Sinistar help

chas010

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My Sinistar just recently crapped out, the old playing fine to rug pattern screen deal. It was claiming one bad ram after another and turned out to be a low power situation. I replaced the in and out connector on the power supply and the game now plays great again except no sound :(.
The game will sometimes make explosion sounds only or occasional speech but nothing else. Test mode I cant get it to make any noises so im kinda at the end of my diagnostic capability amyone have any suggestions?

Jason
 
Try the test switch on the sound board first, if you get sound most of the board is working. There are also 4 test points where you can check the voltages. From memory, TP4 is 5v, TP3 is ground, and the other two are the +12v and -12v input voltages. The board generates it's own 5v from the + and - 12v, so just because your other boards have a solid 5v doesn't mean the sound board will.
 
The test button on the sound card does nothing on Sinistar or Bubbles. You will have to use the diagnostics to test the different sounds for Sinistar or Bubbles. Check all of your voltages.
 
Check the voltages on the sound card. It also sounds like the amp chip may have been damaged.
Ken
 
Thanks for the help guys! I checked the voltages at the test point and they all look good (10.3, -13, 0, 4.8). I also tried unplugging the speech card and still nothing.
 
I also tried unplugging the speech card and still nothing.

If I recall correctly that one HAS to have a working speech board connected in order to get any sound. (it's been awhile)
You might try recrimping the ribbon cable between the sound board and speech board.
I'd do the same for the CPU to ROM board ribbon cable.
Re-seat the ROMs on the sound and speech board.
You may be able to ground each sound input on the sound board and see if any sounds are produced. (could be a flaky PIA chip or something)

You may run down through here http://www.arcadesolution.com/sound.html and see if anything strikes out at ya. (skip step 2 because the test button won't do anything for ya as Dokert mentioned)
 
Speech Board does not need to be working in order to get game sounds

Even with W1 removed on the sound board?
(that's what I can't remember, as to whether it needed the speech board or not)

Seems like the last one I worked on had a bad speech board/ribbon cable and we got no sounds at all until that was fixed. But it's been awhile, so I could be mistaken. (too many projects)
 
I swapped in another sinistar sound board and all sounds work as they should so my board definately got hurt. This is a total numbers matchjng machine so I would like the origional board fixed :( anybody in here that I could send this to?
 
I fix most Williams boards. I have not had to work on a Sinistar speech board, but I am willing to take a look. PM for details.

ken
 
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