spy hunter memory loss on shutdown

TheShanMan

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I've had a lithium in my SH and lately it has seemed to revert to the (retarded) default of 2 coins per credit whenever I turn the game off, and my high score table was messed up (the scores were low but whenever I got the high score, it would report that my ranking was very low). I assumed the battery was low so I figured I'd upgrade to nvram.

I tried a DS1220AB-200 and could not get the game to boot, regardless of raising the +5v supply. I tried a simtek (despite knowing that Mark advises against these on MCR games) and still got memory loss on shutdown. I just got some M48Z02-70PC1's so I tried 2 of them, and same deal - memory loss on shutdown.

I reflowed the solder on the 5G socket just in case there was a bad solder joint. No help.

Any clue what might be going on? Part of me wonders if the M48Z02's I got were old and the internal batteries were dead, but that seems unlikely given that I've tried 2 of them, and in light of everything else I mentioned.
 
Just curious how long your lithium battery lasted?
 
I've had the game for a year and I don't recall exactly when the problem started but not too long ago, so I would say at least a year but how much longer I have no idea.

Again though, I'm not even sure the battery has failed (though I have yet to check the voltage of it). The fact that all of my various nvram attempts have failed makes me wonder if something more fundamental is wrong.

Does the game actually read from this ram during the game or does it read it at boot time and then keep the info in regular ram? If I know that the game reads this chip each time the high score table is displayed, then I can test whether it is at least able to successfully write to the chip when Vbatt is 5v, in which case the fact that the memory is lost on shutdown would imply that either the internal battery is dead or something is corrupting it on power loss.

In fact, does the game write to the chip during the boot diagnostics and verify that the write succeeded? I guess that would tell me the same thing as if the chip is read from periodically while the game is running.

Worst case scenario I'll buy a new battery holder and battery (the one in it now is one piece - battery and holder integrated) and I won't be too upset about having to use a battery, but I'm not even convinced that will work.

Guess I'm hoping that one of the SH experts here might have a pearl of wisdom for this situation. :)
 
I have a non-panning SSIO board and I just threw that in with an M48Z02. Same results. So unless there is circuitry on one of the other boards that comes into play, I guess it rules out the circuitry.

I think I forgot to mention earlier that I have tied Vbatt to Vcc on the PS board (wire from one pin to the other on the back side of the board).

I also tested the battery that was in it initially. Unloaded it was at 3.6v, and with a 1k ohm resistor as a load it was at 3v. So I think that's further evidence that something else is afoot.
 
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Doesn't Mark sell a setup where you swap in a ram chip and voila that shit is HANDLED? I'd go that way.

Edit: Nevermind I guess that's the funky numbers you're talking about, lol
 
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I have a non-panning SSIO board and I just threw that in with an M48Z02. Same results. So unless there is circuitry on one of the other boards that comes into play, I guess it rules out the circuitry.

Just want to clarify...you are installing the RAM on the CPU (middle PCB) correct? The SSIO PCB is the outer visible PCB and it does has a RAM location- but that does nothing with the memory.
-Mark
 
Sorry, you're right. It's the CPU board I'm talking about not the SSIO board (not sure why I had that on my brain). 5G on the CPU board.
 
i'd start by replacing the socket at 5g. All of the nvrams i've looked at have terribly thin legs. Add a crappy socket into the mix and all kinds of things are possible.
 
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