Wizard of Woes

FrizzleFried

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In an effort to get my WoW running I purchased 2 untested PCB sets (1 complete and the other missing the CPU board). I mixed and matched between those two sets and my set to FINALLY find a mix that worked...

...unfortunately about 5 minutes in to the game the playfield disappears as do the characters and the starfield starts blinking.

Sometimes I can get it to restart with a cycle of the power... but as of late it's been sticking to the blinking screen. I pulled the chips on the CPU board and cleaned them up... it worked great for a few minutes then back to the same issue. I try the other CPU board I have and the starfield is stable and the game plays but the graphics are all corrupted aside from the starfield.

After doing some chip swapping I determined that the middle top socketed chip on the CPU board (not the one with the heatsink) seems to be whats tripping out, though I am not sure if it's the reason for the blinking starfield. If I put one chip in either board the starfield works, game plays, but the graphics are all jacked up... put the other chip in and it plays fine...sometimes...sometimes it boots to the starfield blinking thing...and when it DOES play blind, it will, within a minute or two, drop the graphics off and the starfield starts to blink.

I've tried to increase the voltage from 5.09 to 5.16... and when I did that it worked after being a pain in the ass and not working for a few minutes...I figured "GREAT! It just needed a bump in voltage"...nope...as I finished the 2nd maze it dropped off screen and the damn starfield started blinking. A recycle did nothing (still blinked) so i got frustrated and came in here to bitch.

My only saving grace is that I have yet ANOTHER untested board set coming. My hypothesis based on pulling and replacing boards is that the issue lies in the CPU board... and likely with the one chip 0115 SX I think is what it's marked.

Any suggestions? Tips? Tricks?
 
Bah... after doing a little research on the part 0066-115XX I've determined the chip that changes whether it boots but has graphics issues or it blinks and does nothing (and once in a while works) is an "ADDRESS CHIP"... which is a custom chip and can't be bought new. Nice. Well... here's hoping that the final boardset that comes my way will add the final key...if not, I've just coughed up some decent dough for naught. I was actually HOPING to get 2 working sets out of the group...bummer.
 
FINALLY! It appears I got a break. I received the 3rd untested boardset a few minutes ago. I plugged the whole set in and it worked...except there was no voice. So I put the set I was working on back in but replace the CPU board with the one from the latest board set and sure enough it works! Unfortunately only 1 of the 3 CPU boardsets here have the flush mount heatsink on the center chip. That chip gets hot and this latest working set doesn't have the heatsink. I think I need to make one even if it's just a flat piece of metal epoxied to it.
 
Definately put a heat sink on that chip!....even if you pop one off, one of the other chips and glue it to the working chip.

Also, speech is handled by chip X1 (SC-01)...on the "game board" (the board that the harness connects to). This chip is out there, but it's not cheap....$25-$30.

And also, don't rule out a flakey socket on this speech chip or the customs. Just because one chip doesn't work in a socket....and another chip does....doesn't rule out the socket (this assumes the socket is an original....not a modern dual wipe or equivalent).

Edward
 
Yeah, I used some Arctic Silver adhesive stuff and bought the exact heatsink that is on the other one from the local parts store.

Also, I have 3 additional mainboards here so I could easily pull a speech chip from one of those and put it on the working set... the only thing I will be missing is that one custom chip to have a 2nd working set then...
 
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