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[FIXED] TTX2 - First no video, later no signs of life

lupin3rd

lupin3rd

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(Moved here from the TTX2 forum, since I probably should have posted here instead.)

Having a helluva time with the TTX2. Full disclosure: I did not expect this thing to work at all, since it was an as-is YAJ purchase. I was purchasing it for the medal game, which didn't seem to be available anywhere else at time: Lupin the 3rd. Since I collect Lupin, I had to buy for that reason alone.

If you hate reading or verbosity, skip to the bottom where the TL;DR is.

Fast forward, the system arrives stateside. Tried to power it on just to see what the current state of affairs was. First thing I notice is that the fans are spinning up, then slowing down, and stopping. Then they spin up again, slow down, and stop. This cycle repeats several times, and finally the fans stay on and the system is in a "powered up" state. Black screen now, fans are on, JVS card has lights on. No POST messages, no GPU BIOS output, no beep codes, nada.

Next, I remove the lid. Oh god, the humanity! Bad caps popped open like popcorn everywhere! This explains what felt like a reboot loop, whereas the caps were depleting prematurely and causing reboots. There were 21 bad 1000uF 6.3V caps on this board. There should have been 22 bad ones, but it appears as though someone had already replaced one, as there was still signs of obvious flux on the back on the board as I discovered later. Metered out the CMOS battery, had a nice 3.03V on it.

I read the labels to ID the specific model and see what is supposed to be in the machine. Label says Model102A, and the hardware sticker says:

  • CPU: Cel 3.2Ghz
  • MEM: 512MB
  • GRA: X1300LE
I compare that to the actual contents of the machine. CPU and RAM match up, GPU is actually an X1600Pro. No worries, I figure, as these are all legitimate parts, so I'm assuming the configuration is legitimate.

If experience has taught me anything, it's to check the power. I have an ATX breakout board that gives me voltage posts and a power on/off switch for ATX supplies. Hooked it up to that, turned the switch on and metered everything out. 5.04V, 3.34V, 11.8V, and -11.6V. Seems within spec, with no wild fluctuations. I didn't check for signs of AC ripple, but I think it was fine.

So, I figure I'll try the machine without its GPU and see if onboard worked, since that's easy to do and I didn't have 22 of the caps needed to fix them properly yet. No dice there. So then, I figured I'll try to stick the X1600Pro in another machine I have to make sure it isn't dead. No problem there, it fired right up in another machine. Fans working, etc.

Also tried some other known-working sticks of identical Hynix PC-5300U modules that I had on hand. No changes, but I didn't expect any since there were no POST beeps indicating a RAM issue.

Okay, caps are the only obvious thing left I can try. They show up, I install them. Things went very smoothly. I didn't have any issues getting them desoldered with my Hakko desoldering iron, temp was set to the lowest temp that would get the job done, so I wouldn't roast the board or any traces. Verified each cap as I went along, verifying component values and polarity at every step. Easy peasy.

TL;DR: After replacing the caps and reconnecting everything, I hold my breath and plug in the power cord. No fans. At all. No beep (although I didn't have this before, either). At first I thought I forgot to plug in the power cable because everything was so silent, but then I noticed that the JVS board had its LEDs on. Oh no! Something went very badly somewhere along the way.

I thought maybe I shorted something under the motherboard or didn't trim the cap legs well-enough. No issues on any of that. Looked for headers that were off-by-one, etc. Tried reseating everything.

If you've seen it before, what did you do? Do you have any ideas that I forgot to try or theories about what happened? I've replaced caps on PC motherboards several times over the years, and this one was just like all of those times, yet here I am.

Sorry for the big ask, but I like discussion, post-mortems, and since it's a brick as it is, I am not above anything at this time. If we deem it unfit to repair, I'll probably go ahead and dump the BIOS to potentially help others in the future, reuse the components in a TeknoParrot build and call it a day. I will attach some pictures of the work when I get home later this evening.

Images (Left to Right): Full view of board and bad caps, 1000uF cap testing at 27pF, game label, TTX2 model label:

IMG_6005.JPGIMG_6009.JPGIMG_5985.JPGIMG_5987.JPG
 
Yeah, I had a moment where I thought I had forgotten that too. Sadly, that wasn’t it, as it was still connected. :(
 
Now that I've had a few days to sleep, I'm probably going to bust this thing out again and look at it under a magnifier. Maybe I filled a via somewhere that shouldn't have been. I don't always do my best work at 3am, so maybe checking it out with fresh eyes earlier in the day will yield some results. I don't want to throw the towel in yet -- and I hate to see something that should be repairable go to waste. Good or bad, I'll post back here for posterity in case it helps someone else in the future.
 
Since I felt like I didn't have any issues with the recapping process, the only thing I could suspect is that the capacitor vias themselves weren't all completely filled with solder. To check this, I pulled the motherboard back out, and put my desoldering iron on each cap leg solder joint, and let it reflow. I noticed in a few spots, the vias were more than happy to pull some of the solder down inside the vias, so I suspect that is exactly what happened.


I'm happy to report that it fully boots into the game, however, I still have to figure out how to satisfy the JVS requirements. I have a few Sega IO boards from my Naomi setups, but none of them seem to quell the beast. I don't think I would need any controls actually hooked up, would I? Any ideas?

E201 JVS

Is what I get now. Since this game is a medal pusher, I'm hoping there aren't any additional requirements beyond a basic IO board. I don't have a Taito IO board, but I'm not above biting the bullet and buying one if necessary.
 
Glad to see you got it fixed.

Games can do a few different types of checks on the I/O board. With this being a “deluxe” game, It’s likely a unique I/O board.

Anyway, the I/O board check can probably be patched out pretty easily.
 
Actually, I think I know what’s going on with the IO board too. Pretty sure I forgot to power the IO board, as I only had the USB A-B cable connected to it. I’m building a power cable for it today, so I’ll know more after while. Going to use one of the 4-pin AMP power cables from the TTX2 power supply and modify a splitter cable to connect to the IO board.
 
Forgot to update. After powering the IO board and hooking it up, I began receiving a different error code. E206 JVS. I don't know what it means, and I can't find anything that lays out the various JVS errors on the TTX# platforms. Any ideas?
 
lupin3rd said:
Forgot to update. After powering the IO board and hooking it up, I began receiving a different error code. E206 JVS. I don't know what it means, and I can't find anything that lays out the various JVS errors on the TTX# platforms. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Im not sure about that particular error message but, If you are able to, go into test mode before the error, see if there is anything you can turn off. There may be something in the settings that is "On" and needs to be turned "off" in order to play. If it is a medal game there is a possibility that if the hopper isnt connected or its missing another board or its using the wrong JVS so it wont boot. Same thing happens with some driving/shooting games etc.

Driving set ups like Mario Kart for example, unless you turn off the camera, card reader, and power steering, the game will come up with an error saying "contact attendant". Same goes with Club Kart Prize, and the Mushi King Games to list a few. They just wont boot without the hopper or correct I/O as well.

If you have a different board or another way to power the I/O, try that.
Ive never had any trouble with the TaitoX systems per say however when I owned Tekken 6 on the Namco 357 I found out it had a timing issue where if you are powering the I/O together with the motherboard at the same time it would report an error. I had to power the main board first, wait 3 seconds , then put power to the I/O. Once I did that, it booted fine.

Try to experiment with a few different ways there if you can. Power the I/O on first then turn the power on for the main board and see if anything happens. Then try the opposite way, also try to find the manual and what parts it uses, entering test menu etc. That may also help. Just a few simple things you can try.

Hope you figure it out.
 
Thanks for that information! Is there a key I can press to get into test mode, or is the only way to use the test button on the IO board? I've been trying to find a manual, searching on Japanese arcade pages and everywhere else. So far, no love. But if anything, I'm a persistent bastard, so this will get figured out eventually. Did you know that the JVS PCI card on this TTX2 has 10 dip switches instead of 5? I haven't seen anyone mention what the extra 5 switches do, if anything.
 
lupin3rd said:
Thanks for that information! Is there a key I can press to get into test mode, or is the only way to use the test button on the IO board? I've been trying to find a manual, searching on Japanese arcade pages and everywhere else. So far, no love. But if anything, I'm a persistent bastard, so this will get figured out eventually. Did you know that the JVS PCI card on this TTX2 has 10 dip switches instead of 5? I haven't seen anyone mention what the extra 5 switches do, if anything.
Click to expand...
Just trying to help out where possible. The Medal games are the hardest to find a lot of info on Ive found (doesnt mean the info isnt out there, just not as available as common arcade stuff). You will have to find the pins for the test switch or pinouts for the board. If you are using a Naomi JVS, I recommend checking out the AGS website that has most of the popular boards there and the pinouts as well. Im not sure which bard you are using but here is an example : http://www.tms-designs.com/theshed/default.asp?stockid=1718
Andy has other JVS I/O boards there and the pinouts so have a look for yourself.
 
That link is exactly what I needed. I have the pinouts for all of the Sega boards I own, but his little 100-ohm resistor trick at the bottom of that page is a little nugget of wisdom that I hadn’t found yet.
 
Update: The 100-ohm resistor helped start a few games that were on the multigame, however, it did not change the results about the JVS error. I also tried powering up the I/O board early and later in the boot process. Still no dice.

I did try some other things, however, and got a new result... kind of.

@Niko I added the Lupin the 3rd files to the multigame drive, and this time when the game booted, it actually displayed a Banpresto screen before throwing up the E206 JVS error. I did copy a config.ini file from another game that just had the gametype=jvs line in it. So, am I correct in thinking that the JVS emulator would have been running at that time? If so, it took longer to freak out and throw up the E206 JVS error.

Also, Niko, if you're using an actual JVS I/O board, what should be in the config.ini file on the multigame setup?
 
Here are some additional pics of unrelated errors, but worth documenting nevertheless.

First image is the message I received when I accidentally left my 7900 in the TTX2, when it should have been the X1600.

Second image is what happened when I was mashing the Test Switch hooked up to the IO board.

Under regular testing circumstances, neither of these occurs.

263381B0-0327-4016-95A3-718EA4BAEB6C.jpeg 16BA97F6-832E-4672-AB1B-A1B3F5B4DB9D.jpeg
 
Niko said:
With this being a “deluxe” game, It’s likely a unique I/O board.
Click to expand...

What Niko said. It's pretty clear that you won't be able to boot it with a regular IO board.
 
I'm just not ready to give up on it. I have seen more information about the game now, still working on a service manual or finding a parts list, but I'm honestly wondering if this is something painfully simple. For example, there are screen digitizers (I hate that word) that use serial output to convert to send screen coordinates to the machine. Since JVS is a spec built on top of serial data transfer, I think that one of two things will be true. Either 1.) The touchscreen will be some kind of USB interface, for which there would have to be a driver pre-installed in XPe, or 2.) The touch-screen interface is a somewhat basic mechanism that will just plug into the IO's additional daisy chain port, and pass serial data through that way.

Guess I'll start rooting around the file system and see what kind of clues turn up from the installed driver set. Perhaps I'll find a Vendor/Device ID that I can lookup. Perhaps the registry will have some tells about what devices are "installed", or supposed to be "installed" that is.

Any other suggestions? I'm definitely going to go look at the stuff I've already mentioned.

One more thing: If I wanted to test my IO boards, through the Taito JVS card (the one with the "JAMMA" USB-A style port), is there any reason I couldn't hook up a breakout device for reading the serial output and dumping it to a terminal? Or for that matter, perhaps I could run a terminal monitor on COM2 inside of XPe and see it there while the application isn't running? Thoughts?
 
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