CPS2 verticle lines SSF2

[Outside of Time]

1. Hi, I picked up a Super Street Fighter 2 the other day. When I got it I noticed it had verticle through the characters and some of the background elements. I've had this happen before on another cps2 game and all I had to do to resolve the issue was to reseat the B board. This however isn't the the case with this one. I have reseated to b board multiple time with the case off on 3 different A boards, but it all results in the same verticle lines. All the Rom checks say OK beside them when the game boots and the Ram checks comeback OK as well. I'm not sure where to begin to diagnose the issue. I don't want to start removing EPROMs because I'm afraid I will suicide the board. Does anyone have any experience with this issue? Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks for your time.

 

[Mitsurugi-w]

Removing eproms won't suicide the board. Inspect all four b-board connectors for damage. Then open the case and inspect traces,around the battery.

 

[xodaraP]

Have you replaced the battery? I've seen a board repair on a CPS1 board where the suicide battery had failed and the board still ran with graphics issues as it wasn't entirely suicided yet.

I had a CPS2 board that only showed green after I put decrypted ROMs on it because even though it wouldn't boot with the original code, it wasn't completely cleared yet.

Also, have you got another A board to test it on so you can confirm the B board is what's at fault?

If yes to both of these, next step is pull and read EPROMs - but Mitsurugi is the man with CPS2 so he's going to be the best resource

 

[Outside of Time]

Ok, yes the battery has been replaced and I have tried it on multiple A boards. I inspected the edge connectors and the battery traces on the B board. They all look good. However I did notice on the daughter board that there was a faint white residue around one of the capacitors. It looks like one of the capacitors leaked electrolytes on the board. I'll run to my local radio shack tomorrow and see if I can't locate some capacitors and replace them. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for your time and help!

 

[Outside of Time]

OK, I finally got back around to this board. I replaced the capacitor on the daughter-board. Vertical lines still present. I check for any broken traces and found a couple of corroded traces. I repaired those. Vertical lines still present. I re-flowed CN 1-4. Vertical lines still present. I'm out of ideas. Does the daughter-board for SSF2 handle sound only? Could one of the mask roms have gone bad?

 

[xodaraP]

Time to start dumping and verifying ROMs to find out. That kind of issue looks like a bad connection to the A board to me but you've pretty much addressed any issues there

 

[cpsystem3]

Check your A and B board interconnects, looks like a pin is bent/mashed. Very common on CPS2.

It's also possible the sprite generator IC inside the B board has died. I have replaced them before. Not recommended unless you have a very dead donor to pull one from.

 

[darkstrider2]

The only time I had vertical lines was when I forgot to put back those annoying to fit metal side pins that hold the A+B together tightly.

 

[Outside of Time]

I've checked the connection and there are no bent pins. I also have the case off and the B board is firmly pushed down. I've also tried it on multiple A boards and the all yield the same issue.

 

[cpsystem3]

Have you pulled all of the graphics roms to inspect the pins? Potentially one bent address line pin can cause that fault.

Roms 13-20 are your graphics roms. Also check for damage around the sockets. I've seen people gouge traces improperly removing EPROMs. This could be the case too.

 

[Outside of Time]

Yes, I have checked the EPROMs. This board was pulled from an arcade and had never been opened prior to me. I removed the EPROMs with a IC Extraction tool. I saw no damage when I visually inspected the area.