post a lower case "c" after it checks the ROMs at startup.

Heck, you may be having problems on more than one board...
 
Ok, I was able to work on it briefly last night. The PCB LED window is not doing anything. No numbers or anything visible on it. I reseated all cable connectors to each PCB. I tried the original P/S again also. The only changes I noticed was the screen would show up in different colors. Same type picture, but with different colors. I am including a picture of that and the PCBs. (sorry pic of screen will not upload) Maybe you guys will see something that I am missing or connected incorrectly.

I did not see Yellowdogs post prior to working on it. But when I was reseating the cable connectors I did try to move the large ribbon cable but did not try too hard when I realized it was not going to come out like a Tron/Spyhunter type ribbon cable. I was hoping at some point it would of jumped the LED window into doing something.

Where would I check the voltages on the PCB with the LED window? I tired on the rams like I did on the large PCB but, the voltages were all negative. So I am guessing the legs layouts are not the same as the large PCB or is that where the problem is?

RE: another Williams game. I do have a Joust, that does not work also. It only shows a red screen when powered up. The Joust looks like the main PCB was damaged by battery acid at some point. I got both games at the same time, but focused on the Sinistar, since all the PCBs looked like they were in great shape and I got something on the screen. Any suggestions on what boards I should swap out between the two? I should have time tomorrow to swap out parts between the two if needed.
 

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the IDE like cable that goes from the rom board to the main board does not look like its all the way in(hard to tell from the pic). Check that.
 
I would check that the clock pin on the CPU (6809) is toggling on your CPU pcb. If not, start checking up stream all the way to the crystal.
 
Looks can be deceiving. I got the Joust to work by just changing the P/S to the Switcher kit. And I thought the Joust boards looked bad and the Sinistar's look great. What boards can I swap between the Joust and the Sinistar? I am new to owning Williams games but I am happy I got the Joust going and now it gives me some hope with the Sinistar. I did try pushing/reseating the ribbon cable on Sinistar. Did not help.

Please if you could give advice on which boards to swap between the two, I am not sure since the have their own roms/controls/monitor orientation.
 

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http://www.robotron-2084.co.uk/techwilliamshardwareid.html#sinistar

here is a list of board compatibility.

You should be able to test the boards in the joust cab. I would not hookup the input board, but you should be able to see if its working..

If you want swap cpu boards, Check to see if they both use the same decoder roms ( I think they both use 4 and 6).
 
I have both games and they do use decoder ROMs 4 and 6 so you're good to go.

To test the Sinistar in the Joust:

Remove the ROM board from your Sinistar.

next,

Unplug the ROM board and the Widget interface boards from your Joust. The only things that should be plugged into the CPU board at this point are the 3 molex connectors at the top of the board.

next,

Bring over the Sinistar ROM board and plug it into the CPU board, also plug in the molex connectors into the Sinistar ROM board as well.

Do not plug in the Widget board to the CPU, leave it unplugged for now.

Fire up the Joust.

Okay, if your Joust boots to Sinistar at this point, you know that your ROM board is good and that your CPU board in Sinistar is bad.
If the Joust does not boot to Sinistar, you now know that the ROM board is bad.

If the ROM board is bad you still need to know if the Sinistar CPU board is bad as well. At this point, remove your Sinistar ROM board from your Joust and swap in the CPU board from your Sinistar. Plug all of your Joust ROM boards, cables and now the Widget interface board and cables back.

Fire up the Joust.

If it boots to Joust, you have a good working Sinistar CPU board. If it doesn't boot to Joust, then you have (2) bad Sinistar boards.

Best of luck to ya!
 
Thanks guys, this is the exact information I needed (board identifier) Mrbill2084 and which ones to swap between the two (Muel). I will work on this today and let you know what happens.
 
Update: I did as Muel suggested. The CPU board is where the problem lies. I could get Sinistar to show up on the Joust, and just to be sure it was not the cabinet, I swapped in the Sinistar CPU into the Joust. I got the exact same screen in the Joust Cabinet (except sideways of course). So it is the Sinistar CPU board.

Next question: What do I check on the CPU Board? I have already replaced out all the 4116s. Should I swap out the Decoder Roms? Is there a chance I could damage the good CPU Board parts? They are both different Revisions.

Not sure how to check: "I would check that the clock pin on the CPU (6809) is toggling on your CPU pcb. If not, start checking up stream all the way to the crystal." per M-Mcgovern suggested.

The Sinistar CPU is a Rev D. type. Visually I think everything looks good. The Joust CPU is a Rev C.

Also: Sinistar Ribbon cable worked.

Please let me know what you guys think.
 
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Update: I did as Muel suggested. The CPU board is where the problem lies. I could get Sinistar to show up on the Joust, and just to be sure it was not the cabinet, I swapped in the Sinistar CPU into the Joust. I got the exact same screen in the Joust Cabinet (except sideways of course). So it is the Sinistar CPU board.

Next question: What do I check on the CPU Board? I have already replaced out all the 4116s. Should I swap out the Decoder Roms? Is there a chance I could damage the good CPU Board parts? They are both different Revisions.

Not sure how to check: "I would check that the clock pin on the CPU (6809) is toggling on your CPU pcb. If not, start checking up stream all the way to the crystal." per M-Mcgovern suggested.

The Sinistar CPU is a Rev D. type. Visually I think everything looks good. The Joust CPU is a Rev C.

Also: Sinistar Ribbon cable worked.

Please let me know what you guys think.

That could be a bad Decoder ROM...not sure, but it's possible.

Another simple thing to check is for cracked solder joints at the connectors...I did have MPU board once that had oddness going on, and after a reflow to these connectors with new solder, it came back to life. It's a long shot, but probably worth a try nonetheless.

As you've done a lot of what I would have tried already and if nothing else works, I can again recommend Andre of arcadesolution.com. He does great work and is both reasonable and pretty fast.

Good luck!

Jon
 
Not sure how to check: "I would check that the clock pin on the CPU (6809) is toggling on your CPU pcb. If not, start checking up stream all the way to the crystal." per M-Mcgovern suggested.

To check the clock pins on the 6809E. Locate the 6809E on the CPU pcb at 1E. Pins 34 and 35 are the clock inputs. Ideally, if you have an oscilloscope, you can probe these pins to make sure you have a clock signal present. If you do not, you need to either work your way backwards to the clock source, which is the crystal at CR1 or start at CR1 and work your way to the CPU clock pins through buffers 7J and the flops at 7K and 7G and 7F which divide down the clock.

Another spot to check on the 6809E at 1E is pin 37, which is the reset pin. This is driven by the "watchdog circuit" which is used to reset the micro when things go bad. If this is always low, your 6809 would always be held in reset and your CPU pcb would not work. If you find this is the case, start tracing up from this pin through 6F, 5H, and 5I to make sure you see these logic gates are working correctly.
 
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