Way to test a CPS2 A board?

Tighe

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Hi All,

I have a CPS2 Marvel Versus Capcom A&B board set. When the cabinet is powered on I get a slightly green screen. I figured this was a sucide battery issue, but when I checked the voltage it was over 3v. Does anyone know a way of checking to make sure the A board is working and that the B board is sucided? I have been watching ebay in the hopes of pickingm up a cheap working A&B board set, but I would be much happier if I could just get this one working. I just don't want to spend the money to have it phoniexed if one of the boards is broken.

Tighe
 
Raz has created a program that will tell you if the B board has suicided, BUT you need to be able to program up a suitable EPROM. Do you have an EPROM programmer or know anyone who could program one up for you? You'll need a 27C4096 EPROM (or equivalent). Or perhaps someone here could do one for you.

Look at the last paragraph on this page for the link to the file which includes the binary and a readme file:

http://cps2shock.retrogames.com/suicide.html
 
Make sure the boards are snug take them apart and put them back together one of my games wouldnt work unless I messed with it making sure it was completley snug with the mobo. May just be a bad connection you are having.

Are you using the same region boards?
 
Raz has created a program that will tell you if the B board has suicided, BUT you need to be able to program up a suitable EPROM. Do you have an EPROM programmer or know anyone who could program one up for you? You'll need a 27C4096 EPROM (or equivalent). Or perhaps someone here could do one for you.

Look at the last paragraph on this page for the link to the file which includes the binary and a readme file:

http://cps2shock.retrogames.com/suicide.html

Wow thanks, I don't know how I missed that! I don't have a programmer, I remember that they used to be expensive. Does anyone have one I could borrow (I would play for shipping both ways) so I can avoid the cost of buying the EPROM and programmer? Do you know where on the B board it needs to be installed?
 
Make sure the boards are snug take them apart and put them back together one of my games wouldnt work unless I messed with it making sure it was completley snug with the mobo. May just be a bad connection you are having.

Are you using the same region boards?


That is a possibility, this was an original unit so the boards match, but when I got it the operator removed the casing from the A and B boards to make them fit tighter. I will take some pictures of the whole thing and post. I tried taking it apart and putting together several times with the same green dim screen. I know the monitor works, so it is either the A or B board.
 
Wow thanks, I don't know how I missed that! I don't have a programmer, I remember that they used to be expensive. Does anyone have one I could borrow (I would play for shipping both ways) so I can avoid the cost of buying the EPROM and programmer? Do you know where on the B board it needs to be installed?

I'd offer to burn the EPROM for you, but as I'm in the UK the postage would work out more expensive than if someone in the US programmed one up for you.

The readme file tells you where to insert the chip.

You could also email Raz and see if he'll sell you a chip for a few bucks.
 
I'd offer to burn the EPROM for you, but as I'm in the UK the postage would work out more expensive than if someone in the US programmed one up for you.

The readme file tells you where to insert the chip.

You could also email Raz and see if he'll sell you a chip for a few bucks.

I will ask Raz, but when I asked him the same question back in June he never mentioned the existence of his test program.

I just picked up a working A/B Street Fighter Alpha off ebay, So I will be able to test the MVC board on it. The price was so good I couldn't pass it up. :)

If Raz won't I will take you up on the offer!
 
There are folks on the site that do this as a per fee service.

For programming, I charge the cost of the chip plus 3.99 for the first chip and $1.99 for each additional chip. Either send me the code or send me a link where I can get it and I put the code on it before shipping.

Steph at Hobbyroms does a similar service, but I don't know what his rates are.
 
There are folks on the site that do this as a per fee service.

For programming, I charge the cost of the chip plus 3.99 for the first chip and $1.99 for each additional chip. Either send me the code or send me a link where I can get it and I put the code on it before shipping.

Steph at Hobbyroms does a similar service, but I don't know what his rates are.


Thanks, I will take you up on that depending on how much you charge for the chip. I found it here for $5.99 http://tr.im/vbNP

I am thinking that there is something else wrong with it, check out the voltage readings from the battery:




This is what is displayed onscreen when powered up (Close-up):

 
I wish RAZ was in the States cause Id like to get a few boards Phoenixed but it seems like all the shipping back and forth would be a pain.
 
There is another option - take a picture of your B board with the top removed - this is for proof of ID. You then pay him and he can then send you the binaries which you (or someone with a programmer) can program onto some EPROMs and fit into the board (and don't forget to remove the battery).

Alternatively, for a bit extra, I believe Raz will program the EPROMs for you and send them to you.

Why not email him and ask?
 
Thanks for the info. If it was just one way shipping that would save a lot of time and money. I will get ahold of him and see what he can do for me.
 
I had an A board from when I bought my Street Fighter Alpha 3, it had all kinds of intermittent issues, notably where the sound would just quit on it. I used the existing A board I had, the messed up one was like a spare. I run my Alpha 2 board on it now.

I was able to fix the problem though. take apart the A board plastic case, I think it has snap tabs too, my mind's cloudy now. I used an old toothbrush and a can of compressed air (always remember to squirt the trigger on those away from anything to discharge that white spray goo, never shake the can, and always hold it upright) and cleaned all the gunk out. put it back together, worked like a charm.


your connectors could be gunked up. there's 4 of them. :)

try it.
 
Problem solved

LOL, this will be a lot easier than trying to find out if the board is broken. I also picked up Street Fighter Alpha A/B too.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290334792957


I don't normally through money at a problem, I like to fix things myself. In this case it is a hassle since the battery is reading 3.6v and then there is the hassle of burning a chip to tell me if it has sucided, then to send off to have phoenixed. It will be much easier to have a board I know that I working phoenixed. But in reality I will just add an extra battery so I won't have to.
 
LOL, this will be a lot easier than trying to find out if the board is broken. I also picked up Street Fighter Alpha A/B too.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290334792957


I don't normally through money at a problem, I like to fix things myself. In this case it is a hassle since the battery is reading 3.6v and then there is the hassle of burning a chip to tell me if it has sucided, then to send off to have phoenixed. It will be much easier to have a board I know that I working phoenixed. But in reality I will just add an extra battery so I won't have to.

so you know, if your battery suicided, it will give you a dark blue screen. I did a battery swap on my SFA2 (and SFA3 too for that matter) and when I installed it into my cab, it blue screened. I thought I fucked up the battery swap, but you have to REALLY smash the two boards together tight.

technically speaking, I want to say since the boards weren't seated right, it wasn't able to do the decryption (when the battery dies, the board loses the decryption code, rendering it unable to "load" the game) ... but luckily the fix was easy.

you would think with such a design though that the boards wouldn't be so flimsy on the inside to allow for that to happen. but those fancy clips for the sides of the casings? yeah... those are your friends. trust me.

your issue looks like something else. if you don't wanna take the whole thing apart, just try blasting out the connectors with a can of air and possibly sweep them out with a toothbrush like I suggested before. you might just have a shitty connection from age.

the cooling fans on these get pretty nasty too.

A boards are relatively easy to find though I think. SFA1 is a dime a dozen, cause the game kinda eats dick compared to SFA2, and especially SFA3 (which I got extremely lucky to get back in Feb)

for the hell of it, is your +5 set right on your power supply?
 
so you know, if your battery suicided, it will give you a dark blue screen.

That is good to know -- I am glad I bought a new board. When I got the cabinet the A and B boards were taken out of the case and rammed together. The cabinet is incredibly clean and looks brand new. The connectors are super clean too.

for the hell of it, is your +5 set right on your power supply?


My +5v is reading 5.06 volts. That is about right, right?
 
That is good to know -- I am glad I bought a new board. When I got the cabinet the A and B boards were taken out of the case and rammed together. The cabinet is incredibly clean and looks brand new. The connectors are super clean too.




My +5v is reading 5.06 volts. That is about right, right?

5.06 should be sufficient. since it's impractical for me to test 60+ power supplies for our games, I can sense when the exhibited behavior is power-related and throw my meter on it. I've had to replace both power supplies in my Daytona USA twin. periodically the game after being on for a few hours would scramble up the screens, and was even more obvious by the fact that the two linked games would be out of sync. a test on one side showed up at 5.50(!)V and the other was real low, about 5.02V (gotta remember those boardsets consist of about 5 interlocked boards -- lot of mouths to feed).

likewise, our Road Burners was right next to my SFA3 machine, and I was playing SFA3 and noticed that Road Burners just kind of said "screw you" in the attract mode and flashed a hard disk error. now I knew the power supply was suspect, because when we got that game as part of a huge game lot we purchased, I noticed the cooling fan in the power supply was locked up and dead. friend of mine works for Best Buy, he had some extra 80mm fans laying around his house, so I swapped a new one in. would you believe that game worked for about 11 months with a +5 set at 4.82V ??? the hard drive ran off the board power connector! you can tell the power supply is shot when if you adjust the +5 pot and you can't get it beyond 5.05V. this one, luckily, adjusted out nice. it's just got mileage on it. gotta figure these video games we got are 10-15 years old, lot of them with original equipment still.

stranger things have happened, though. I have Randy Fromm's Blue Book of Really Good Technical Stuff or whatever the hell the title is, and read a story about a WWF WrestleMania game where the +5 was set UNDER 5.00V and the game worked fine. when the power supply was bumped up to what I think Fromm typically uses (5.10V) the game started resetting and exhibiting all kinds of strange behaviors. so there's some game hardware out there that can function perfectly fine even when the +5 is set too low, and there's obviously hardware out there that demands a little bit more.

I'd try bumping your +5 up to 5.15V, see if there's any change. there probably won't be. if you're uncomfortable making this adjustment, then don't mess with it, it probably won't make a difference anyway. case in point, my Daytona that was pushing 5.50V ? yeah, broken +5 adjustment pot. the power supply bottomed out to 0.03V, after which I immediately cut the power. older PSU's can be fickle like that, but I understand they're not exactly the cheapest item to replace, Daytona demands one of the beefier 200W Happ units, but it's a very important component all at the same time.

shitty power supplies can be the difference between your game working ok and your game DYING.

sorry for the long post. thought I'd throw some more anecdotes from my year of doing this tech shit at you. I guess it's worth noting that I learned how to do it from my vast computer knowledge and spending my entire life playing games in our past arcades (we had a grocery store with like this video game cellar dwelling, and even had the cockpit versions of Sinistar and Star Wars in it!)
 
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I'd try bumping your +5 up to 5.15V, see if there's any change. there probably won't be.

Thanks I bumped it up, no difference. I figure it is dead, since I am getting a replacement anyway I won't mess with it anymore. Do you think I should try the good A and B board in the this one to figure out which part is bad? Or do you think it is foolish and risk the chance to ruining the good A/B board set?

…spending my entire life playing games in our past arcades (we had a grocery store with like this video game cellar dwelling, and even had the cockpit versions of Sinistar and Star Wars in it!)


Where was this AWESOME grocey store?? Here are the stores I used play at in my home town (therewas no arcade):


  • P&C - Pole Position & Pac Man Jr. (much later after relocating MK, MK2, NBA JAM, Area 51, Daytona USA)
  • Jamesway - Donkey Kong & a Ms Pac Man with a "Hot Pursuit" button -- later they had a MVS with Samurai Shodown.
  • Carl's Drugs - Moon Patrol, Mr. Do!, Kangaroo
 
Thanks I bumped it up, no difference. I figure it is dead, since I am getting a replacement anyway I won't mess with it anymore. Do you think I should try the good A and B board in the this one to figure out which part is bad? Or do you think it is foolish and risk the chance to ruining the good A/B board set?




Where was this AWESOME grocey store?? Here are the stores I used play at in my home town (therewas no arcade):


  • P&C - Pole Position & Pac Man Jr. (much later after relocating MK, MK2, NBA JAM, Area 51, Daytona USA)
  • Jamesway - Donkey Kong & a Ms Pac Man with a "Hot Pursuit" button -- later they had a MVS with Samurai Shodown.
  • Carl's Drugs - Moon Patrol, Mr. Do!, Kangaroo

it's actually the same building our current arcade is in. it originated back in the 20's as an outdoor fruit market owned by my great grandpa after he came over the boat from Greece. he then expanded on the building a couple times until he retired in the 60's. my grandpa took it over and turned it into a supermarket for another 20 some odd years.

then the supermarket (with arcade!) got turned into a pool hall/arcade. epic auction back in '86. I was 4, I got to plug a bunch of different games in and play them every morning. :D

I actually beared witness to Professor Pac-Man. how awful was it? pretty awful. even my 4 year old counterpart saw through that shit!
 
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