Sporstation Boot Issue

jim109

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Hi all!

I have some issues with a sportstation board that I got in and was not working. It originally had a dead hard drive so I got an image from a fellow KLOVer and still can't get it to boot. It goes through all the checks and passes them all, shows the midway boot loader screen and then quickly goes to a blank screen, shows a number 2 on the board LED , the led dot on the led screen blinks a number of times and then it reboots and starts again. Anyone have any ideas?

I have a feeling it has to do with the security chip. The boot chip is the Blitz gold/Showtime Gold sportstation 3.0 one ( which is the Hard drive image I got) but the security chip in U37 just states Showtime 25". It should probably state Showtime Gold or something else shouldn't it? I might be way off but thats what I am currently thinking and trying to get new 3.0 chips. Let me know if anyone has any other ideas or insights.

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jim
 
Check the jumpers on the HDD. If mine were set incorrectly, it wouldn't pass the power up tests, saying there was no drive attached and the, "S" shows up on the LED. Changing the jumpers fixed it, but I don't have the proper security chips to use the 3.0 image, so the LED would eventually read a lowercase, "d", indicating a drive problem.

Edit - My security chip reads "Blitz 2000" and that's for Sportstation version 1.5, so yours has to be newer than that.
 
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That's exactly what happens when the boarset is detecting an issue with the hard drive. Not the hardware itself but the image you're using. If you don't have the 3.0 pic installed it won't work. Download/use the CHD from MAME and I bet it boots.
 
My boom rom states ( Ver 3.0 U27/U18 ) so I believe its the 3.0 version. Unfortunately I have tried the sportstation image from Mame and it does the same thing. Would it do the same thing if the security chip is incorrect?

Thanks for the help!!!

Jim
 
Check the jumpers on the HDD. If mine were set incorrectly, it wouldn't pass the power up tests, saying there was no drive attached and the, "S" shows up on the LED. Changing the jumpers fixed it, but I don't have the proper security chips to use the 3.0 image, so the LED would eventually read a lowercase, "d", indicating a drive problem.

Edit - My security chip reads "Blitz 2000" and that's for Sportstation version 1.5, so yours has to be newer than that.

What version is mame chd/roms ? Just for the record, this is the most fkd up version matching I have yet seen with seattle and vegas.

Kevin
 
The hard drive is set to master and shows the midway boot loader so I believe the hard drive is physically fine. If yours states Blitz 2000 then I would imagine a 3.0 board would have an updated security chip. Anyone with a 3.0 board that can check what their security chip says (U37).

Thanks for the help!!!!!

Jim



Check the jumpers on the HDD. If mine were set incorrectly, it wouldn't pass the power up tests, saying there was no drive attached and the, "S" shows up on the LED. Changing the jumpers fixed it, but I don't have the proper security chips to use the 3.0 image, so the LED would eventually read a lowercase, "d", indicating a drive problem.

Edit - My security chip reads "Blitz 2000" and that's for Sportstation version 1.5, so yours has to be newer than that.
 
Boot rom in diagnostic mode shows version 2.7. The PIC is labeled sportstation Gold Pic. I think your hold up is indeed the PIC prom.
 
What version is mame chd/roms ? Just for the record, this is the most fkd up version matching I have yet seen with seattle and vegas.

Kevin

I believe the mame version is 1.5, but I'll double check and report back.

Edit - on second thought, I don't actually have the MAME version. I thought I did for a second, but it was just the backup I made.
 
the chips you need with the 3.0 chd image are on the pictures that are attached. disregard the blitz 2000 chip as it was replaced with the Showtime Gold.
 

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the chips you need with the 3.0 chd image are on the pictures that are attached. disregard the blitz 2000 chip as it was replaced with the Showtime Gold.

Thank you for posting this. I have a question for you though, about the stickers... did Happ service your board? I didn't realize they did that sort of thing. If so, it's good to know.
 
happ will service your board but they are not cheap. I had two boards one was mine that blew a surface mounted cap completely off the board and the second was a spare from a friend of mine. in fact the pcb with the happ stickers was the one I borrowed from a friend.
 
I have a NFL Blitz 99 cabinet that came to me from a friend, anyway it had a Sportstation kit put into it, from the info I got, he had it working fine, and then the HD went bad, so he ordered one off eBay and that didnt fix it, so rather than fix it, he sold as is, anyway all it is doing is one screen coming up and then it resets,

Midway Video Boot Loader
Revision 4.0
Copyright 1999 by Midway Games Inc
All Rights Reserved

Booting phx1:game.exe...

I think that is what is displayed as it resets quickly!!!!

Can anyone shed any light on this, what is the problem, the Rom that normally tells you the revision is missing the sticker so not sure on revision and that

can anyone help or point me on what to try to fix this, Thanks in Advance
Mick
 
I have a NFL Blitz 99 cabinet that came to me from a friend, anyway it had a Sportstation kit put into it, from the info I got, he had it working fine, and then the HD went bad, so he ordered one off eBay and that didnt fix it, so rather than fix it, he sold as is, anyway all it is doing is one screen coming up and then it resets,

Midway Video Boot Loader
Revision 4.0
Copyright 1999 by Midway Games Inc
All Rights Reserved

Booting phx1:game.exe...

I think that is what is displayed as it resets quickly!!!!

Can anyone shed any light on this, what is the problem, the Rom that normally tells you the revision is missing the sticker so not sure on revision and that

can anyone help or point me on what to try to fix this, Thanks in Advance
Mick

Ask him what the LED reads on the game board. He should see a bunch of random numbers and letters, and once that first set of characters goes away, he'll either see an S (or a 2?) or a lowercase, "d". The d indicates a drive issue, the S/2 I believe indicates no drive attached.
 
well it seems to go thru a load of numbers, then seems to do some letters and back to 0, and seems to be a little faint before getting brighter and doing the whole thing again
I did a quick video of it which probably explains it better than me :)

http://www.wearehereinthesun.com/blitz/sportstation.MOV

Hmm.. I've never seen one pulse like that. I've had it where the 0 was dim and then got bright and stayed bright, but it didn't flicker like that.

Flip Dip #7 on the second set of dip-switches (the one closest to the bottom and to the right of the JAMMA harness). This will force the power up boot test. After it goes through the screens of colors it should say something like "Disk initialization test". What does this say, pass or fail?
 
thanks for the quick reply and appreciate the help on this, I put it into test and ran it and again its quick and Im just uploading another video to the same BLITZ folder, but it seems to pass the tests but fails on CMOS BATTERY LOW??? is this causing the problem or should it still work?

http://www.wearehereinthesun.com/blitz/
 
thanks for the quick reply and appreciate the help on this, I put it into test and ran it and again its quick and Im just uploading another video to the same BLITZ folder, but it seems to pass the tests but fails on CMOS BATTERY LOW??? is this causing the problem or should it still work?

http://www.wearehereinthesun.com/blitz/

Wow, judging by the test results your machine is in better condition than mine is - mine fails all the FIFO tests :(

What does your security chip say? It's the one with the long barcode in the middle.
 
I think thats the one missing the label, as its showing the eprom window thing? but when I got the machine it had 2 Hard drive's with it, and has Sportstation 3.0 hand written on the HD, not sure if that helps? would the bad battery cause the problem of the reboot or is it another issue, thanks
 
I think thats the one missing the label, as its showing the eprom window thing? but when I got the machine it had 2 Hard drive's with it, and has Sportstation 3.0 hand written on the HD, not sure if that helps? would the bad battery cause the problem of the reboot or is it another issue, thanks

The battery should be replaced, but I don't believe it's the cause of the issue. The security chip and the boot rom are two different things, the boot rom is the one with the missing label, the security chip is the one with the barcode in between the two large capacitors to the right of the JAMMA connector. If there's a mismatch in the roms, or the roms are a different version than the hard drive, that could cause this issue.
 
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