Table top bowling game

Smart Bomb

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Not sure if this is the proper place to post this.

A buddy of.mine wants me to fix this. It is not in my posession yet but he is saying there is something wrong with the computer.

Any idea what i should.look at first when i get it? Ive never worked on anything like this before.
 

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Don't even bother, their unfixable. only thing you can possibly do is convert it to another more reliable bowling game. Original hardware is crap.
 
Don't even bother, their unfixable. only thing you can possibly do is convert it to another more reliable bowling game. Original hardware is crap.

I told him i never worked on anything like that before so don't get your hopes up. He's a buddy and asked me to take a look at since it he knows i work on arcades as a hobby so I told him i'd give it a shot. You never know, I may luck out and it be something simple.
 
There is no luck with those. I know a vendor that has about 20 of these all sitting in a back room all dead. All have motherboard and interface errors. I forgot the manufacturer but Google it and you'll see what I'm referencing.
 
I was able to bring one back to life, but it was the hard drive itself...not the hardware.

The screen wasn't showing anything initially (wasn't getting to the video card driver), so I had to hook up a monitor and a keyboard directly to the motherboard for troubleshooting.

After I determined it was the hard drive, I spent a lot of time messing around with hard drive recovery/repair software. Finally got to the point where I had a drive that would boot again.

The pisser is, I thought I could back the image up to another drive and use that in the game....keeping the original for safety. No dice, the hardware looks for a signature that won't let it boot.

I found some info where a guy said you could update the version and boot from USB, but it didn't work on the first shot and I didn't want to spend any more time on it. The owner was happy that it worked so I left it at that.

For the most part, I agree with the previous posters. The hardware is crappy and it's all tied together to keep anyone from working on it. Really sucks.
 
I fixed three of these last year. PM me when you get it and I will try to help you out. It is usually a bad motherboard. If it is not a bad motherboard it should be fairly easy to fix. If you have to replace the motherboard then you must do it with the exact same make and model, you must also replace the I/O card and buy it directly from Namco which is not cheap.
 
I fixed three of these last year. PM me when you get it and I will try to help you out. It is usually a bad motherboard. If it is not a bad motherboard it should be fairly easy to fix. If you have to replace the motherboard then you must do it with the exact same make and model, you must also replace the I/O card and buy it directly from Namco which is not cheap.

Will do!..thanks.
 
I have never worked on one of these before so any help would be appreciated.

I finally went and picked this up today from my buddies storage unit. I got it home (weighs a ton) and turned it on. No video but i do hear static amd some other noises but doesnt sound like game play. What u see in the pic is the game in the on position.

I will read back through this thread and see the suggestions on repair.
 

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I fixed three of these last year. PM me when you get it and I will try to help you out. It is usually a bad motherboard. If it is not a bad motherboard it should be fairly easy to fix. If you have to replace the motherboard then you must do it with the exact same make and model, you must also replace the I/O card and buy it directly from Namco which is not cheap.

I have sent a pm
 
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