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pcbrown

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Hi all, I recently went through the process of troubleshooting my Darksoft CPS2 setup and figured I would share my experience. I had to do a lot of poking around this forum and in random other places via Google, and while the troubleshooting thread here is fairly comprehensive, I figured my anecdotal report might be useful in a different way. There's one bit of advice at the end that I think will be especially useful to some folks using Suzo Happ power supplies.

For reference: I'm new to arcade hardware and that will factor into my notes/process.

I started with a working CPS2 A board and a dead Rev. 7 B board (Street Fighter Zero 2, JPN), a new HAS 3.2 supergun, and a Suzo HAPP Power Pro 110w power supply.

Broken Pin

Things got off to a great start when I broke a pin while aligning the largest Darksoft board. I broke the lowest pin on the right side. In this case, at least, I was able to solder a wire from the pin's head on the top of Darksoft board, and then to the bottom of the socket on the underside of the B board.

Solid Red/White Screen

Pretty soon after resolving the broken pin and seating the boards I loaded my Micro SD card (8GB Patriot) with the latest roll-up base pack. The kit's display showed every game, and confirmed when flashing was complete, but after powering off and on I was met with solid colored screens instead of the game I flashed. I tried two A boards and would consistently get either a red or a white screen.

For a while I assumed it was due to improper seating of the various Darksoft boards, which led to repeat and harrowing removals and replacements of the kit.

Eventually, I stumbled on the real culprit: I hadn't installed (or even thought of) the four key writing wires, so I needed to use the OLD roll-up base pack. I swapped the files and was able to boot games… sometimes.

Corrupt Foreground Sprites

While I wasn't thrilled by the intermittent success of loading games, I was more immediately concerned by the corrupt graphics I was seeing on screen. I again worried about the Darksoft installation and kept applying pressure in various places in desperation. No effect.

While I believed that I had properly opened and shorted my B board's jumpers, I took the common advice of severing traces as a potential fix. Rather than remove the kit, I started by using a blade to cut through any open jumpers in plain sight with the board installed. Success! When I could get a game to boot, the graphics appeared correctly.

Inconsistent Game Loading

This was the most unusual resolution of the bunch. To combat not being able to consistently boot games, I again repeatedly reseated the Darksoft boards. I formatted and recopied files back to my SD card. I carefully dialed up the power supply's voltage above 5v. I shorted the EXC5 capacitor near the battery space on the CPS2 B board a dozen times. Once in a while a game would work, but most of the time I couldn't repeat my success.

Then I stumbled on a post I've now lost track of where a user suggested that another troubled customer eject their SD card after flashing the game and powering off. Lo and behold, this allowed me to boot games consistently. I took for granted how the kit works and assumed once a game is flashed that the SD card doesn't play a part in booting, but clearly I was mistaken.

Of course I hated the thought of having to constantly remove and replace the card, so I decided to do what everyone suggests when the Darksoft kit acts up: I used a new Micro SD card. Wouldn't you know it, the new 2GB Sandisk card I put in worked perfectly from the get-go. I was now booting games every time without having to eject the card.

No Sound

Most of my troubleshooting was done on a PVM (1343MD) that doesn't support audio when using RGBs. With the games booting and the graphics looking good, I grabbed some speakers and plugged them into the B board RCA ports. No sound. I used the A board volume buttons but still couldn't get sound. I then found a tip about resetting the board's default audio level, and did the following:
  1. Turn off game and hold-press the VOLUME DOWN button.
  2. While holding the button, boot the game and continue to hold.
  3. 5 seconds after boot, release the button.
  4. With the audio levels reset, raise the volume using the VOLUME UP button.
At this point I was able to hear audio, but it was full of high-pitch, random noises.

Garbled Audio and Random Sound Effects

With my experience fixing the corrupt sprites earlier, I assumed the jumpers were once again to blame. I removed the Darksoft kit for the last time (thank goodness) and found that jumpers I assumed were open had in fact been closed during manufacturing by the tiniest conductive trace. I cut the bastards and raised my fists in the air. Finally, I had resolved every issue I was having with my installation of the Darksoft kit.

But wait… there's more!

Rolling Diagonal Video Interference

With the CPS2 side of the equation working as expected I was now going to tackle the slight video interference I noticed both when playing on my PVM and via OSSC. I double checked that my video and power lines were separated. I re-examined all of my PSU wiring. Eventually I hit Google and discovered a solution. Other arcade users had noted that the Suzo Happ PSUs (or at least the ones they had access too) didn't bridge Earth Ground and AC Ground within the case. Suspecting the same was true for mine, I crimped a new wire across the two ground points on my PSU and was delighted to see that it completely eliminated the interference I had witnessed.

The Final Step -- The Non-Functioning Button 6

No matter what I did, no matter how I tried to remap my controller via the HAS's built-in functionality, I couldn't get Button 6 (regardless of where it was mapped) to register on my controller. I shot an email to RGB, and to my surprise, he said that I had to DISABLE the button toggles for Buttons 4, 5, and 6 on the bottom on the HAS when using CPS2. Bingo!

The End

If anyone has any follow-up questions please fire away. Otherwise, I can only say thank you to everyone here for contributing to an awesome forum, and to those special few responsible for designing and distributing custom hardware like the HAS and the Multi kit.
 
Great write-up, Peter. Especially the tip about solving Happ Power Pro diagonal interference by simply wiring GND to Earth ground.
 
Wow, Murphy's Law slam dunked you in the face!

Thanks for sharing, may help out others experiencing similar issues.

The plus side is you gained a ton of knowledge and experience and can pass this on to others in need. That's what this community is about, helping each other out.

Kudos for perseverance and success.
 
Hi

Thank you for yours cps2 multi troubleshooting tutorial - my experience with this device is also not a piece of cake.
I've thought that I ended my cps 2 issue odyssey here [HELP] Sudden problem with a working CPS2 multi
but suddenly similar problems have come back for cps 2 multi on B board without EXC5 and old rompack.

The malfunction always looks the same:
1. Multi works properly.
2. After some time (few games flashing), the device freezes the sound after few minutes playing (long beep or no sound at all) but when I reboot multi the sound is correct again.
3. After another few flashing multi boots to solid colour screen.

Then I removing and reseating the multi kit, check all connections, format another 2GB (or 4GB) cart, load with the old roll-up pack and after that multi was able to boot properly again...for short time till sound will freez again, and after that finnlay multi will boot to solid colour screen.

Surprisingly my multi setup (without EXC5) is able to boot with new rompack (using original unaltered code) but this does not affect the described fault.
I disconneted key wires and uploaded fw but that did not change anything.
Generally - I spend much more time assembling / disassembling, formating/loading sd carts than using it in the way it is intended (means playing) ||
CPS2 multi is great piece of hardware but it is very uncomfortable to have a device whose correct operation is pure coincidence...

I've run out of ideas - mayby bootloader is corrupted? or kit just broke down now - it has been working perfectly long time.
 
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A few questions:

What color are the solid boot screens?
What brand SD card are you using?
Have you double checked the continuity of your jumpers?
Are you sure your A board is in good overall health?
 
1. most often purpule or green
2. 4GB Kingston (4 class), 2GB SandDisk (no class specified, slow one), 8GB Kingston(4 class)
3. Yes
4. I've tested this multi on a few other A boards and two another B boards - cps2 base hardware working well.

The most puzzling is the fact that my cps2 kit setup worked well for many months - I did not change anything -
until one day problems began...
 
Solid colours are issues reading main program code or possibly an issue flashing keys.

Since you said your A and B boards are confirmed good, as @pcbrown alluded to I'd be looking at your SD card. Get a Samsung class 10 and see if that helps
 
Don't buy from eBay, too many fakes. Go to a local retailer and buy off the shelf
 
I bought my multi kits from saveyourgames.it. They came with 8GB AData MicroSDs.
Never had a single issue with them. Maybe try one of these.
 
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