War, final assault: Atari repairs and upgrades

warfa

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Hello, new member here. long time reader of these forums.

I finally bit the bullet and purchased 2 "War: final assault" games. Both were assured to be in good shape, but that wasn't entirely true..

After a locksmith and new power supply, I can get the one busted machine to turn on, but the hard drive appears to be toast. No read at all from the HDD test screen.

I tried to do a compact flash upgrade, as per suggestions on these forums and elsewhere around the web, by dumping a backup to a CF card- plugging it into an IDE converter and feeding it floppy power. When I power on, I get stuck with endless "eprom bong" reboots.

I thought it could be a flopped IDE cable, but when I reverse it, the LED on the motherboard doesn't even get past 1-8.. https://www.dropbox.com/s/xjbzd5dwrran3nf/IMG_0824w.MOV

I guess my question is: how do you know when to quit with the upgrade attempts, admit defeat, and buy a replacement drive off ebay :(
 
are you getting the error reading home blocks message with the original harddrive or the CF drive you made?

your problem could still be power, try to power the harddrive directly from the power supply and dont use the jumper cable from the PCB to the harddrive.

The LED window showing the bar going up and down means the game is booting properly but it seams to hangup on the harddrive.

If you end up wanting a CF drive, I have them tested and working for WarFA. You may not have made the CF drive correctly.
 
You could also make an IDE drive with the image you used to make the CF. if it still doesn't work then your image is probably bad. If it works I'd probably call it good.

I imagine that you used CHDman to put the image on the CF?
 
I did use chdman, and I used an chd downloaded from the web. The MD5 confirmed that it was the popular one people seemed to have been using..

my working cabinet has no keys, and I don't have any IDE equipment. So creating an image from my existing drive is not possible at this time.

Here's the MD5 from my warfa.chd - 39791a5a2aea2532d590f5472b061605

One theory I have is that the CF cards I'm using are overloading the buffer and it's loading simply too fast. The other machine's diagnostics reveal that it's reading from the hdd at around 15 megs/second. the CF card is no doubt reading much much faster.

Take a look at this, it loads, but right before the game starts: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7cnp2dtw8cm7aud/IMG_0823w.MOV

Perhaps I should try a slower (older) CF card? Or maybe I should find a different .chd to restore.. I also tried .140 and .147 versions of chdman.
 
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Have you tried the IDE drive from the other machine? Or perhaps tried the CF in the other machine to see if it behaves the same?

I do recall those Vegas board sets (that is running on Vegas hardware, right?) being picky about the hard drive it was connected too. When I worked for Betson we had a stockpile of 10gig Quantums that we used specifically when we were burning a drive for that board set. 5400 RPM too if I recall right.

EDIT: The locks, you dont need a lock smith just a drill and a 1/4" drill bit. :) Or you could go all old school and tear into the games with a flat head screw driver! LOL
 
Ha, a drill bit?! so much for the arcade preservation society! Where are you suggesting I drill a hole? the camlock is bracketed in there pretty strongly.

It is vegas hardware, yes. I have not tried the other ide simply due to it being locked, and being terrified of yanking anything out of an already perfectly working machine (and also lack of a universal joint screwdriver to unscrew the drive out of the tight space)

here's some photos: http://imgur.com/a/W6TlW the inside of the cab I opened, and the outside of the one that's locked..

and here's the speed of the working machine's drive - http://i.imgur.com/qChp9.jpg
 
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To get through the lock in an average cabinet, use a sharp 1/4 inch drill bit, an drill through the center of the lock. You go through the screw, it drops off, and the cabinet opens up.

You buy a new lock from Marco.

Yes, we preserve. Preserve means preserve important resources (money) to fix the games. Locks are nothing parts.

Locksmiths are expen$ive.
 
Yeah, what he said. Drill down the center of the lock. Hell, I can get into most cam locks without tools. Get a good grip on the door and YANK! You might chip the cab but I'm not a collector so I don't care.

One thing to remember about drilling. If your drilling out the back door you should do it with the game off. Not knowing where the boards are or how close the monitor chassis is you could drop what's left of the screw and cam on a circuit board. Not good.

Don't be afraid to swap that hard drive, it's part of the experience of fixing these things.
 
ok here goes.. drilling in 5 minutes. I have no idea how to unscrew in such a tiny space though without using a "universal joint" screwdriver..
 
Also, what brand CF card are you guys that have gotten war working? Could I see a picture of how your setup is going?
 
ok here goes.. drilling in 5 minutes. I have no idea how to unscrew in such a tiny space though without using a "universal joint" screwdriver..

Use a stubby or if you have a phillips bit you can use it with a pair of vice grips or pliers. You just need to break the screw free then you can twist it out by hand.
 
Ok, I broke down and bought a HDD from ebay with war preinstalled.

Now, with nothing plugged into the IDE/power- I get an eprom bong.

With a CF card plugged in, as noted earlier, I get an eprom bong looping over and over.

with THE HARD DRIVE plugged in - I get no bong, nothing. the screen turns on, all of the board lights up, but I'm getting an error code on the little LED..

check this error code out.. look familiar to anyone?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l656bqk16uvkswz/IMG_0870web.MOV
 
Heres what I would do. Try the drive from the working game in the non working game.... Trust me, this will go a LONG way into helping you figure out where your issue lies. Just because the drive that you got from eBay has a sticker on it doesnt mean its good.

You should also check the drive jumper on the drive you bought. Make sure its in the right place and/or try to use the drive with the jumper removed.

EDIT: You could also try your eBay drive in your working game.
 
I removed the little jumper to change it from master to slave, same results.

Will try the other drive momentarily, gotta get it out of the chassy.
 
How's this for depressing?

My working machine boots fine from my CF card reader. ugh ugh ugh.

So I guess that means something's seriously wrong with my not working machine.. How do I diagnose the issue from here?

Could it be videocard or is it usually other hardware? Where can I learn about boot room and more about overall hardware-checks that are happening when you hit power?
 
0 2 5 6 8.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l656bqk16uvkswz/IMG_0870web.MOV

the 8. seems to mean boot-rom error? do the other numbers mean those are also, errors?

edit:
ToplessZ said:
Vegas System
Error Codes:
IOASIC -(Scrolls through letters I,O,A,S,I,C) - Wrong Security Chip installed with working Boot rom and Harddrive
E - Security Chip bad or Pins not making contact at U37
C (with message on screen that says Audio System Init Timeout) - Sound Eprom Failure at U44
8. - Boot Rom Failure or pins not making contact at U27
d - Harddrive Failure Blitz / Showtime
"Unable to get Home Blocks" - Bad Harddrive for Gauntlet Dark Legacy and Legends
2 - Video Card Failure with Blitz/Showtime (Or loose connection between middle board and Video Card)
Eu (Flashes E,u) - Bad Video Card - Guantlet Dark Legacy and Legends (Or loose connection between middle board and Video Card)
0 (dimm) - Games apears to boot but not quite - Video Cable Connection
"Booting phx0:game.exe " - Wrong Video card installed in Blitz/Showtime
0 (Bright) - Blitz/Showtime Working properly
6. (Scolling dash then 6.) - Guantlet Dark Legacy / Legends Working Properly
 
Check the voltage. I can make my pcb cycle by supplying low voltage to it. Multimeter the power supply and increase voltage. I know the Vegas pcb is power hungry.
 
So how do you go about modifying the voltage? I'll buy a meter, I don't currently have a way to check the voltage.

I DID replace the power supply and I think it's 5 less than the native ps, which is 120.
 
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