The Punisher CPS1.5 (desuicided) issues [resolved]

[wigsplitta]

Posted on AO earlier, and adding it here too to see if anyone has a suggestion or two of what might be the cause and resolution to some issues I'm having with The Punisher?
Board was decuicided before I got it, and no changes have been made by me. It has been working perfectly fine for a few months, up until a week ago - and needless to say it literally hasn't been touched/moved since the last time it was working perfectly!


Graphics and sound all appear fine game plays smoothly. I've re-seated all boards and checked roms are firmly in. Output from loom is definitely 5v. Extra wire on base of board seems good, and the trace between 30-31 is definitely cut (i can't fully test with a meter though)


During gameplay, the following issues are showing:


Settings screen comes up fine, and everything is good apart from the System Configuration menu that shows "GAME DIFFICULTY" repeatedly, and I'm unable to exit from it.

Spoiler

Game freezes at the start of the stage one boss Scully
ILLEGAL INST. 0043978

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Lives show up as alphabetic, rather than numerical! Start with t lives, then s then r

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Memory checks are good

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Hardware pics:

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[Mitsurugi-w]

I'm thinking a bad rom is the culprit.

 

[wigsplitta]

I'm thinking a bad rom is the culprit.

Thanks Mitsurugi. Anyone with any suggestions on which one of these beauties might be to blame?

Spoiler

Perhaps it's time for me to invest in an eeprom programmer and do some testing :/

 

[Mitsurugi-w]

You should. You will get your money's worth out of it in this hobby.

 

[wigsplitta]

My brother kindly lent me his GQ-3X eeprom programmer so I've had the chance to check a few of the existing eproms. 8-)
Interestingly, the 27C020 eprom on the QSound board checksum didn't match, so I was hoping that was the cause. Got a replacement eprom, wrote and the checksum now matches. Sadly it didn't resolve the issue.

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I was also able to check eproms 21, 22 and 23 on the B Board. All checksums matched up nicely. Back to the drawing board

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Time to get another eprom programmer to try and read some of the other roms.

 

[xodaraP]

The faults you're having point to mask ROMs, not the ones that would be replaced when desuiciding a board.

You need a programmer that can do up to 48 pin ideally for CPS1.5/CPS2 duties, the ROMs you want to test are the screen printed rooms at positions 1-8 on your ROM (B) board

I'm not sure if that's some more mask ROMs on the A board above the EPROM with the red tape on it that presumably has the de-suicided code on it, but if they are, check those too.

Also, where is your C custom? If this isn't making good contact with it's pads all kinds of weirdness can occur and it needs to be reflowed, I'm not sure if there's also a pin here that needs to be removed and jumpered, I know there's some CPS1 games that require that but unsure if the CPS1.5 requires it

 

[wigsplitta]

Does anyone know what this chip is for, on the B board?
Labelled PS63B

Spoiler

Couple of other updates:
Completely changed the A motherboard
Changed all 8 mask roms on the B Board
Completely changed the C Board

Sadly, none of these changes resolved the issue.

 

[xodaraP]

That is a PAL - assuming it's the one on the B board, if it's the same as on a CPS1 setup removing it will cause the screen to become a corrupted mess of 1cm tiles

I don't think the PAL would cause such minor faults, but if you're worried, check jammarcade to see if porchy has a dump and it can be reprogrammed onto a GAL

 

[wigsplitta]

That is a PAL - assuming it's the one on the B board, if it's the same as on a CPS1 setup removing it will cause the screen to become a corrupted mess of 1cm tiles

I don't think the PAL would cause such minor faults, but if you're worried, check jammarcade to see if porchy has a dump and it can be reprogrammed onto a GAL

You are correct indeed I removed it and the the graphics were completely corrupted.
Sadly the issues were still showing, so like you thought it's not that causing them.
I think my next course of action will be to replace the B Board. If that doesn't resolve them, just about the only thing left to change is the Q-Sound board itself...

 

[wigsplitta]

I haven't got round to replacing the B-board, but I have managed to produce a similar issue in mame whilst playing about with the ARpiCADE
Copying and re-copying into different folders meant the zip files no longer check ok.


Time to re-check/burn some roms...

 

[wigsplitta]

Glad to say it's finally sorted
I can only think that the data saved from the configuration (lives, difficulty...) onto the eprom (not sure which) somehow got corrupted.
I loaded the USA version onto the eproms in the hope that the config would be slightly different, ignore the corrupted info and reset to default.
The USA version worked nicely, and loading the Japanese version back on also worked. Played through fully, and no more issues.
Thanks for the suggestions y'all

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[xodaraP]

Great to see it's working properly again