PCB Repair Logs – Page 18

Out Zone repair log #7

Dec 192018

Got from Portugal this Out Zone PCB, actually a low-budget korean version :

At visual inspection the board lacked of two 6116 SRAMs (but sockets were installed)

After fitting them I powered the board up and I got the usual black/white wavy striped screen but no boot into game, 68000 main CPU got stalled right after :

Multiple could be the reasons, in particular this Toplan hardware requires the sound circuit to be running otherwise the whole system can’t be initialized.A Z80A rules the sound system :

When I did piggybacking on it I got a ‘SUB CPU ERROR’ message on screen :

Once removed the IC I had confirm that it was really bad.With a good Z80 the board successfully booted into game but sprites were all blocky (it seems this is a common issue of this hardware…)

Sprites data are stored in four 1Mbit 28 pin MASK ROMs :

Devices were soldered in on my board and not socketed like usual so I was forced to remove all of them for dumping.Two of them gave different CRCs at each reading :

Specifically the ones marked ‘ROM1’ @1B and ‘ROM4’ @1L :

I replaced them with two 32 pin 1Mbit non-JEDEC EPROM devices.All seemed fine but while playing the game I noticed some sprites (like explosions) had lines through :

Looking at hardware I figured out that the sprite line buffer is made of four 6116 (2k x 8-bit) static RAMs:

Probing them with a scope revealed some dead outputs of the one @12L :

On the right no activity on some data lines of 6116 SRAM @12L Good signals on the left for comparison

The chip failed the out-of-circuit testing:

Installing a good RAM chip finished the job.Repair accomplished.

Toki repair log #2

General, PCB Repair Logs 1 Response »

Dec 022018

I have two Toki pcbs in storage, both with sprite errors. I saw a video from lukemorse1 (who actually inspired me to start repairing arcade pcbs) on youtube where he worked on a Toki pcb, also with sprite errors.

Here’s how the error on board #1 looked like:

So there are blocks surrounding the sprites.

From Luke’s video (https://youtu.be/Czdt_yTNRTs) I identified the area responsible for sprite handling and I quickly found a 74LS273 with a stuck output at pin 19:

Checking with the multimeter, I found that this pin was almost shorted to ground:

I quickly desoldered the IC and tested it with my VP-398

Replacing it with a working 74LS273 made the sprites appear as they should:

So a big thanks to lukemorse1 and also as always to caius for always helping out 🙂

Wonder Boy III – Monster Lair repair log

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Nov 072018

Received for repair this original Wonder Boy III – Monster Lair PCB (on Sega System16B hardware)

Board booted into game but sound was missing and some objects glitched :

I decided to troubleshoot for first the lack of sound.The amplifier was previously replaced as well as some electrolytic capacitors:

Using my audio probe I could figure out that the lack of sound was not caused by a fault in the analog circuit but it had a digital nature so I went to check the relevant circuit made of a Z80B CPU, a 6116 SRAM, a ROM and a YM2151 (plus a UPD7759 for speech samples) and I found that pin 15 (data line D5) of the RAM was silent as well as on the respective data bit of the Z80 and the YM2151 :

But it was toggling on the ROM (a 27C512 EPROM) which lies on ROM board :

There was clearly a broken trace somewhere so I run a jumper wire from the RAM to the ROM:

This restored the sound.

Now the sprites issue.Relevant data are stored in eight 27C512 on ROM board :

I dumped the devices and my programmer complained about a bad contact on pin 9 of the EPROM @B2 and pin 16 of the one @B7:

At a closer inspection it turned out the pins were cut so they didn’t make a good contact into sockets:

I rebuilt the pins and this fixed the sprite issue.Board fixed.

Contra repair log #1

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Nov 042018

Received from USA this mint Contra PCB (by Konami), actually with japanese stickers and ROM set :

The board kept resetting in an endless loop sign that CPU was executing no valid code hence the watchdog circuit was triggered:

The two program ROMs were dumped as good so problem was elsewhere.Board was almost fully populated with Fuitsu TTLs which are well known to be prone to failure.When probing them with a logic probe I found a floating output (pin 11) of a 74LS08 @17D:

This was confirmed also by logic analyzing and scope:

As schematics shows, the missing signal from pin 11 is called VRC and it should be a control line routed to the custom ‘007452’ :

I removed the TLL and tested it out-of-circuit where it failed miserably :

I installed a socket and fitted a good IC:

The board booted into game with no further issue.Repair accomplished.

The New Zealand Story repair log #4

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Nov 042018

Received for repair this original The New Zealand Story PCB (one layer hardware revision)

Board played fine except for this issue concerning background graphics, they had jail bars though :

All GFX data are stored in eight 1Mbit 28 pin MASK ROMs :

I dumped them starting from the one on the right labeled ‘B53-01’ :

And my programmer complained about a bad contact of pins 18-19 (which are data lines)

As said the device is a 1Mbit 28 pin MASK ROM which no direct replacement exist of, the only option is to adapt a 1Mbit 32 pin EPROM (better with non-JEDEC pinout), that’s what a made :

Perhaps not the best looking solution but it fixed board completely.Job done.

P.S.

This repair inspired me so I made my own design to adapt a 1Mbit 32 pin TSOP Flash ROM to the 28 pin 1Mbit MASK ROM pinout:

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