Got this for repair today. Was under the impression it had suicided but this had jailbars on all screens starting from the Q sound screen.
On opening the case it was obvious what the cause may be.
One of the gfx maskroms was only half fitted.
Refitting the Rom fixed the problem.
I got 2 CPS2 boards today for repair.
One of them was a Children of the Atom game that had suicided, simple enough.
I erased ROMs 3 and 4 and burned the bootleg code. The game booted up to the copyright screen then bombed me out with an error.
After a bit of playing about it turns out that the installed ROMs were from the Japanese version of this game and this is different from the Euro version (which is what the Phoenix ROMs are based on) so I had to erase ROMs 5 – 10 and reprogram them with the Euro version.
Got my first CPS Dash game today.
Its Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and has been modded so as not to suicide.
It looked like a conversion as the label is not the proper one and there is a genuine Slam Masters sticker underneath it (which I have removed and scanned) but inside all of the MASKROMs are genuine Capcom Cadillacs ones so looks like the case might be a donor.
The CPS Dash games are middle ground from the CPS1 and CPS2 boards. They have a case, it has a built in fan, Q-Sound is used and there is separate line out audio.
The boards are similar to that of CPS1 but the A board has been stripped of its audio section and this is now located on a new B board which has the Q-Sound chips and in this case, a suicide battery that when it dies it takes the sounds with it.
The C board on this is what has all the game ROM’s on it and the small D board is what is the C board on the CPS1 games. This D board also had a suicide battery on it. Phew!
No suicide mod
Very small repair.
I have finished making up plugs for various kick harnesses which makes it nice and easy to swap out games. I started playing my Street Fighter Zero 2 game and the sound was far too loud, when I tried to enter the test mode I found that none of the buttons on the A board worked.
I opened the case and found that the buttons had seen better days.
The buttons are normal SMD push buttons. The Capcom ones have a fifth leg which is just grounding the case of the push button and the ones I have as replacement one have 3 but since the buttons are activated via plastic switches I’m not too bothered.
Id already replaced the TEST button when I took this picture.
Changed all 3 and tested the board. The volume can now be set to a normal level.
Today I received my latest CPS2 acquisition, but in it black metal case and single board guise.
I haven’t seen too many of these black units for sale so when I did I jumped at the chance to get one.
When I inquired about this board the seller told me the suicide battery was replaced 6 months ago, when I opened up the case I find the original battery in place and the end of life date on it was 2011!
The battery cannot be replaced like the other CPS2 units, if I remove the battery as normal the board will suicide, the battery change has to be carried out with the power on. Not a massive problem but extra care needs to be taken not to short anything with the soldering iron whilst changing the battery.
Another thing to note is that should the board suicide its not a simple matter of erasing and writing new code to the EPROM’s. These boards have a SIMM with 48pin TSOP flash ROM’s fitted. I actually do have an adapter for these so its not a massive loss if I get a suicided one but I do prefer my boards to be original if possible.
I changed the battery and tested the game with no problems.
