Spy Hunter ram error...

mclemore

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So I have a Spy Hunter not starting up at the moment at the museum exhibit. I was going to drive down there anyway today... It's a little bit of a drive so I thought I'd ask about it here before I drove down.

It wasn't saving scores and a tech installed an NVRAM at G5 but w/o the 10k resistor and it still wasn't saving scores so I thought I'd fix the resistor issue... It's been that way or a week or two.

In any case, now I just received word that it won't boot up at all, and is showing a RAM error...

VR - B1 or 81... (see photos). If the NVRAM w/o resistor got corrupted, might this cause this problem? I'm guessing that is unlikely but I thought I'd ask.

Also... is this B1 or 81 on the middle board also? or the top board? And is it just another 6116-4? Likely soldered or socketed?

I can also borrow a Spy Hunter pcb stack from someone local that works but has sound issues. If the sound issues are on the top board, and my issues today on the middle board, maybe I could swap out the middle board if the error message turns out to be related to a larger problem.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
 
I get RAM/ROM errors if the voltage is low to the stack. Check +5V across that cap in the top corner, just to be sure.

post-9507-1183690119.jpg
 
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So I have a Spy Hunter not starting up at the moment at the museum exhibit. I was going to drive down there anyway today... It's a little bit of a drive so I thought I'd ask about it here before I drove down.

It wasn't saving scores and a tech installed an NVRAM at G5 but w/o the 10k resistor and it still wasn't saving scores so I thought I'd fix the resistor issue... It's been that way or a week or two.

In any case, now I just received word that it won't boot up at all, and is showing a RAM error...

VR - B1 or 81... (see photos). If the NVRAM w/o resistor got corrupted, might this cause this problem? I'm guessing that is unlikely but I thought I'd ask.

Also... is this B1 or 81 on the middle board also? or the top board? And is it just another 6116-4? Likely soldered or socketed?

I can also borrow a Spy Hunter pcb stack from someone local that works but has sound issues. If the sound issues are on the top board, and my issues today on the middle board, maybe I could swap out the middle board if the error message turns out to be related to a larger problem.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

There are no photos.

MCR issues are common. Power and Ribbon cables are a good place to start.
 
@cdjump is the master of these MCR boards.

He can rebuild them well and you'll never have to look back. Send the whole PCB 3 board stack to him including the sound board. This is all assuming your power brick and lin. PS is in good working order.
 
In short: (a) the voltage was apparently too low, and (b) since the voltage had been checked and adjusted by a tech who works as an arcade tech full-time just a few days before, and also 3 weeks before, I assumed the problem was more serious and thus opened this thread. So part of the lesson is don't assume anything just because someone came right before you and worked on a machine.

@supertechnoboy - your comments about voltage were helpful.
@Charles Kline - ribbon cable - great suggestion. While not apparently my problem, my cables were in really poor shape and likely didn't have long in this world.

I wanted to post an update on this.

Before the game went on location a month back, a professional service tech had worked on 'tuning up' 4 games here. While the Spy Hunter didn't need anything specific, he did specifically check and adjust voltages on it. He mentioned one of the games had a slightly high voltage and he lowered it, but I didn't remember which game it was... I wonder if it it was the Spy Hunter.

Before it went to the museum location, the Spy Hunter occasionally crashed on power on, but not usually. When it got to the museum it became problematic more often.

Then 2 weeks back when he was there to fix something else, he changed a ram in Spy Hunter for the NVRAM, but without the 10k resistor . The game continued to work but it still didn't save its settings or high scores....

Then intermittent problems quickly became more serious. I posted the RAM error above preventing it from loading.

I borrower a board set from someone and showed up to find the machine in test mode but not coming up. Upon powering on, instead of 1 RAM error, it was flashing all over the place and making clicking noises and reporting 6 or 8 errors (before I quickly turned off the machine).

I tested the voltage across the cap pictured above at 4.78v. I raised voltage until the cap was showing 5.00-5.04v. I also changed the NVRAM for one with a resistor (& cap) on board (also Pinitech) and the game immediately came up and has worked perfectly since.

After being powered off for the night, the game still retained its settings and scores. While the NVRAM change to the MCR version likely didn't make a difference (yet), the voltage seemed to be a key to its operations in general. I'm naturally worried about voltages being too high on machines, but to date, it seems all my voltage problems (and there have been several) have been because of low voltages...

The ribbon cables were in bad shape (layers totally coming apart) so although they weren't causing any problems yet, it seemed inevitable that they would become problematic. So I changed them too with the cables from the spare board (I then ordered replacements).

Mid last week I went there with an extra board set I borrowed from someone but I didn't need to use it.

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NVRAM discussion

The tech had installed a Pinitech standard 6116 NVRAM replacement, and I replaced it with a MCR version that Pinitech makes.

For photos of the differences, see:

 
If your tech checked the voltage at the power supply and adjusted it there, that would cause the voltage readings that you were seeing because there is typically a .25v or higher drop in voltage to that test point by the time it works its way through all of the cables and connectors. You typically will want the power supply to be pumping out around 5.25v to get ~5v at that test point.

Greg, your best bet for the replacement cables are not the 25pin 2 layer SCSI cables, but the ones that @chips4sle sells, which are the same ones that Madrits sold in years past. They are 24 pin single layer cables and they go on like butter.
 
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