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juanmiglesias

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Pembroke Pines, Florida. Zip code 33027
Hi guys, recently I modified my naomi to accept netboot and CF, so didn't need to mess with my gd-rom all the time which is pretty cool, so I was in one of those arcade repair week, fixed my sfa3, super buster bros, and Saturday Night Slam Masters.

So i decided to move to my CPS3, my security cart is model D, I burnt the superbios to the 29f that came in the cart, (desolder, erased, blank check, write, verify, resolder).

I have both 64mg RAM on the right and 4 128 from top to bottom on the left, scsi is not the orginal unit but seems compatible, it gets 5.01V, 12.1V on the HDD, PSU is brand new and very stable.
I have the board go trough a GBS 8220 v3, whic works ok with all my jamma goign to my NEC RGB input XM29plus.

So my problem is this,
- I insert the securty cart, no video shows up.. (no video signal msg from the GBS)
- I remove the cart, scramble columns graphics.
- I checked the continuity on the 29f bios legs and seems pretty stable across, I did seem to find a bridge which I'm fixing tomorrow. seems like there is no bridge at all under the magnifier, don't know if they are connected like on the 29f tsop for snes games.
- main IC and processors seems pretty good, no mayor or minor damage across the board.

- what are the symptoms of a busted mother board?
- I bought this already suicide, the cart doesn't have a sticker, it says S.f.3 on a sticker handwritten, so I guess it was one of the SF3 games. don't believe is relevant the type of cart if I already have 4x 128mg and 2x64mg right?
- any other piece of hardware that I can check?

thanks!.
 
Clean your cart contacts very good. A poorly soldered bios usually gives you the scrambled screen. A poorly soldered SH-2 will result in a crash with loss of video. A dirty cart edge can result in all of the above including being the reason for a suicide even thought the battery is still good.
 
Thanks mitsurugi, I didn{y mess with the SH2, just the bios, I will try to clean the edges and recheck the solder in the bios.

btw do you know anyone with experience in Vegas systems? I have an nba showtime gold, it has the original hdd, security pic, and all the roms, it is version 2.0, I changed the timekeeper battery which fixed the cmos battery test to PASS, but still gets the watchdog timer test FAIL then goes to the FIFO test which PASS - FIFI size 512words... and it halts in that screen..
 
Thanks mitsurugi, I didn{y mess with the SH2, just the bios, I will try to clean the edges and recheck the solder in the bios.

btw do you know anyone with experience in Vegas systems? I have an nba showtime gold, it has the original hdd, security pic, and all the roms, it is version 2.0, I changed the timekeeper battery which fixed the cmos battery test to PASS, but still gets the watchdog timer test FAIL then goes to the FIFO test which PASS - FIFI size 512words... and it halts in that screen..
open a new thread and you'll probably get more support.
 
Depending on where the bridge was you may have damaged the cart, motherboard or whatever.
If you shorted +5V to GND then something was toasted, even if it was only for a second it's enough to damage it.
There are no symptoms on most dead boards. They are just dead, nothing on screen.
That board is not easy to repair due to all the custom chips.
Only thing you can do is check the clocks, check for reset signal. If those are ok change the RAM on the main board. Maybe you might be lucky but I doubt it.
 
Here are the pics of my board... and my best on the 29f.
I just did a check on all pins, everything seems good in the ones I could the check continuity, which I'll break down in a minute. The short I was talking about was probably me just not being precise with the multimeter, I didn't use a magnifier that time.
I scrape a bit the green mask on the pass-through holes carefully and check the pin (not the pad) to that point. checking at the same time the ones beside them for shorts, I did not find any shorts which is good.
some pins like A1 to A7 were test to the legs of the IC.
some of the not so easy to find a test point I went on the PCI connector and did the same check. so far I am only missing:
Pins: 16(A18), 15(JP1), 14(P22), 13(P20), 12(P21), 10(A20), 9(JP1), 31(D1), 36(D3), 45(D15), 44(D7), 42(D6), 40(D5), 35(D3), 31(D1)
These ones I haven't found were to test continuity. I will try tomorrow the pci side again with these.


Top:

cps3-top.jpg

cart ver. D:
cart.jpg

bottom od the CPS3:
cps3-bottom.jpg

Board ver.:
cps3-ver.jpg

29f pin 1 to 24, checked those irregular solders on pin 8 and 6, everything good, just needed a bit of gooey cleaned:
pin1to24.jpg

29f pin 25 to 48:
pin25to48.jpg

reference for the pins:
pinreferec.jpg

thanks for all your time and help :) if I can't fix it I might sent it in see if it is fixable. I'm looking for extra rams right now.

And yes I will post a new topic about the vegas :) also two street fighter ex boards, which I can't find any info on ZN-1 and 2 repairs...
 
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This is the screen I get without the cart on it.
screen.JPG
 
That's normal. Nothing is broken if you get that screen. Is the same you get if your cartridge battery died.
 
but its supposed to be working..... he's already 'fixed' the cart with your BIOS. it should boot if the cart and motherboard are good.....
 
but its supposed to be working..... he's already 'fixed' the cart with your BIOS. it should boot if the cart and motherboard are good.....
those cart contacts are a bitch. Try inserting /removing the cartridge several times and see if it improves.

IF not, probably there is a cold solder somewhere.
 
the cart is probably toast. try a different cart. this time when you solder the ROM make sure there are NO bridges.
 
That´s the thing, there were no bridges at all.. I mentioned one.. but after inspection it was me being really bad with the multimeter.. I wasn't using the magnifier and pretty tired.. I checked after your reply and there were no bridges since my first try soldering it back. :(

is it normal for a cart with a cold joint to not display video at all?
 
BTW.. If I wanted someone to check my cart or even my board and cart.. who would that be? mitsurugi?
 
Usually a badly soldered bios gives you that scrambled screen. There is something going on with your cart. I think it's trying to boot.

BTW.. If I wanted someone to check my cart or even my board and cart.. who would that be? mitsurugi?
That depends on where you are located.
 
I could look at it, and I can also do cart conversions if anyone is interested in sending dead carts here for doing the multi-kit modifications.
 
I'm located in Orlando, Florida. US.
If you are in the US then I am your man. I do need to charge a small fee plus return shipping to look at your things. I have so much work lately and I have done a lot of it for free
 
sure I wasn't expecting it for free lol.. that's why I might wait a bit to ship it, but of course I know your time is valuable.. I'll PM
 
Just a thought. I don't know if it matters but I did soldered back the black wire to its place when I removed the dead battery. (The one right behind the blue and red wires)

IMG_6466_zps8qovtlcc.jpg


And clean the contacts of the cart with acetone/alcohol and if they still seem rusty use a metal polish. These cards were inserted to the mobo and they stayed in the socket like forever, so they may have become very rusty and oxidized.

Another tip is to insert the card with a little angle to the socket. So that you "feel" it scratches the contacts. Do it the other way so contacts of both sides get a little "scratched". Also try insertin the cart NOT all the way in but leave a few milimeters.

Testing continuity with SMD components like flash chips is always tricky and most likely gives you false positive because when you touch the leg with the probe you may infact accidentally pushing the pin and forcing it make a contact with the solder point if there is a very tiny gap (which most of the time your main problem with the SMD components is this kind of gaps)

So, Lastly, if all fails, just unsolder your flash, clean the solder points on the PCB with solderwick and lots of flux so that the contacts are absolutely flat. Since you unsoldered the flash, just try to read it back and verify (again) with superbios...
 
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