Spy Hunter Graphic issues

Torin

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I've been trying to get this Spy Hunter up and running. It was running fine until I took the boardset out of the cab to put back the original eproms at 6D and 10D back to remove the freeplay eproms. Now it will do a few different things. Sometimes the music will play and there will be nothing but a weird character in the upper left of the screen. Other times, it will only boot to a bunch of R's that look like they are a repeating pattern with no sound. Sometimes only to a white screen.

I have checked the voltages to the board 5.10 and the voltages on the reset pin which fluctuates from 4.5 to 5.25.

I have put back in the freeplay roms and it does the same.

I have swapped out the original PS for another known working one with the same results.

Any ideas? Could it be the interconnect cables? The large blue caps in the power brick?
 
If it worked fine before you did this and you didn't damage anything when you swapped the roms then I'd be looking at the interconnect cables first.

Do you still have the original cables on there? If you do, get 'em off and get some new ones on there.

Get some Deoxit and spray the contacts.

Double check that the interconnect cables are on there correctly.

If you have the Bob Roberts interconnect cables on there, quadruple check that they're on there correctly because it's incredibly easy to get them on there wrong. That's why I hate those cables.
 
No, they are the original cables and they are crispy. I never removed the interconnect cables and kept the board stack together. I will have to replace them.

The only other thing I can think of is that I couldn't figure out which original chip was 6D or 10D and there is a good possiblility that I got them mixed up. I've tried them both ways and still no luck. The freeplay roms are marked and so I know those are correct but I'm still not able to boot the board. Mixing up the eproms wouldn't do any harm, I don't think. I checked on here with a post and was assured I could try it and if it wasn't correct, then just swap them. Hopefully, that didn't screw anything up.

I'll order the interconnect cables.


If it worked fine before you did this and you didn't damage anything when you swapped the roms then I'd be looking at the interconnect cables first.

Do you still have the original cables on there? If you do, get 'em off and get some new ones on there.

Get some Deoxit and spray the contacts.

Double check that the interconnect cables are on there correctly.

If you have the Bob Roberts interconnect cables on there, quadruple check that they're on there correctly because it's incredibly easy to get them on there wrong. That's why I hate those cables.
 
Mixing up the eproms shouldn't matter.

Isn't the cpu board in the middle of the board stack though? How could you have swapped the ROMs w/o opening up the board stack?

Just be extraordinarily careful with the board interconnects -- it's incredibly easy to mix them up. You'll be replacing 1x24 cables with 2x25 and it's super easy to get them on wrong.
 
Mixing up the eproms shouldn't matter.

Isn't the cpu board in the middle of the board stack though? How could you have swapped the ROMs w/o opening up the board stack?

Just be extraordinarily careful with the board interconnects -- it's incredibly easy to mix them up. You'll be replacing 1x24 cables with 2x25 and it's super easy to get them on wrong.

No, I opened the board stack but left the boards connected by the thin intrconnects while replacing the roms.

The latest is that now the board is booting to all 9`s across the screen while the background changes colors. I guess I will just stop messing with it until I get new interconnects.
 
I think you have a 50-50 shot at this being all interconnects.
 
The other option being a bad socket or something?

Who knows? Some kind of physical damage perhaps since it was working fine before. Maybe a bad socket, maybe the old roms are bad. I'd start with the most likely thing -- the interconnects -- and don't worry about other stuff until you're past that.
 
Well, its not the interconnect cables. I read that you can swap them from other MCR games. I got the nice ones off my Tron and tried them on the Spy Hunter. Same exact result. The only thing that has made any difference at all in this process is swapping the roms. I guess I will continue to look at the rom section and maybe test the roms out if I can find someone nearby who has that capability. Any other thoughts?
 
So, I put the board into diagnostic mode and I guess the LED on the I/O board is blinking fast which would indicate a bad ROM. I don't know how fast the light should be blinking to be considered "fast" or "slow" but it is going pretty fast in my book. Hard to say.

What roms should I be looking at? What board? Thanks for the help.
 
So, I put the board into diagnostic mode and I guess the LED on the I/O board is blinking fast which would indicate a bad ROM. I don't know how fast the light should be blinking to be considered "fast" or "slow" but it is going pretty fast in my book. Hard to say.

What roms should I be looking at? What board? Thanks for the help.

Does tron have the same diagnostic mode where you can confirm the speed of the blinking?

Not surprised it's saying bad rom. Going back to what worked last have you tried both positions of the 2 ROMs in the board and they both fail the same way?
 
Does tron have the same diagnostic mode where you can confirm the speed of the blinking?

Not surprised it's saying bad rom. Going back to what worked last have you tried both positions of the 2 ROMs in the board and they both fail the same way?

Yes, they both fail the same way every time but have different graphic glitches. The best that I can get and the way I have it now is with the original two roms back in. I get the Peter Gunn theme that plays once through and a white smoke cloud in the upper left portion of the screen. When I put the dip switches into diagnostic mode now, I get a steady led that stays lit. This indicates that it is running correctly. However, it obviously is not.Voltages on all three boards are steady at just around 5 - 5.10. Not sure where to turn from here.
 
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Yes, they both fail the same way every time but have different graphic glitches. The best that I can get and the way I have it now is with the original two roms back in. I get the Peter Gunn theme that plays once through and a white smoke cloud in the upper left portion of the screen. When I put the dip switches into diagnostic mode now, I get a steady led that stays lit. This indicates that it is running correctly. However, it obviously is not.Voltages on all three boards are steady at just around 5 - 5.10. Not sure where to turn from here.

By both you mean what? Not sure what you're saying.

Oh, you're testing the boards outside the cab so you can test voltage on all 3 boards? Can you try bumping the voltage up a little to around 5.15 or 5.20 on the cpu card?
 
By both you mean what? Not sure what you're saying.

Oh, you're testing the boards outside the cab so you can test voltage on all 3 boards? Can you try bumping the voltage up a little to around 5.15 or 5.20 on the cpu card?

By both, I'm meaning that I have two sets of roms for 6D and 10D. Both were working fine about 5 months ago. The last set of these that I used were the freeplay roms.

Now, when I put in the freeplay roms back in, I get all 9's on the screen. When I put in the regular roms (which aren't labeled) I get a blank screen one way and then when I switch them, I get the music and a smoke cloud on the screen.

Yes, I have the boards out for testing (which is a pain in the arse) and am measuring the voltage at the chips on all three boards. I will turn it up a bit and test it. The cpu card is the smallest board on the outside? Not the ssio or the middle board, correct? Thanks again for all your help.
 
Well, I turned up the PS 5V to the max and it tops out at 5.15 on the cpu board. When I do that, I get more sprites on the screen. I tried my other PS and that tops out at the same.

I have a Dallas battery chip on this board too. I cut the other battery off and did the 5V vbatt wiring. Could this be the symptoms of a dead battery? Or could this be voltage related?
 
Well, I turned up the PS 5V to the max and it tops out at 5.15 on the cpu board. When I do that, I get more sprites on the screen. I tried my other PS and that tops out at the same.

I have a Dallas battery chip on this board too. I cut the other battery off and did the 5V vbatt wiring. Could this be the symptoms of a dead battery? Or could this be voltage related?

5.15 on the cpu board should be good enough -- you're measuring on the corner of the ROMs?

But if 5.15 is as high as it will go says something is wrong somewhere with your power supply or wiring. You should be able to go much higher than that.

By this board you mean the cpu board, right? The other battery should have been on the linear power board.

When did you do this battery backed chip and 5v vbatt wiring? I'm assuming that all worked well for a while with those changes in place?
 
5.15 on the cpu board should be good enough -- you're measuring on the corner of the ROMs?

But if 5.15 is as high as it will go says something is wrong somewhere with your power supply or wiring. You should be able to go much higher than that.

By this board you mean the cpu board, right? The other battery should have been on the linear power board.

When did you do this battery backed chip and 5v vbatt wiring? I'm assuming that all worked well for a while with those changes in place?

Yes, measuring voltage on the corners of the roms.

Removed the battery from the power supply board and installed the Dallas chip on the CPU board. Everything worked fine with this setup and retained settings and scores just fine.

Something is just not letting this damn board boot. What about the two large blue caps in the power brick?
 
Yes, measuring voltage on the corners of the roms.

Removed the battery from the power supply board and installed the Dallas chip on the CPU board. Everything worked fine with this setup and retained settings and scores just fine.

Something is just not letting this damn board boot. What about the two large blue caps in the power brick?

Seems like a big coincidence that the big caps in the power supply would act up right after you switched PROMs but it's possible I suppose. If you search KLOV you can find descriptions on how to test them. IIRC correctly you're looking for AC ripple on the DC output but I'd definitely search for the specifics.

When you put the interconnects on from TRON, those were Bob's 2x25 ones? Are you absolutely certain you got them on the correct way?

Do you have a ROM burner that will let you double check the images in the ROMs you've pulled and compare to those in MAME?
 
No, the interconnect cables from tron are not bob`s but are original and in really good condition and are working great on the tron. I got the exact same results with both the tron and spy hunter interconnect cables. I don't see how I could put those on wrong, its pretty straight forward and I double checked the pins when I hooked them up.

I don't have a burner but have been thinking about getting one lately. Could be time.
 
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