White Screen on my Off Road Arcade Game. Please Help :-)

rcoello76

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White Screen on my Off Road Arcade Game. Please Help :)

Hi everyone,
My arcade machine has stopped working, I cannot find a local repair person for it but would like to get it going again. Please help!
I have a solid white screen, ( pictures below but when shooting picture the black stripe appears but I do not see that) Any idea what I can check or do?
 

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the power plug tends to burn up on those. I don't know if that'll get you a white screen or not though. so I suppose a good place to start is checking voltages. I show how in my PSU guide in my signature. see where that gets you.
 
Thanks I will start there. I forgot to mention screen is white, no sound or any sign of life.
Not just a white screen.
 
You need to test voltages on your power supply... most likely problem is no power or low power.

Take a picture of the PCB (board at bottom of cabinet). I want to see if your board has a battery on it...
 
I will check voltage tomorrow have to grab my volt meter from work. Here is a picture of the board. Yes it has a lithium AA battery on the board which may be bad as well considering ive had it 6 years and never changed it. Would that make it do that?
 

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Yes it has a lithium AA battery on the board which may be bad as well considering ive had it 6 years and never changed it. Would that make it do that?

not unless it shit acid damage all over the board. its just used for high score saves / book keeping.
 
power plug looks good. go through​ the voltage testing and adjustment procedure. and cut the battery off. doesn't need it.
 
I will check voltage tomorrow have to grab my volt meter from work. Here is a picture of the board. Yes it has a lithium AA battery on the board which may be bad as well considering ive had it 6 years and never changed it. Would that make it do that?

That battery is a ticking time bomb. Cut it off and replace with a remote battery if you want high score save. Fortunately it didn't leak in your board.

Your problem is likely power related. I just wanted to make sure the battery didn't ruin your board.
 
unfortunately I don't have one of these to conduct experiments on to recreate that white screen symptom. I don't even know what the 2 boards are, CPU and video?

I would unplug and reseat each connector and ribbon cable one at a time (so you don't mix anything up and plug the wrong things in) ... might be a possibility the ribbons are at fault if the 2 boards aren't communicating to one another.

interesting how this apparently spontaneously happened. I would venture a low voltage condition would produce a black screen, not white. so it has to be a connection issue somewhere with either the wiring or the socketed chips. which I would also encourage reseating. you'll need a PLCC puller tool for that one PLCC chip -- not sure what that chip does.

also, the diagonal black line in the screen in your picture is caused by the vertical refresh of the monitor. the human eye can't see it, but cameras can if you hold it at the right angle or have the exposure settings set a certain way. (don't know if camera phones have a "shutter speed" option..?)
 
It may have not actually went right out. Now that I think about it before then it was starting fine, start playing game and then the screen would go black if I remember right. Does that help any? Sorry it has been awhile and I kind of forgot about that
 
It may have not actually went right out. Now that I think about it before then it was starting fine, start playing game and then the screen would go black if I remember right. Does that help any? Sorry it has been awhile and I kind of forgot about that

We could guess all day. Test the voltages. The most likely cause is your failure to get 5v on the board.

Test voltages before you do anything else (including pulling cables or reseating cables).

So many people have power issues and then cause OTHER issues before they test voltages. That is when you find yourself chasing your own tail fixing a trail of problems unrelated to the original issue.
 
I would try reseating the ribbon cables. I had the same thing happen and this took care of it for me. Hopefully it will take care of your issue also.
 
We could guess all day. Test the voltages. The most likely cause is your failure to get 5v on the board.

Test voltages before you do anything else (including pulling cables or reseating cables).

So many people have power issues and then cause OTHER issues before they test voltages. That is when you find yourself chasing your own tail fixing a trail of problems unrelated to the original issue.

I wind up throwing the kitchen sink and that complicated things. :p

I'm totally with you on your strategy.
 
5.3v and 5.6v coming out of the power supply. Where should I go from there?

The manual (linked below) suggests 5.2 for this PCB. You are running high. You need to turn down the power via the knob on your power supply. There should be a little white knob.

You mention two measurements - which one is the board connected to? In other words - why do you have two measurements? Is there two 5v lugs on your supply?

http://www.gamesdatabase.org/Media/...rt-s_Super_Off-Road_-_1989_-_Leland_Corp..pdf
 
I lowered it to 5.2v. That voltage is same on connector side going in to board as well.
 
I lowered it to 5.2v. That voltage is same on connector side going in to board as well.

Now that you have proper voltage it's time to reseat ribbon cables and connectors. That is the next easiest thing to check.
 
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