WMMT3 N2 boot issue

[meyerli]

Another Namco 2 Maxtune thread

Got a Maximum Tune 3 cab recently which had different issues. Most of them are fixed but there are still troubles with booting.

Following behaviour:
When powering on the cab it sometimes boot. When it boots the game runs without issues. When it does not boot the screen stays dark and gives a 'no signal' error. No sound comes up.
If I now power off and on again the N2 board itself is not starting. Seems it doesn't get any power at all as CPU fan doesn't start spinning and the small led in dongle stays dark. After waiting around an hour can retry to start.

What was tried so far:
- Video card and motherboard recapped
- New power supply connected
- Reseated CPU and refreshed thermal paste
- Jumpered ps-on pin on ATX plug which gets the CPU fan spinning every time but no success on boot.

Any idea what else could be tested?

 

[YourPalCeej]

These N2 PC's are time bombs - Lots of hardware made during a wave of bad capacitors on the market. It could be anything from the GPU, CPU, even the motherboard itself (Look for bulging caps near the CPU itself)

I really hope you can get it working. It could also be the HDD, as old physical drives have been shitting the bed lately too.

 

[meyerli]

The mobo caps didn't have any leakage, anyway replaced them all but no luck.

Would be nice to replace the HDD as those which are still running will get in trouble sooner or later. Unfortunately no SDD mod available yet.

 

[YourPalCeej]

Would kill for any form of solid state reliability in these things, even vanilla 3. I've still got over 500+ blank cards lol.

 

[meyerli]

I would have some space left for some of your cards

 

[meyerli]

The issue has been resolved.

Found the same type if motherboard so replaced the existing in hope it's not having a custom Bios. This fixed the issue of sometimes not booting.

Second issue of not powering on at all on second start is actually an 'ATX feature'. You have to press the power on button to start the PC (aka N2). Solution was in Bios to activate always power on so whenever it gets power the board is starting.

Just wondering if that is an original motherboard of the N2 or if it was replaced already earlier.

 

[mathewbeall]

I am a bit shocked - I thought you needed the custom motherboard with the 2 socketed BIOS chips to run WMMT3?

Matt

 

[meyerli]

Bought mine as a used PC motherboard from an auction (for less than 30 Euros) and it boots up just fine.

 

[mathewbeall]

and you have the regular hard drive (EIDE) and the 2 usb keys?

 

[nem]

@meyerli, can you post pictures of the HDD and dongle you're booting with that motherboard?

That's not a normal N2. The BIOS on a N2 contains specific offsets to load a WMMT3 drive. A normal WMMT3 drive shouldn't boot on any other hardware.

 

[meyerli]

and you have the regular hard drive (EIDE) and the 2 usb keys?

It's an IDE HDD and one USB dongle.

@meyerli, can you post pictures of the HDD and dongle you're booting with that motherboard?

That's not a normal N2. The BIOS on a N2 contains specific offsets to load a WMMT3 drive. A normal WMMT3 drive shouldn't boot on any other hardware.

Strange. Will do the pics in half an hour.

 

[meyerli]

That's the disk and dongle I got with the N2.

 

[mathewbeall]

This is VERY promising! I am blown away that you are using a regular motherboard to run this!

 

[nem]

What region is NEL?

I take it your game is in English?

Can you take a picture of Others under the service menu?

 

[meyerli]

Yes, it's in English.
Not sure what NEL is. Netherlands is what comes first in my mind.

Have attached the settings from Other menu.

 

[nem]

Would be interesting to know if you can boot a Japanese WMMT3 with that motherboard. I don't think you can, but I have been wrong before!

 

[meyerli]

Unfortunately don't have one. But having a second motherboard at the moment (which sometimes did not boot for me) if you have a Japanese one for tests.

 

[dnphamus13]

Lets not forget about the GPU, meyerli is that a 7800GT (PCIe), can you post pictures of the GPU as well?

thanks

 

[Mrhide]

my contribution :

I have 2 "spares" which I hadn't look at closely but with this thread I fired this one up, with matching HD and dongle number:

it reboots with this message:

note that I I am missing the video card so I put another AGP card (6600).


for the records, pictures of the other one, which has 2 dongles (which is which?) but no HD ...

The external ports are also blocked with a plate which has these numbers on it, which I believe are "the match" that needs to occur between the HD and the dongle?

this is my working one , which is missing the dongle number, but which I am assuming is 262261 254111

the video card

 

[Mrhide]

oh and my working has this "fragile" dongle so if you were ever curious to see inside, here you go:

yup. That's a battery. What happens when it runs out?! I dont know