What's Inside a Gamebox 450 in 1

MKplayer1start

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First gamebox I bought arrived DOA, I tried everything to get it working but ended up sending it back for a replacement. The replacement also arrived DOA but it was just a dead power supply. I was able to find a new replacement for only $12 so I installed it tonight and everything is working great. I did however have to find the pins on the motherboard to add a power button or else the unit would not power on. I guess somehow the original power supply was able to force the motherboard to turn on without having to press a power button. Anybody know how to do that?

here's the pics of inside the unit in case anybody was interested to see inside one but don't want to break their seal.

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It's a nice little unit. very small micro ATX style motherboard, 1 stick of ram, uses a custom pcb to output everything to a jamma connection. there's some wires soldered under the motherboard going into the inputs of this custom board for all the controls and sound.
 
What size RAM is in there? You think it would help speed up loading, slow-downs, etc if that was upped at all? Oh, and I still haven't had a chance to dig into my Gamebox at all yet. Want to fix the monitor first.
 
What size RAM is in there? You think it would help speed up loading, slow-downs, etc if that was upped at all? Oh, and I still haven't had a chance to dig into my Gamebox at all yet. Want to fix the monitor first.

I haven't checked the ram yet. to be honest, there's no label or model number to tell me what motherboard this is. If I knew that, then you could find out what's the max amount of ram this board could take, and what the fastest cpu the board can handle too.

I will dig deeper into this gamebox later, right now I'm just glad I got it working and can get back to my Nintendo Playchoice project :)

replacement power supply if anybody ever needs:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6610958&CatId=4324

this one works great, mounts perfectly into the gamebox and it's only $12.99
 
Did they actually put the hard drive in upside down? One of my old teachers used to swear that was the only direction you should not place a drive, due to the bearings being more prone to failure.

I've never ran a drive upside down to confirm that, however.

Does that run its own OS? Or is it Windows/Linux or something similar and just using MAME?
 
If you connect the green wire of the power supply to any black wire (ground), it will always be on when power is applied.

One way to do this is with a crimp splice... As the following indicates:
http://www.expresshosting.net/howto/atx-powersupply-modification-auto-turnon.html

I've also done this mod with a paper-clip in the back of the ATX plug (jammed in where the wires come out)... It's reversible that way. :)

I'd imagine the board that the JAMMA connects to *should* be what controls the power on the motherboard... But not knowing the pin-out of those Molex plugs makes it just a guess. Was there anything connected to the power plug on the motherboard originally?
 
Thanks for this info. I will splice the green wire into the ground wire next to it tomorrow. That should work out great. There was nothing connected to the PWR pins on the motherboard and I just checked the original power supply and the green wire is not spliced into any ground. I wonder how they did it. Maybe the original power supply is designed that way?

If you connect the green wire of the power supply to any black wire (ground), it will always be on when power is applied.

One way to do this is with a crimp splice... As the following indicates:
http://www.expresshosting.net/howto/atx-powersupply-modification-auto-turnon.html

I've also done this mod with a paper-clip in the back of the ATX plug (jammed in where the wires come out)... It's reversible that way. :)

I'd imagine the board that the JAMMA connects to *should* be what controls the power on the motherboard... But not knowing the pin-out of those Molex plugs makes it just a guess. Was there anything connected to the power plug on the motherboard originally?
 
Did they actually put the hard drive in upside down? One of my old teachers used to swear that was the only direction you should not place a drive, due to the bearings being more prone to failure.

I've never ran a drive upside down to confirm that, however.

Does that run its own OS? Or is it Windows/Linux or something similar and just using MAME?

Yes the hard drive is mounted upside down, however the gamebox can be layed down or stood up on it's side so maybe on it's side would be best if laying down flat would mean the drive is upside down.

As far as I can tell I think it uses a dos version of mame.
 
Can I ask a question. How do 6 button games like SF2 work. Is there a kick harness input somewhere that I can't see in the pics?
 
Can I ask a question. How do 6 button games like SF2 work. Is there a kick harness input somewhere that I can't see in the pics?

It uses the harness wires after button four for buttons 5&6.

Anyways I got three of these and plugged in the first one and it didnt work. I looked to see why and the power supply was on 230v still. I changed the other ones before I plugged them in. The controlls dont work Im guessing because my machines not using one of the only grounds left for controls.

Two questions
1; do you think I just need to pop in a new power supply (I have one laying around) and
2; who's fault do you think this is? The power on 230v? I think they should've left a note/reminder.
 
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been a while since I messed around with one of these. but if I remember correctly they are not 100% jamma. there's an extra ground or something you will have to check the pinout to make sure your cab is wired properly for it. That's probably why your controls aren't working. another thing is I think you have to coin up before any controls work.

as for the power supply, I'm pretty sure both of mine came set at 230v too. Even after the seller claimed he had tested it before shipping. Just replace the power supply with one you have and read the first page of this thread to splice the wires to make the power supply turn on the motherboard when plugged in.

once you get it working it's a decent little unit. I don't have mine anymore but it never failed on me once I had it going.

It uses the harness wires after button four for buttons 5&6.

Anyways I got three of these and plugged in the first one and it didnt work. I looked to see why and the power supply was on 230v still. I changed the other ones before I plugged them in. The controlls dont work Im guessing because my machines not using one of the only grounds left for controls.

Two questions
1; do you think I just need to pop in a new power supply (I have one laying around) and
2; who's fault do you think this is? The power on 230v? I think they should've left a note/reminder.
 
Is this the best unit of the multi games such as blue elf and such? I've been holding out because I want the best I want good cps2 emulation.
 
Is this the best unit of the multi games such as blue elf and such? I've been holding out because I want the best I want good cps2 emulation.

Havent got my totally up yet but I've heard decent things about it thats why I bought one.
Ive heard it runs better than the blue elf and cheaper than the other computer type board and possibly more reliable because of the metal case.

Thanks for the quick reply MKplayer1start, Ill try that out and see if that fixes it.

Was anybody ever able to change out the games list or upgrade the ram?
 
What CPU are those things running? If the Chinese came up with a HIGH QUALITY box running Dual-Core 64 bit CPU's and a late edition of MAME they'd sell like hotcakes IMHO...
 
Is this the best unit of the multi games such as blue elf and such? I've been holding out because I want the best I want good cps2 emulation.

The CPS2 games are some of the few games that actually run well on the Blue Elf 2. The CPS1 games aren't emulated very well, other than that the CPS2, Neo-Geo and all other games run well.
 
What CPU are those things running? If the Chinese came up with a HIGH QUALITY box running Dual-Core 64 bit CPU's and a late edition of MAME they'd sell like hotcakes IMHO...

little less than 1ghz 256 ram thats what the title screen says, I think I read it has a graphics processor as well.
Back ten + years ago I had a 200mhz mmx 68 ram machine that played everything up to N64. Some mame stuff ran a lttle iffy because its so frontend heavy imo. Those games could run perfect in dos if you didnt mind using a prompt or a gui the like this box does.

I havent heard back from the seller to see if I oughta swap the power supply out or send it back to her. I noticed my power supply like that ones only 120 watts, the one linked is 200. You think its enough? Other than that its the exact same.

Update: I put it on a kill-a-watt and it uses 60 surge at the beggining at then seems to use about 50 watts when the programs loaded. Sounds like it'll works to, me what do you think?
 
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