Star Wars missing all sounds

SuperGunGuru

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Hey all,

I know this one has been discussed before but I figure it can't hurt to have another repair log and hopefully I can get his one solved without sending it for repair and maybe someone else will benefit. I'll gladly take any input as I'm no genius with repair, but I did get my Q*Bert sound board back from the dead so there's hope for me. ;) I have a Star Wars that has absolutely no sound, music, or speech in it. The only thing I get is a repeating thump noise and at times other digital garbage noise. So far I have verified the 2 eproms are good and all voltages are good as well. My next thought it to start swapping socketed chips and see if I can get get any change. The only chip I may have on hand to swap with is a Pokey chip from a working Tempest aux board with the 4 pokey chips on the Star Wars sound board. I did notice the numbers on the chips are different, but aren't all Pokey chips the same? Beyond that I was thinking about one of the processor chips being bad and I think I remember reading there are 3 clock signals on this thing as well and hopefully there are test points for them, but I'm sure there's other places to check them as well.
 
And you have thuroughly inspected all the connections, cables..ect. ? Cleaned the socketed chips and checked the volume POT?
 
And you have thuroughly inspected all the connections, cables..ect. ? Cleaned the socketed chips and checked the volume POT?
I've re-seated all socketed IC's, checked the interconnect cable, cleaned the contacts where that interboard connector attaches and the volume pot varies the level of the noises I get. I did notice that it's not always consistent in terms of what noises I get. This last time, after cleaning socketed chips, I got a constant hum mixed in with thumps from the speaker but some noises do correspond with pulling the trigger. I was hoping it would be a simple fix, but I'm thinking I'll need to get out my logic probe soon and see what I can find out.
 
Gunguru,

As suggested the sound board has a built in test of its own - check the arcade manual for SW (available online) - the troubleshooting guide explains how to jump the game into Sound test mode.

I had a similar issue - its on that board (top of the three stack). One of the chips needed to be replaced.

This thread on google arcade collecting site may help too:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec....faa8a05bd?lnk=gst&q=SW+Clock#95f579bfaa8a05bd
 
Omegaman and jonathan are right, first put the sound board into test mode and see if you get any music,sound or speech.
Below is my video I made which shows a working sound board in test mode and my board which was missing speech. My sound board was completely dead like yours when I first started but I replaced the 6809 CPU with a new one, tested and cleaned the 2 ROMs, Replaced the SRAM with a new one, replaced the 6532 PIA with a new one and cleaned and tested the Speech chip. After all that I had music and sound but no speech. I was lucky to have another working board set to test chips and make a comparison with. If you don't have another 6909 CPU then you can swap it with your working one on the main board. You can also swap the SRAM with one on the main board or the vector board. If it's bad the main board in test mode will let you know if it's bad.You said you tested the ROMS so that will only leave the 6532 and the speech chip. That should get you started and if your lucky maybe a fix.If not we can go from their.
 
Thanks everyone for your input. I put the sound board into its test mode and got 1 low and 3 high tones indicating a failed ram chip. I figured it would be something else actually triggering that error, but I took the time to dig for and find a compatible ram chip from a non-working Mappy pcb. I swapped it in and now I have music, sound and speech! So far it seems to be working fine, but I'll keep my ears open to make sure all is well.
 
Thanks everyone for your input. I put the sound board into its test mode and got 1 low and 3 high tones indicating a failed ram chip. I figured it would be something else actually triggering that error, but I took the time to dig for and find a compatible ram chip from a non-working Mappy pcb. I swapped it in and now I have music, sound and speech! So far it seems to be working fine, but I'll keep my ears open to make sure all is well.

Wow, good deal, I love an easy fix. :D
 
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