System 6 sound need some guidance

vintagegamer

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Since day 1 that I got my Time Warp, the sound has not been working 100%. The chime function works and 'some' sound effects work, but not all. I thought maybe the sound board had some bad components on it, so I bought an 'untested' one and, although it appears to be in significantly greater condition, it's doing the exact thing the original one did!

In the marvin3m guide it says you should be able to put a lead on a ground with your DMM and then touch one of the pins at location 10J3, and you should hear individual sounds that are getting ported from the sound board. When I do this I get no sounds at all, and that's in either attract mode OR while a game is on and the connector is removed.

I checked the 3 pins on the power input connector (at 10J1) and they are getting 9V AC as they should.

I checked the 2 fuses on the board with my DMM and they test good.

If I press the sound test button in the upper right corner of either sound board, I get the repeated cycle of sounds so, it's definitely pushing sounds to the speaker.

If I run the solenoid test, I should hear 5 sounds generated using solenoids. I hear all 5 sounds generated correctly.

Anyone have any suggestions at this point? Could it be that I now have 2 sound boards with burnt out PIA's or 6802 chips? Right now it's pretty much the only main components I haven't troubleshot yet.

Thanks!
 
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Williams pinballs of that era have an internal sound setting. If you have a manual, it's listed in it. Do you have batteries installed? It sounds to me like your sound board is working fine.....it's coming up in default setting, or it could just be how it's set. The manual lists 32 different sound settings (Williams was ridiculous with this shit). The factory suggested setting is 18 (you have options 00-31). It's function 35 in the settings.

Edward
 
Since day 1 that I got my Time Warp, the sound has not been working 100%. The chime function works and 'some' sound effects work, but not all. I thought maybe the sound board had some bad components on it, so I bought an 'untested' one and, although it appears to be in significantly greater condition, it's doing the exact thing the original one did!

In the marvin3m guide it says you should be able to put a lead on a ground with your DMM and then touch one of the pins at location 10J3, and you should hear individual sounds that are getting ported from the sound board. When I do this I get no sounds at all, and that's in either attract mode OR while a game is on and the connector is removed.

I checked the 3 pins on the power input connector (at 10J1) and they are getting 9V AC as they should.

I checked the 2 fuses on the board with my DMM and they test good.

If I press the sound test button in the upper right corner of either sound board, I get the repeated cycle of sounds so, it's definitely pushing sounds to the speaker.

If I run the solenoid test, I should hear 5 sounds generated using solenoids. I hear all 5 sounds generated correctly.

Anyone have any suggestions at this point? Could it be that I now have 2 sound boards with burnt out PIA's or 6802 chips? Right now it's pretty much the only main components I haven't troubleshot yet.

Thanks!

Check the settings mentioned above first. Then check:

Each sound is triggered by an individual input pin. You can ground each of those pins to test each sound. It's possible that you've lost connectivity between the sound board and MPU/Driver board on some of those pins due to bad connectors or something. It's also possible that there is a problem with the PIA or driver circuits that are driving those sound inputs.

I've got some good information on that series of board here:
http://warpzonearcade.com/?p=365

EDIT: Also check the schematic for your game. Not all of the sound inputs were used in all games.
 
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Williams pinballs of that era have an internal sound setting. If you have a manual, it's listed in it. Do you have batteries installed? It sounds to me like your sound board is working fine.....it's coming up in default setting, or it could just be how it's set. The manual lists 32 different sound settings (Williams was ridiculous with this shit). The factory suggested setting is 18 (you have options 00-31). It's function 35 in the settings.

Edward

Thanks Edward, yep I've tried the different settings the manual suggests: 18 factory setting, then 12, 14, and 16. It does the same thing with both boards (initial hum sound, then it goes away and all you get are chime sounds and the solenoid sounds). And like you said, I don't really understand all of the varieties of sound options either!

Greatly appreciate the input.
 
Check the settings mentioned above first. Then check:

Each sound is triggered by an individual input pin. You can ground each of those pins to test each sound. It's possible that you've lost connectivity between the sound board and MPU/Driver board on some of those pins due to bad connectors or something. It's also possible that there is a problem with the PIA or driver circuits that are driving those sound inputs.

I've got some good information on that series of board here:
http://warpzonearcade.com/?p=365

EDIT: Also check the schematic for your game. Not all of the sound inputs were used in all games.

Thanks Lindsey,

I did try grounding the pins, but I was doing that on the actual sound board, not on the driver board. Am I at the correct place? I was going off of the marvin3m details, and I thought they said to check the pins at the sound board (10J3).

I've got some good information on that series of board here:
http://warpzonearcade.com/?p=365

I will check this out as well
 
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OK I checked the jumper setup on my original TW board and it matches the ones in Lindsey's pic below:

Williams_System34_Sound_Board_Repair_Feb_2010_10.jpg


I have not yet been able to check the jumpers on the replacement board that's in the game now. Will report back on that when I can.
 
Guess I will be swapping out those 4050 buffer chips next, as it looks like others have had that problem with these boards too.

Argh. Another thing that has to wait!
 
Well while doing more research I've learned that the connector on the driver board for the sounds is at 2J9 (bottom left corner of the board). I'm starting to get confused with my troubleshooting because:

1. when pushing the sound test button on the sound board, sounds are being generated
2. during the solenoid test, sounds are being generated (sounds use solenoids 9-13 to be created)

If sounds are being generated by the board successfully, and during the solenoid test it is known that the solenoid triggers are generating sounds, then I'm not totally following where the 'disconnect' is. I'm also hearing some sounds during gameplay, but I've read that it's a combination of these 5 sound connections that makes for the additional sounds that I am not hearing.

Is it at all possible to isolate what's causing the missing sounds by what I've provided above? I'm starting to feel like a hamster on a wheel and I don't want to just start blind swapping chips on the sound board(s) if I don't have to. Again, I have 2 separate sound boards which, when installed in the game, are exhibiting the EXACT same behavior. So, either both boards have the same bad components IMO, or the problem lies elsewhere.

While waiting for replies, I will be sure to check the driver board for any cold solder joints and will reflow those pins. This is just seeming really crazy!
 
If sounds are being generated by the board successfully, and during the solenoid test it is known that the solenoid triggers are generating sounds, then I'm not totally following where the 'disconnect' is. I'm also hearing some sounds during gameplay, but I've read that it's a combination of these 5 sound connections that makes for the additional sounds that I am not hearing.

Could even be a RAM or ROM issue. Not the most likely but definitely possible. If all of the sound triggers are working in solenoid test then it gets interesting.

I would try the game in pinmame with the same setting to be sure that the sounds you're expecting should actually be there.

I don't want to just start blind swapping chips on the sound board(s) if I don't have to.

Definitely don't do that. Won't get you anywhere.
 
If you watch the below vid, I don't have most of the sounds that you are hearing while the game is being played. Most importantly, the low pitched hum that keeps going up incrementally.



In this vid I don't have the sound that you hear at the top eject hole:

 
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This might be obvious but ensure that the switch on the sound board is set to the non-chime setting if you want digital sounds and background sound.
 
This might be obvious but ensure that the switch on the sound board is set to the non-chime setting if you want digital sounds and background sound.

Yep tried that one too, if set one way it's nothing but chimes, to the other it's mostly chimes but a few synth sounds. Just not all. It's crazy!
 
So the two boards show same result,it's may be fault in MPU board.Trace the sound section of the MPU board,may be some buffer is bad.Sound problems are real pain to fix,and the info in the net is not too much,only some general fixes like total no sound,but specialy for speech and problem like yours,nothing.I hope you to fix it,this will be in help for other
When you switch the sound board to not digital option,can you hear all the sounds(I now they will not be the same,but you must have some sound) or the problem is the same with the two options?
 
So the two boards show same result,it's may be fault in MPU board.Trace the sound section of the MPU board,may be some buffer is bad.Sound problems are real pain to fix,and the info in the net is not too much,only some general fixes like total no sound,but specialy for speech and problem like yours,nothing.I hope you to fix it,this will be in help for other
When you switch the sound board to not digital option,can you hear all the sounds(I now they will not be the same,but you must have some sound) or the problem is the same with the two options?

Thanks Arakissun for your feedback- when you flip the switch to chimes (non-digital), you hear chimes for everything as far as I can tell. When you flip the switch to synth sounds (digital), you hear a combination of chime and digital sounds, but the number of chime sounds is more than the digital-synth ones. Both sound boards that I have do the same thing, so like you said it is telling me the problem lies separate from the sound board.

Any idea what chips on the main MPU correspond to sound? I was under the impression that the sounds were solely handled by the sound board and driver board but I could be mistaken.

This is a weird problem and in my time of doing research it appears others with this game have the same or similar problems.
 
Question: when the self-test button is pressed on the sound board, should a variety of sounds be played, or just 1 in repetition? Currently I'm only hearing one sound repeated (either with or without the connector in the upper left corner connected), and in one post that I read it said that there should be a variety of sounds that the game cycles through. Am I onto something here?
 
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Question: when the self-test button is pressed on the sound board, should a variety of sounds be played, or just 1 in repetition? Currently I'm only hearing one sound repeated (either with or without the connector in the upper left corner connected), and in one post that I read it said that there should be a variety of sounds that the game cycles through. Am I onto something here?

Someone at RGP said this is definitely an issue. My God will you look at me, now I'm actually quoting myself in posts. Cripes.
 
Not sure about your game but I just fixed a Firepower which has the speech and sound board. I had to rebuild the power supply, bad bridge rectifier and replaced the 5 volt regulator wile I was at it. I also found some cracked solder joints on the sound board pins so you might check for that. Once I got the sound board power supply working, pushing the test button would automatically cycle though all the sounds and speech for the game. So it sounds like you have a problem on the sound and or speech board if your pin has a speech board. Have you tested the ROMs on the sound board?
 
He said that the poblem rise up with the two boards.
But is the the two boards are with separate ROMs on them,or you just use one part of roms for the two boards-I mean you take rom from one and place it on the other,or the two boards are with their roms.If it second option I don't think is ROMs,but you can pull up,clean them and replace again in the sockets.Many people say that the sockets must be replaced,you can do this,it's not hard,but for men this step never fixed me problems,only clean one possibility

So you really must check the power board.This is the next much easy step to do before going to MPU board
 
Someone at RGP said this is definitely an issue. My God will you look at me, now I'm actually quoting myself in posts. Cripes.

I'm going from memory......so someone please correct me if I'm wrong......When you hit the test button on Williams sound boards....generally you will get a "loop" of one sound (I believe in some games, you get nothing). So, I think RGP poster is wrong;).

Edward
 
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