X-Men 6 player hum and reset issues

Sidewinder

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Hi! First time poster – been lurking for a little while. I'm an educational software systems designer/production manager by trade, but hardware is kind of foreign to me. I'm very willing to learn and try things though.

This past Summer I bought my dream machine – a 6 player X-Men machine. It's original as far as I know. Nothing appears to be a new piece inside. I know several people here have one. It's got a few issues, though, and I'm having a hard time debugging the causes of the problem.

Issue 1: On and off hum in the speakers. More often than not, there is a hum or roar in the both speakers. The audio/music tracks do play fine all the time. When you play the game, the hum will sometimes get louder, then softer. Played it last night and the hum completely went away for about 3 minutes.

I've noticed that the sound of the hum changes sometimes depending on what is on screen (different cut scene image, level change). This makes me wonder if it's got something to do with the video and audio cables being to close together? I've also wondered if it's got something to do with a grounding wire being cut/disconnected somewhere.

I took a really bad video of this with my iPhone today so you can hear the sound. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFJRk46loP8

I think that Issue 2-4 are all related to the same problem.


Issue 2: Occassionally the game resets. Sometimes, usually within the first three levels, the image on screen will freeze for a second, then the screen will go to black, and then the image will come back for maybe a half second, then the RAM boot test screen will come up and the system has restarted.

Issue 3: The game resets when you beat it. I've had this happen the last three times I've beat the game. It either resets right as Astroiod M explodes in the cut screen or when the credits come up.

Issue 4: Things seem to reset worse when someone plays Cyclops. My thought is that since his controller is over the mother board, that the jarring is wiggling a wire and causing it to reset. The guy I bought the game from said that sometimes it wouldn't boot up and he just jiggled the wires going from the main cabinet to the motherboard and it would usually work. I'm guessing that it's something loose somewhere, but I don't really know how to debug it. Is it proper to clean connectors? What would I use? Should I use a volt meter? I'm not even sure if I volt meter would help me with this.


Thank you in advance for reading this and for any help.

Christopher
 
Welcome! Congrats on having a 6 player X-Men. I own one too and it's well worth the space it takes up. :)

One thing to keep in mind that isn't necessarily related to your audio hum is that X-Men and other Konami games suffer from a sound failure. It's because there are surface mount capacitors on that large, black IC near the upper right corner of the pcb. If your sound starts to get really quiet or has lots of static, that's a good sign those caps are starting to go. The good news is you can replace them and if you catch it early enough there's a good chance you'll be fine. It's become more and more of an issue and I highly recommend you keep an eye on it. If you look at that IC you can usually tell if those caps have started to leak.

*edit: From watching your video, I'm wondering if it might be those caps on the IC starting to go out on you. Definitely keep that in mind if another solution doesn't take care of it. Feel free to post a picture of that IC and we should be able to tell if it's starting to show signs of leaking caps.

For your reset problem, one thing to do is check the +5 volts to make sure it's not too low. A volt meter would definitely help here, but with X-Men it's a bit of a pain because the power supply is on the back of the machine and the pcb is in the control panel section. It's best to take the +5 reading at the pcb itself because you can lose some voltage across the wires between the power supply and the pcb. Also, my X-Men had a worn edge connector that I ended up replacing. That's the black plastic piece that plugs on top of the PCB. The wires going into that housing are crimped onto little metal pins and over time these can wear out and need replacing, especially the pins that handle the power input to the pcb. On mine I could see the silver colored pins were tarnished. If the seller was having to wiggle wires that's a fair possibility it's bad pins in the edge connector.
 
As Supergun has mentioned, your reset problems sound like bad power connections. Try reseating your JAMMA edge connector and cleaning the fingers on the pcb. If this fixes the problem, your edge connector will eventually need to be replaced.

Also check if there is a break connector between the power supply and JAMMA harness. That might be making a poor connection as well.
 
If you run those boards without the sound hybrid they will simply keep rebooting. This makes me wonder if your leaking caps have damaged connections on the pins at the edge of that hybrid module.

Someone at Konami should have their rump kicked for designing such a piece of crap.
 
Someone at Konami should have their rump kicked for designing such a piece of crap.
I've often wondered what the function of that chip in in the first place. It's not the amplifier of course, so what's the point? I can't imagine the game would sound a lot different with hardware similar to say The Simpsons which is stereo, but doesn't use that hybrid.
 
I am sorry it's taken me a couple of days to reply back. I really appreciate all of the replies.

I got a few minutes tonight to take some pics of the IC and JAMMA Connector. I left the images large, so I can't upload them here. You can see them at this url:

http://www.christophergiles.com/arcade/arcade.html

I pulled the JAMMA connector and looked at the connections. They all look good to me, but I may be missing something. After I put it back, I turne the machine on and on the second try the game started right up and I was able to play a found level with Cyclops without the machine rebooting. Of course, I've had other times where it did that, so I'm don't really think that unplugging it and replugging it solved the issues (I'm pretty sure I did that months ago and it didn't fix the problem).
 
Oh, I also meant to mention that I didn't check the voltage. I can't seem to find my volt meter, so I'm going to have to borrow one from my Dad.
 
I am sorry it's taken me a couple of days to reply back. I really appreciate all of the replies.

I got a few minutes tonight to take some pics of the IC and JAMMA Connector. I left the images large, so I can't upload them here. You can see them at this url:

http://www.christophergiles.com/arcade/arcade.html

I pulled the JAMMA connector and looked at the connections. They all look good to me, but I may be missing something. After I put it back, I turne the machine on and on the second try the game started right up and I was able to play a found level with Cyclops without the machine rebooting. Of course, I've had other times where it did that, so I'm don't really think that unplugging it and replugging it solved the issues (I'm pretty sure I did that months ago and it didn't fix the problem).
Ugh unfortunately that audio IC is definitely showing signs of leaking. :( The best option is to replace all those caps and neutralize the electrolyte that's already leaked out of the caps. There's a big thread on how a number of people here, including me, have been able to replace the caps and get sound back.

Here's the thread: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=152061
 
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