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RealMFnG

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So been putting off asking about this issue for some time. When I finally got my CPS2 multi going around November '16, I played the heck out of it but didn't touch it again for some months until April or so. I noticed when I turned it on the multi again April, it was making some awful sounds. I had to travel for for much of last month, so I could not attend to it. Picked it up again today. And it's still making the same awful sounds (overt beeping sounds, scratches, cut off audio cues, crackling). Here is a short video of what is going one but isn't indicative of the entire problem. Sometimes wrong audio cues are playing in conjunction with the moves on screen:


I had a similar problem when I first got the multi, but it was much more severe. I resolved that by securing a rev. 7 XvSF w/G-PAL donor board which fixed the problem until recently. Very disappointing since this is now the 3rd B-board I am using for the multi (they were all suicided previously). Today, I switched A-boards, and after going through one cycle of attract mode where the sounds were still bad, it went through a few cycles were the sound was perfect. I thought, "Cool. It's fixed!" Then it went back to being inflicted with the audio issues again. This issue follows any game I switch to. I picked up another dead XvSF board rev 4 w/F-PAL and am ready to use that as yet another donor board. But before I do, what could be wrong? All the boards are sandwiched together tightly. Is it possible the crackling audio fix has come loose from the mainboard? Do I have a defective CPS2 multi?
 
I had a similar issue. It was a setting issue from the multi to the B board.
 
It is squeezed in tight. I know this since the multi is set as a bare PCB connected to the A-board; it isn't housed in the blue shell.

Let me take the multi apart and squeeze everything back together and see what happens.
 
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Push it and hold it down with you turn it on. I had to do that on mine in the qsound area. I then took my fibreglass pen to brush the contacts to make it work.
 
I'll take it a part. Get the B-board the Simple Green wash. Brush it really good with a toothbrush and ISO alch, and reconnect it. Brush the pins on the multi too. Let you guys know how it goes.
 
You may need to rewrite your sd card and then rewrite the game.
 
You may need to rewrite your sd card and then rewrite the game.
I was thinking that too and and will do that first since it is easy. But when I first noticed the problem, the game had been already been written to flash, still made the awful sounds.
 
I had the same problem, what I did is re-seated the multi cps2 board on the b board and it fixed it.
 
Alrighty, no luck. Here is what I did. Keep in mind all of these actions are done with the B-board de-cased. Just the bare PCB attached to the A-board, if that makes any difference. It's a rev-7and board formerly XvSF running a G-Pal. Also, I'll openly admit (while dodging the bricks thrown at me like I'm Neo in the Matrix), that this board was working perfectly on battery before I sacrificed it for the CPS2 multi. It is actually the third donor board that I attempted to use for the multi. The previous two already having been suicided of natural causes.
  1. Downloaded the latest roll-up pack from here.
  2. While that was downloading, disassembled the Multi from the B-board.
  3. Removed the G-Pal chip from the B-board
  4. Sprayed Simple Green on the B-board
  5. Scrubbed all the sockets with a toothbrush and let it sit for 2 minutes or so
  6. Washed off the Simple Green under the sink
  7. Washed off the board one more time with distilled water to remove any tap water contaminates
  8. Hosed down the wet board with an air compressor to remove standing water
  9. Let the board sit outside under shade to dry further (it was in the mid-90's outside at the time)
  10. Swabbed the connector pins on the multi with iso alcohol
  11. Carefully re-assembled the multi the B-board being sure to seat everything as tightly as possible
    • I noticed that even as I did this, some of the middle connecting pins over where the mask roms would normally be, can push in further, but board tension sort of springs them back out a bit
    • But this has always been the case, even when the multi was working correctly
  12. Replaced the G-Pal in the B-board with a fresh G-Pal obtained from Mitsurugi-w
  13. Fired up the board without the SD card and booted to the game already loaded to Flash
  14. Same horrible sounds.
    • As a matter of fact, sounds a lot like the sounds indicated in Mitsurugi-w's video here before the F-Pal is connected to the J17 pin
    • Just not as severe
    • But keep in mind, my board is rev 7 running a G-Pal, not F-Pal
So given this, the only thing left to do was to finish formatting the SD card and copying over the new games. I did this in Windows 10 using Disk Management to delete the partitions, then creating and formatting the SD card to FAT32. Even after this, I got the same horrible sounds with the new rollup pack X( . I can try this again with another SD card from another manufacturer, but don't think it is an SD compatibility issue. I'll do it anyway.

I have another rev-4 B-board but damn, that will be my fourth donor board going with one issue or another. I know these are Swiss made boards, but perhaps this is rooted in the manufacturing/tolerance defect in the one I received? Is an RMA still possible at this point?
 
Your pal could have gone bad. It's unlikely the multi itself is bad. I can look at it for you and test it here if you like, however.
 
Your pal could have gone bad. It's unlikely the multi itself is bad. I can look at it for you and test it here if you like, however.
I thought that too so I replaced the G-Pal with a fresh one that you sent me a week ago (as indicated in step 12 above). Remember I ordered two from you. Those G-Pals were supposed to go to resurrect the first two donor boards 8o .

Yeah, I think I will send it to you along with the B-board, G-Pal, and SD card for an expert look. I have to send you other stuff anyway. I am going to try two things first:
  1. Check the jumper settings again with a meter.
    1. Keep in mind, it worked fine previously. But perhaps through the cold winter, the solder blobs might have cracked.
    2. The B-board came from the factory already set for the highest configuration. So after 20 years, maybe I am unlucky.
  2. Use a different manufacturer's SD card.
    1. Don't think this will do anything since, again, it worked previously with the same card
 
Alrighty, pretty sure this happened as I was switching the multi to another B-board because the last time I took this a part, I made sure to swab ISO alcohol on each pin of the multi. I would have noticed this then had this pin been broken. But it is broken now for sure. Sending it to Mitsurugi-w for repairs. What does this pin drive out of curiosity because had it been broken before and I didn't notice, could this be the source of my audio issues?

CPS2Pin.JPG
 
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