Star Wars 6100 Issue/Question

wontwa

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Star Wars with a monitor issue? Surprising, I know... :]

So I picked up an upright Star Wars with a 6100 monitor. Initially it played blind, but only showed an 1/8" of video in a vertical line on the screen. Checked the fuses on the 6100, replaced one, and it played great for about 3 minutes - however, the longer I played it the more the video would "cut out" and return. Upon one of the times of turning it off and turning it back on, I had the "x wing shows up fine but enemies & stars missing issue" as detailed in this thread:

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=125429&highlight=star+wars+tie+fighters

Replaced the 4 PROMs as indicated in the following tip from vectorlist:

> SYMPTOMS: STAR WARS ONLY: When game first turned on, no starfield
> background pattern (noticable during demo display). When game
> is played, everything appears normal until you select a
> difficulty (deathstar). Once your ship leaves the menu, no
> starfield background nor enemy attackers (tie fighters) nor
> deathstar ever appear. Gameplay is otherwise unaffected (you
> can aim, fire, etc).
> SOLUTION: Check the four 18-pin socketed ROMs 136021-110 through -113 at
> locations 7H, 7J, 7K, 7L in the middle of the main game board.
> At least one of these is bad. These are 1024x4 bipolar 82S137
> (Signetics) PROMS which contain the microcode for the math
> box. In my case -112 was bad. Frys, Jameco, and JDR
> Microdevices sell these PROMs.

and all is well again.......except I'm still getting the screen blacking out sporadically, and am afraid to mess with it too much more until I figure out where to start as I'm concerned that might have been what caused one of those PROMs to go bad initially.

Here is a link to video of the issue described, with the examples showing up at the :25 mark and the 1:05 mark - it is doing it much more frequently than this presently. You can often faintly see red images of the "fireballs" or whatever when the screen blanks out:

http://gallery.me.com/derekbetts#100213

I should note that I also ordered a new "big blue" from Bob Roberts and have installed that as well. Any ideas as to where to go next?

Any help would be greatly appreciated - I feel like the thing is thiiiiiis cloooose to working properly.
 
Interesting. Almost like the monitor powers off and back on real quick. Has the monitor been rebuilt or checked for cold solder yet? Power connector inspected for hogged out pins? I would set up a mirror and watch the back to see if the spot killer comes on when that happens or not.
 
Well, took a quick glance at it and the spot killer does turn on (and off) when the screen goes black and comes back.

The monitor hasn't been rebuilt or had anything done to it, so it's likely that might help. I was planning on having the monitor rebuilt by Chad at Arcade Cup as I'm planning on keeping this machine for the long haul, but the prospect of removing the tube from the monitor boards and chassis makes me nervous.

Forgive my ignorance (I'm learning as I go), but what would be the best way to check for cold solder? Also, how difficult are cap kits to install if I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron?

Thanks again for your input!
 
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