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Namco system N2 failing to boot.

I feel your pain - it took me YEARS to get 4 working units, and one of them is a bit flaky....

Waiting for OpenJVS and OpenFFB to work to the point where I can plug in some logitech or sidewinder wheels and easily play 4 player head to head!
 
Yeah my goal is to atleast get 2 working Namco N2's at a time so I can more easily diagnose any problems they have. And to also potentially have a second ghetto looking setup for 2 players.
 
Once my Atx to JVS converter comes in I'm thinking about trying out Mario Kart arcade GP in the Maxi 3 cab. My understanding is that everything I have in there should work fine since it's all Namco boards right? The only thing I'm worried about is the item button.
 
It does all work - BUT, if I remember correctly - you need to change a dip switch on the FFB board - I think it changes it to 19200 baud. There is a 4 port dip switch in the middle of the FFB board - dip switch 4 rings a bell?
 
mathewbeall said:
It does all work - BUT, if I remember correctly - you need to change a dip switch on the FFB board - I think it changes it to 19200 baud. There is a 4 port dip switch in the middle of the FFB board - dip switch 4 rings a bell?
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Thanks will keep this in mind when I wire it up.
 
Just want a second informed opinion before I pull the trigger on this, this is a version of the game running through flash right? If I wanted to switch back using a GDrom drive would that process be straight forward? Also the last thing preventing me from getting it is the fact that it's the Japanese version, wanted to an English one.
Screenshot_20250220-121308.jpg
 
the image is different - you want the EXPORT version, not japanese - but the images are fairly easy to get. To switch between GDROM and CF - you need to upgrade the software on the netdimm (it's been a while, but I think thats document over in the chihiro forum, and pretty easy). After that - its just a changing of dip switches to change from CF boot to NET boot. I think GDROM/CF are the same settings.

CF boot is nice though - I used that on my WMMT2 setup when I had that in my cabinet.
 
antonioad14(TWON) said:
his is a version of the game running through flash right? If I wanted to switch back using a GDrom drive would that process be straight forward?
Click to expand...

Dude...why ô why would you go back to GDROM. sucker for original ? ... I don't care! Chihiro can netboot out of the box and can CF with a 3$ adapter!
I wrote a procedure for CF which you can find here for my 4 wangans. They have been running great ever since.

That being said, DO NOT buy a chihiro with the game. it's NOT required as per the above. hell I'll send you a zero key if needed! (no, you can't boot Outrun2 in that cab, unfortunately. Works great in my initial D cab though!)

Lastly, I bought my last chihiro from that ebay seller.
 
Mrhide said:
Dude...why ô why would you go back to GDROM. sucker for original ? ... I don't care! Chihiro can netboot out of the box and can CF with a 3$ adapter!
I wrote a procedure for CF which you can find here for my 4 wangans. They have been running great ever since.

That being said, DO NOT buy a chihiro with the game. it's NOT required as per the above. hell I'll send you a zero key if needed! (no, you can't boot Outrun2 in that cab, unfortunately. Works great in my initial D cab though!)

Lastly, I bought my last chihiro from that ebay seller.
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Thanks for your input, Lol yeah the game collector in me wants to own the GD-Rom copies. I'll definitely need to look up a tutorial when it comes to stuff like this. Know any reliable places to grab a Chihiro? Unfortunately this seems to be the only guy I can find on eBay that's willing to ship to Canada. And I don't feel like paying out of my ass and mess with arcade spare parts again. And with Yaton I'll get it next year.
 
Mrhide said:
He's my go to guy on ebay now ... go for it.

Collecting dust:
IMG_6614.jpeg
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No cases for those? 😭 It seems like everyone sells a Chihiro these days with a game already loaded onto it. Even arcade spare parts has the Japanese version of WMMT2 loaded into it. I do have a netboot already with my Triforce with the raspberry Pi and everything, can I take out that same chip in the netdimm board and use it in the Chihiro?
 
Nvm managed to find one without a game, for some reason it's not being shipped to Canada by default, gonna ask for a quote. This one is saying Japan region, but to my understanding it's pretty easy to switch the region in these things.
 

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antonioad14(TWON) said:
No cases for those?
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yeah I do have some
antonioad14(TWON) said:
I do have a netboot already with my Triforce with the raspberry Pi and everything, can I take out that same chip in the netdimm board and use it in the Chihiro?
Click to expand...
the pi will work to send the files to chihiro. and for the zero key, it would appears from this thread that "The Net-Boot version: ABC_BIN_0000000000000000_NET.bin works with Chihiro and Triforce in both CF,GD-ROM and Net-Boot mode." yes!
antonioad14(TWON) said:
This one is saying Japan region, but to my understanding it's pretty easy to switch the region in these things.
Click to expand...

yes, here's the info
 
Man I wish there was a way to safe shutdown the Namco N2 like a regular PC, it pains me how we essentially have to force shutdown the unit everytime we're done with it.
 
Did you ever figure this out? I've been through the same thing with my N2 and eventually have scavenged together 1 rock solid one (touch wood).

"Boot failed..." comes up because the bios linux kernel was unable to load aeinitrd and aevmlinuz, normally caused by a dead hard drive. I'd have to take another look at the script it runs and what exactly causes boot failed but it's something along those lines.

In terms of the one that freezes, the MSI based boards used do tend to have caps go bad, check if any are bulging. The warnings that come up during boot is normal, it's the game setting up its work mounts (stores bookkeeping, leaderboards etc). After it goes back to the namco logo for a little bit and the screen goes back, this is when the game executable is launched.

Mine has been partially recapped with nichicons, but now the ones that weren't replaced are starting to go too.

I would troubleshoot the one that's freezing with a new power supply first, it's all standard atx so anything around 300w up should be fine, as well as check for suspect looking caps. Could also chuck some replacement ram at it (I had a stick randomly die on me in my test bed N2 I'm using for research on the boot process)
 
mathewbeall said:
Yes - this is super annoying! Nothing to do but a hard power down... :/
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The machines are designed for it, os partitions are mounted as ramdisks so no writing to critical boot files is ever done to the hard drive, and hdds will automatically park their read/write heads when power is cut. Nothing to worry about 🙂
 
derole said:
Did you ever figure this out? I've been through the same thing with my N2 and eventually have scavenged together 1 rock solid one (touch wood).

"Boot failed..." comes up because the bios linux kernel was unable to load aeinitrd and aevmlinuz, normally caused by a dead hard drive. I'd have to take another look at the script it runs and what exactly causes boot failed but it's something along those lines.

In terms of the one that freezes, the MSI based boards used do tend to have caps go bad, check if any are bulging. The warnings that come up during boot is normal, it's the game setting up its work mounts (stores bookkeeping, leaderboards etc). After it goes back to the namco logo for a little bit and the screen goes back, this is when the game executable is launched.

Mine has been partially recapped with nichicons, but now the ones that weren't replaced are starting to go too.

I would troubleshoot the one that's freezing with a new power supply first, it's all standard atx so anything around 300w up should be fine, as well as check for suspect looking caps. Could also chuck some replacement ram at it (I had a stick randomly die on me in my test bed N2 I'm using for research on the boot process)
Click to expand...
Thing is I highly doubt it's the harddrive, it was working flawlessly the day before I got this error, and not only that I had another harddrive in storage that also booted fine and I was getting the same error with that one too so I doubt that one decided to die at the same time.
 
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