What does this mean?

joebunn

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If you look at the screen shot below, can you tell me what the red error is all about? The game seems to be working fine, but this can't be good. Is this something I can repair myself or am I going to end up electrocuted? Any help you can give is great!
 

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The UG14 RAM chip is throwing an error according to the screen.

Not sure what that does or even if it's used in that particular game, but if everything is working, why worry :)

CHris
 
UG14 is an eprom and yes it is socketed.
You Need to unplug your machine that way you and your board won't get shocked.
You might need to reseat the chip in the socket to clear up your rom issue.
 

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you can also try gently sanding the legs of the chip with fine grit sand paper. this will ensure a good connection. make sure you put the chip back in the right way!!!! if you don't then that chip will definitely be smoked.

before doing all that you can also push down on that chip making sure it is completely socketed and try booting it up.

I don't know if there's any negatives to leaving a bad chip in if the game play's fine but you can easily get a replacement for it from hobbyroms.com (steph here on the forums).
 
yeah, I know that my MK1 T-unit board has all EPROMs. so you could potentially erase/reprogram yourself if you have the tools for it.

if the labels fall off the roms, exposing the windows, they can get corrupted if they're around a bright UV light source for too long. it sounds farfetched but considering how much these boards have been passed around the last 17-18 years who knows. :p

I've likewise seen the corrosion issue on the chip legs with these (on my MK2 in particular), which can be an intermittent issue that either generates an error or doesn't. I've never seen a rom actually go bad on these particularly, it's usually something stupid like a reseat or having to sand corrosion off the legs to get it working again. I've observed more RAM failures with both Y-unit and T-unit boards.
 
if the labels fall off the roms, exposing the windows, they can get corrupted if they're around a bright UV light source for too long. it sounds farfetched but considering how much these boards have been passed around the last 17-18 years who knows. :p

I was wondering about the UV light and the windows on these chips (now i know once again skeweled by mecha187's vast knowledge).

Anyone happen to know of a place where i could print up said missing labels?

On another note semi on topic, i had a bad u126 on my UMK3 board (it was missing the label if i remember correctly). I tried everything i could to see if it was still good without a reader with no luck. I ended up just ordering a replacement from Steph (hobbyroms.com) and it worked perfectly, he even repro'd the original sticker.
 
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I was wondering about the UV light and the windows on these chips (now i know once again skeweled by mecha187's vast knowledge).

Anyone happen to know of a place where i could print up said missing labels?

On another note semi on topic, i had a bad u126 on my UMK3 board (it was missing the label if i remember correctly). I tried everything i could to see if it was still good without a reader with no luck. I ended up just ordering a replacement from Steph (hobbyroms.com) and it worked perfectly, he even repro'd the original sticker.

you can use any number of things from like an office supplies store. in the past I've taken those different colored dots and cut them to size to cover windows lol.

don't worry about them getting sticky. some windex or rubbing alcohol and a soft towel or q-tip can get that stuff off easy.

alternatively, you can get fancy and buy the printable sheet labels and label all the chips with their respective #'s too.
 
you can use any number of things from like an office supplies store. in the past I've taken those different colored dots and cut them to size to cover windows lol.

don't worry about them getting sticky. some windex or rubbing alcohol and a soft towel or q-tip can get that stuff off easy.

alternatively, you can get fancy and buy the printable sheet labels and label all the chips with their respective #'s too.

i'm looking for the fancy :D

exact repro's if i can, if someone has and i can get my hands on a sheet with every label that's what i'm shooting for. If not I'm sure i can do it myself just hoping someone has already done it lol
 
sounds like an interesting photoshop project. making "repro" labels.

I'd try it myself, I just don't ever have time at this time of the year.
 
I would be interested in Repro labels for eproms for the NBA jam.
I Know my NBA Jam had some outside time due to the stuff I found in the old Monitor and the faded sides. Getting New lables would be nice.
 
I would be interested in Repro labels for eproms for the NBA jam.
I Know my NBA Jam had some outside time due to the stuff I found in the old Monitor and the faded sides. Getting New lables would be nice.

I'll start working on these this weekend i'll be doing at least (NBA Jam, Hang time, MK's).
 
The original sticky labels for a lot of game EPROMs were nothing more than dot-matrix printed paper labels with the part number. I think that yes, Midway used slightly more professional sticky labels - actual printing on a sticker, but still. Part number and a logo on a sticker, and little else. Just write the chip number on a label with a pen and stick it on :D I usually use cut up mailing labels or floppy disk labels.

As for chips being exposed to UV... Nintendo never actually covered the windows on their eproms. Their little chip labels were only on the ceramic part, not covering the window. I worked on one DK Jr. board that had all the chips on one side corrupt from exposure to the sunlight. It was really weird - but it was obvious the game had it's back cover off for a long time facing the sun. The red printing on the picture tube label was almost completely faded away.

Brief exposure to the sun will not harm an EPROM. Brief being anywhere up to a couple days. Having tried this in the past, leaving an EPROM on a windowsill to see when it gets corrupt, it took more than two weeks to start seeing errors. You need a lot of directed UV to erase an EPROM.

Getting the old glue of EPROMs sometimes takes some effort, but it's not usually too bad. The window is made of quartz, and should come clean with enough scrubbing and solvents.

-Ian
 
This is mainly for looks as many of the 90's midway games don't use window style chips. As i'm still working on them i haven't gotten into what to recommend for adhesive and removing the existing adhesive i don't think will be required.

Steph is going to hook me up with the file he has and i'm going to try and make some revisions to it or add to it.

this is basicly what i'm going to make:

attachment.php


i just cropped this out of a picture of my TE board that i have, I have an original NBA Hangtime u127 label infront of me right now and have 3 other boards to scan chips off of that have been replaced (nba jam TE, UMK3, NBA Jam and KI2) which i plan on doing tonight or tomorrow depending.

Has anyone ever seen a L2.0 or L4.0 or any strange 10th digit? just wondering if i should make those up also. I've seen L4 but not L4.0

5/24 got around to scanning the U127 i have i've attached the image, but here's a link to the original scan (1200dpi goodness) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/nismo240sx1/Arcade Game/U127.jpg
 

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