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CPS2 Infinikey conversion issue

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BMan7418

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got a strange issue that is a head scratcher. I'm converting some boards to Vampire Savior & adding Infinikeys. I have 4 boards one worked fine the other three have the same issue. The issue is when booting the bad boards the first boot has a blank screen, when I turn off the power and turn it back on the screen turns white. this is the same for the 3 bad boards. Two of the bad ones are V6 and one is V4. The working board is V4. The Configurations are the same (Jumpers, infinikey. Eproms (wiped & reprogrammed 01-10; 11-20 are 322s)).

Things I have done:
1. Swapped the Roms from the working board - no change, so it's not the Roms.
2. Shorted ECX5 & 1. No change
3. Removed the infinikey and reinstalled - no change
4. PAL G swapped from the good board - no change
5. check power across the boards, all good - no change
6. installed CPS2-Tester chip and the system info did not show on the screen, with or without the infinikey installed.

Any Ideas on what I should focus on next?
 
I can't help with your tech issues, but I'm curious why you're converting games at all? It's probably easier to just grab the CPS2 multi, or play the games on MiSTer today than to convert.
 
Where the B boards working before the conversion? Do you get any sound to indicate they might be playing blind?
 
I would double check your jumpers. specifically the ones that shouldn't be jumped. Some of the jumpers locations have a small trace between the jumper pads that needs to be cut for them to be un-jumpered.
 
ack said:
I would double check your jumpers. specifically the ones that shouldn't be jumped. Some of the jumpers locations have a small trace between the jumper pads that needs to be cut for them to be un-jumpered.
Click to expand...
Jumpers all test correct
 
Yeah I'm not sure. You are saying its playing blind with a white screen. That implies 1-10 eproms (sound + program) are likely ok and something is up with 11-20 eproms (graphics). Curious what romset you are using.
 
ack said:
Yeah I'm not sure. You are saying its playing blind with a white screen. That implies 1-10 eproms (sound + program) are likely ok and something is up with 11-20 eproms (graphics). Curious what romset you are using.
Click to expand...
not playing blind, blank screen first, reboot then gets a white screen, VSAVU Romset. what really bothers me is that this same Romset works fine on the working board, but that good romset transferred to one of the other boards has the same issue. Its acting like a PCB issue, but three separate boards with the same issue? somethings off.
 
Hrm guess we had a misunderstanding before about it playing blind. If you have a logic probe you should see what kinda activity there is on the address/data lines of the program roms.

You can also try this and see if it gets you anything

https://www.mvs-scans.com/misc/mad-vsavu-2025-03-12d.zip

Its an alternate diag rom built specifically for vsavu. Inside there are 2 roms, one for a suicided vsavu board and one for a key'd/encrypted vsavu board. Use which ever is appropriate for your boards. I don't have the game so I was only able to verify both run ok in mame. Its somewhat like the neo geo diag in that if it detects an error it will provide a beep code and do error address. If no issues, it should play a short jingle from the game, then dump you to a menu system that looks like this


0000.png


However I suspect you have some issue preventing the program roms from working so you might nothing.
 
Well, I found the issue, which I still can't believe. I programmed a GAL16V8A to replace the PAL, which programmed fine and verified but gave me the white screen of death. I pulled another GAL from my stash and programmed it and it worked. I took a closer look and the working one was a GAL16V8D. Didn't know speed was an issue for this chip. Learn something new everyday.
 
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ack said:
Hrm guess we had a misunderstanding before about it playing blind. If you have a logic probe you should see what kinda activity there is on the address/data lines of the program roms.

You can also try this and see if it gets you anything

https://www.mvs-scans.com/misc/mad-vsavu-2025-03-12d.zip

Its an alternate diag rom built specifically for vsavu. Inside there are 2 roms, one for a suicided vsavu board and one for a key'd/encrypted vsavu board. Use which ever is appropriate for your boards. I don't have the game so I was only able to verify both run ok in mame. Its somewhat like the neo geo diag in that if it detects an error it will provide a beep code and do error address. If no issues, it should play a short jingle from the game, then dump you to a menu system that looks like this


0000.png


However I suspect you have some issue preventing the program roms from working so you might nothing.
Click to expand...
This looks interesting, thanks for posting. Is there a generic CPS2 diag BIOS available for boards that don't have VS installed on them?
 
tika said:
This looks interesting, thanks for posting. Is there a generic CPS2 diag BIOS available for boards that don't have VS installed on them?
Click to expand...
I haven't done much testing on the generic version for any suicided board, but you can try this

https://www.mvs-scans.com/misc/mad-cps2-generic-2025-04-21d.zip

The general annoyance is the palette colors. The games all seem to use the same tiles numbers for text, but can use complete different palette color indexes for them. It can result in screwy looking text or even a black screen.
 
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tika said:
Awesome, thanks for that! I'll give it a crack when I get a change. With your link above, it points to the VS diag BIOS and not the CPS2 generic BIOS. The CPS2 generic diag BIOS is here: https://www.mvs-scans.com/misc/mad-cps2-generic-2025-04-21d.zip
Click to expand...
Ah my bad. I cut/paste the previous url from vs and changed to filename. Guess the forum only updated the visible string at not the link. I updated my post to fix. thanks
 
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