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Donor board didn't work. How do I refurb it to working state.

RealMFnG

RealMFnG

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My original donor board didn't work with the CPS2 Multi. It was a MSH, rev-3 board, with an F-Pal. I could hear game playing in the background. I could start a game. Pull off moves and hear the associated audio cues. But all I got was a red screen with the Multi. I did all the troubleshooting steps: shorted EXC5, pressed kit in firmly, soldered the jumpers correctly, soldered the jumper wire from the Pal correctly, etc. I gave up on getting that board working with the CPS2 Multi and got a MvSF rev-7 board and got the CPS2 Multi working on that, so I am happy in that regard.

I am pretty sure I want to desuicide the original rev-3 donor eventually. But before I invest in the required parts, I think I better confirm the B-board is still in working order. Questions:
  1. Do I have to return the jumper configuration to original state? If so, where do I find they jumper configurations?
  2. I am looking at Team Avalaunch roms, seems roms 1 & 2 are missing? Is that correct?
That is all for now I suppose.
 
Personally I'd just revive it with suicide roms rather than worry about re-battery'ing it. Either way, I'd start there, and if you want to revive the keys do that after getting it working with decrypted roms (that will only be a swap of a few P ROMS anyway).

Jumpers will need to be re set to the games original config. You can either try using MVS-SCANS if your cps2 game is on there, have someone take a pic of their jumpers on any other MSH board, or you can calculate/figure out the jumpers using info here: http://wiki.pcbotaku.com/wiki/CPS2_Eprom_and_Jumper_details

(or... just make yourself a progear b00t... kinda pointless since you have a multi though. :P )

Also yes roms 01/02 don't matter, they are sound program. The main prog roms start at 03 which is what's relevant for this purpose.
 
Thanks @skate323k137. That is good info about roms 01 & 02. MSH is on MVS-SCANS to so that is good news for retrieving the jumper settings. The board there uses a rev-4 board, does that matter with the jumper config? I would think no, yeah? What about the mask roms? From board to board, are they all the same? I may have mixed up the roms between getting them ready for the CPS2 Multi.

The key first is just to make sure the board isn't damaged for some reason or the other. Just for some reason, it wouldn't work with the multi. Then get it back to normal if I ultimately decide to.
 
ROMs 1 and 2 are for the Z80 (sound CPU) and so you use the original ones you had before. That's why they're not included on the archive.
In the particular case of your donor game, chips 03 and 04 were protected. If you pick the exact same revision you had before you should need to re-write only chips 03 and 04 to achieve battery free operation.

About the jumpers, they're meant to select memory capacity between 2MB and 4MB.

BECAUSE THE PIN AFFECTED BY THE JUMPERS ARE NOT USED BY THE CPS2 MULTI changing the jumpers positions actually have no effect whatsoever. BUT shorting both jumpers for any given socket (There's a pair of jumpers for each socket) shorts one of the address lines to the GND, fucking up with the video output. ;)
 
acblunden2 said:
Thanks @skate323k137. That is good info about roms 01 & 02. MSH is on MVS-SCANS to so that is good news for retrieving the jumper settings. The board there uses a rev-4 board, does that matter with the jumper config? I would think no, yeah? What about the mask roms? From board to board, are they all the same? I may have mixed up the roms between getting them ready for the CPS2 Multi.

The key first is just to make sure the board isn't damaged for some reason or the other. Just for some reason, it wouldn't work with the multi. Then get it back to normal if I ultimately decide to.
Click to expand...
Board Rev doesn't matter for jumpers. Only consideration there is if you need a G PAL then you need a jumper wire from the PAL to c13 on certain older revs (3 and 4 I think?) With F pal and under that should not matter at all. Mask roms don't change for board revision, just for region or software revision purposes. I usually just consult cps2.cpp in the mame source to see what roms vary between game versions; usually it's just 03/04 and maybe 05.

G PAL on early rev info is here just for the hell of it: http://wiki.pcbotaku.com/wiki/CPS2_PAL3
 
On 2MB memories the pin connected to the jumper (32) selects 16bit and 8bit mode. Of course if you fit 2MB chips on the board you need them operating on 16bit mode. Btw the default setting set on the board mask (without cutting anything) is 2MB (27C160) mode. On a 4MB chip the pin is A20. CPS2 Multi get A20 from the white connector at the top so it doesn't really should care about what position the jumpers are set at.
 
l_oliveira said:
About the jumpers, they're meant to select memory capacity between 2MB and 4MB.

BECAUSE THE PIN AFFECTED BY THE JUMPERS ARE NOT USED BY THE CPS2 MULTI changing the jumpers positions actually have no effect whatsoever. BUT shorting both jumpers for any given socket (There's a pair of jumpers for each socket) shorts one of the address lines to the GND, fucking up with the video output. ;)
Click to expand...
Waaaaaahhhhh? So when you say "fucking up with the video output" is this a reason why I could not get anything other than a red screen on my rev-3 donor boards? So then the instructions for setting up the CPS2 Multi referencing the jumper positions is outdated/not correct?
 
Only if you set them wrong, not a rev based issue. Like the last ones are set SOSOSOSO, if you had SS in there you would mess up video. Each jumper pair sets what goes to one of the pins on a particular rom. In the case of gfx roms, A20 or GND.
 
Pretty sure my jumpers were correct. I'll have to check them again when I get home this weekend.
 
acblunden2 said:
Waaaaaahhhhh? So when you say "fucking up with the video output" is this a reason why I could not get anything other than a red screen on my rev-3 donor boards? So then the instructions for setting up the CPS2 Multi referencing the jumper positions is outdated/not correct?
Click to expand...
Red screen means it could not boot. Actually the color that shows on the screen at power on is kind of an artifact of how the board works. It persists until the CPU starts and gives out commands to clear the display. It merely means the CPU never started. Different A boards will put up different colored screens at power on due to slight differences on part manufacture. (hardware registers contents on power on are random and each unique chip have bias at specific values causing this effect)

Edit: So if your game doesn't start at all, you want to check CPU related connections between the B board and the multi (square daughterboard with pins and connection bridge). Unfortunately the connection bridge can be attached inverted and that will make it not work.
 
l_oliveira said:
acblunden2 said:
Waaaaaahhhhh? So when you say "fucking up with the video output" is this a reason why I could not get anything other than a red screen on my rev-3 donor boards? So then the instructions for setting up the CPS2 Multi referencing the jumper positions is outdated/not correct?
Click to expand...
Red screen means it could not boot. Actually the color that shows on the screen at power on is kind of an artifact of how the board works. It persists until the CPU starts and gives out commands to clear the display. It merely means the CPU never started. Different A boards will put up different colored screens at power on due to slight differences on part manufacture. (hardware registers contents on power on are random and each unique chip have bias at specific values causing this effect)
Edit: So if your game doesn't start at all, you want to check CPU related connections between the B board and the multi (square daughterboard with pins and connection bridge). Unfortunately the connection bridge can be attached inverted and that will make it not work.
Click to expand...
Well, I got the red screen with the CPS2 Multi. I could hear the demo sounds. I could load credits. Start the games. Pull off moves and hear the correct associated audio cues. So I would imagine the CPU did indeed start?
 
Then it was some problem with the connection between the A and B boards. I can't see how you could get a solid colored screen otherwise. If the A board was/is working, seems like the B board was faulty or was damaged during the attempt to make it work with the multi.
 
I thought that too. But at that moment, I only had access to a single A-board. Once I picked up a rev-7 B-board, the CPS2 Multi worked perfectly with that A-board. I did notice that fitting the CPS2 Multi sort of torqued the B-board. That is why I am curious to see if my original rev-3 B-board works with just the roms.
 
Only way of knowing is put the roms back and see if it runs. Get a suicide free set for your roms or just get the arduino setup and reprogram the keys.
 
l_oliveira said:
Only way of knowing is put the roms back and see if it runs. Get a suicide free set for your roms or just get the arduino setup and reprogram the keys.
Click to expand...
The eventual donor board was a rev-7 MvSF board. I got lucky with picking that one up as it was truly dead (leaky battery fluid). I think I'll just take the roms from that, leave the jumpers in the highest setting on my rev-3 donor board, and use Team Avalaunch's unencrypted romset for US MvSF to see if the original donor boards still work. Report back this weekend when I get home from work.
 
Leaked battery means broken traces. There's your problem. (or do you mean the one which actually worked was the one which the battery leaked? LOL)
 
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