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When booting it seemed to take a while. I assume it was flashing.
The LCD has a load status bar, it should tell you how much is left.


I'm not sure what to make of this if the B board will work with that test rom and doesn't with the multi...
Some games will get stuck waiting for the audio section to ping back. That could be your issue if your previous B Board was faulty.

I would try to discharge EXC5 again. Also to make sure that it's working properly, is the CPS2 resetting after loading the game?
 
OK, the audio issue on the first B board is cleared up. The suicide tester says all is good. This was simply an issue of some pins in one of the sound roms not actually ending up in the socket.

I'm not sure how else to prove this B board works other than installing unencrypted roms to see if it boots properly.


Also to make sure that it's working properly, is the CPS2 resetting after loading the game?
It is resetting after loading a game.

I would try to discharge EXC5 again.
I'll try.
 
Here are the results of the suicide tester.

The text is kind of hard to read, so not sure if it's a graphics issue or just the font being used in the tester program.
 

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Things have started to take an interesting, yet very frustrating turn.

1. I didn't touch the anything on the A board other than plugging/unplugging the B board. Now everything has screwed up graphics. I was getting screwed up graphics sometimes even with the suicide tester and chalked it up to bad connections between the boards, but now everything, no matter what is crazy garbled and I can't seem to get to a point where it's fixed.

2. I reinstalled the multi on the original board. I put in an encrypted DDSOM and an decrypted SFZ2AL on the SD card for testing. Note that these are the same 2 that I've been using for testing most of the time. At this point the decrypted game will load, albeit with garbled graphics, and the encrypted game will not.
 
On the monitor in my MVS cab, the graphics issue reads more as a video sync issue. I guess the monitor in my other cab just displays the issue differently.

Something else weird is that sometimes a game will boot with good graphics after I've left it alone for a while. I don't unplug anything and re-seat. I just turn it on after its been off a while. It seems to stay good while booted, but messes up again on reset (either hard reset or reset from multi).

The 2 issues I'm now dealing with:
1. Somethings up with the video signal.
2. Something is up with the multi not being able to boot encrypted games.
 

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Left the board with the multi sitting plugged up, and everything off for a while. Decrypted DDSOM was the last game flashed, and it booted right up with correct video. I let it go through a bit of attract mode, turned off the cab and turned it right back on, and back to bad video...
 

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I haven't tried leaving it on for any significant amount of time, but I am pretty consistently getting the same behavior where it boots and displays fine after sitting a while and restarting causes the issue.

Just now I tried after a couple hours. It came right on, and after less than a minute, I turned it off and on and it was back to having the sync issue.

Are there maybe some capacitors in the A board that are involved in video, or is there a specific area of the board with video components I should inspect?

It occurs to me that I've likely had this issue all along, because the initial image I posted is essentially what it looks like.
 
So when it works, it seems it will stay on for prolonged periods without issue. I left DDSOM running in attract mode for a while and it seemed to stay going just fine.

Also, for this boot, the first boot after sitting for a while came up with bad video. I turned it off and back on and it was good. So I guess it's not always the first try that's good.
 
I'm thinking your most likely issue is sockets. You've put a lot of wear on them (the multi pins are quite wide) and the fact it works perfectly sometimes suggests your issue is there, or the connections between A and B
 
Wouldn't jiggling or tapping the board or pushing down tighter affect change in realtime? Nothing changes it once it's booted.

Also, the multi has not been in my 2nd B board and it exhibits the same issue.
 
Sorry I thought you'd tried both another B board and another A board.

Given that the problem is following the A board - you need another one to test with. Are any members with a CPS2 setup near to you you could ask for help?
 
Sorry I thought you'd tried both another B board and another A board.

Given that the problem is following the A board - you need another one to test with. Are any members with a CPS2 setup near to you you could ask for help?
I don't know anyone local with a CPS2.

I'm getting to the point of just putting this all on the shelf and forgetting it for a while. I already bought a new (useless to me) B board, so anything else is essentially just going to reveal that I've got to buy more stuff.

The original A/B boards, and kit came in a trade. I was mildly interested in having a working kit, but it seems like CPS2 is just going to be a money pit. I honestly am not interested in it enough to be spending more time and money on it.

Thanks all for the help and suggestions.
 
It's possible the multi is defective. You can always send it to me for testing.
 
The video issue happens without the multi, with another working B board, as well. So I think that issue is unrelated to the multi, and seems likely to require that I get another A board. The only issue with the multi now is that I haven't gotten it to boot an encrypted rom, but I'm not too worried about troubleshooting that at this point.
 
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I do think this is ending up being a weird video sync issue.

I have one of those cheap, poor quality CGA to VGA converters, and it locks onto the signal 100% of the time... If I were only using this kind of setup, I'd be convinced I had a fully working CPS2. What I can't figure out is why my CRT cabs, or at least the main one I've been using for testing, only rarely displays the video properly. What is variable here that affects the video signal on reboot?
 
I mean... stupid question but have you cleaned the pins on the JAMMA edge? that's usually step 1 if I have any problems with a PCB. even edges that look clean end up releasing a ton of black dust on cleaning and I've "fixed" more than a few non-working PCBs just by cleaning the JAMMA edge.
 
I have cleaned the JAMMA edge.

I would think a video issue due to the JAMMA edge/connector would change when jiggling the connector. Nothing changes when the video is in either state on the CRT. I can't get good video to go bad and I can't get bad video to go good.
 
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