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My CPS2 board has issues. Should I still install the kit?

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ShiftingBlank

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Hope you guys can help me with this. I bought a blue Street Fighter Zero (A+B boards) from China hoping to install the Darksoft kit on it. I got it a couple of days ago and fired it up, and everything seemed fine at first, but now it's giving me trouble. After about 1-2 minutes in attract mode the video cuts out, and then it eventually freezes or crashes with an "illegal instruction" error. I don't have the tools to open it up, but, based on the pictures from the original listing, it's missing a battery, so I assume it's been phoenixed. I'm trying to decide whether or not to go ahead and install the kit anyway. Does this sound like a problem with the decrypted rom, or is it a hardware problem that will keep happening after I install the kit?
 
first double check your 5v to make sure it's right at the jamma edge. does the crash always happen at the same point? If you go into the game and play does it not crash?

I would attempt to resurrect it as sfz with a battery or key solution. That's a cheaper test to see how the hardware works, including the encryption circuit. If you just burn the sfz program roms that'll be like $10 and the chip/arduino will be like $5-20 depending on what you use. so $15-30 to check if the hardware works before investing in the full kit.
 
I tried it on two different cabinets and had the same results. Is CPS2 picky about voltage? Does it need exactly 5V? One cabinet is reading 5.2V right now.

From what I can tell, the crash happens at various times. I've left it on for 5+ minutes before without any issues, but last time it started glitching out right away. It did crash on the character select screen once. I haven't really been able to test it that much yet because I'm still building my arcade setup and don't have a kick harness yet.

Can you recommend a tutorial on how to resurrect the board? I've never burned EEPROM's or programmed an Arduino before, but I'm willing to figure it out.
 
It's actually green, not blue. Oops. I tried setting my cabinet to almost exactly 5V, and it didn't make any difference. Oddly enough, the game takes several minutes to crash the first time, but if I turn it off and back on again, it crashes again immediately. Could it be overheating? The fan is definitely on - it sounds like a jet engine.
 
The last time I bought a board from China I had to clean the jamma edge really good on the A board because it kept crashing and freezing but after I cleaned the edge it was working fine. You could try and see if you just possibly have a dirty jamma edge.
 
Also try seperating the A board from the B board and then reattaching them firmly back together.

You'll want to get the tools to open up the B board casing anyway if you're going to install the Multi. If you do get the case open and the crashes are still occurring, try removing and reinstalling every ROM chip.
 
ShiftingBlank said:
It's actually green, not blue. Oops. I tried setting my cabinet to almost exactly 5V, and it didn't make any difference.
Click to expand...
are you measuring 5v while the psu is under load from your cps2 pcb?
 
I've tried checking the voltage and cleaning the JAMMA edge, but no dice. I'm going to try to get the bit and open it up later today. Here's the image from the original listing. Any thoughts? The chips all say "Capcom" or "SFZ" on them, but the battery's missing, so I don't know. Does it look obviously suspect or messed up somehow?

1620136510687.png
 
Without a battery, in order to work it would have to have either an InfiniKey installed or the EPROMs reprogrammed to Phoenix'd code.

It is possible that the original EPROM stickers were carefully removed with a razor blade so that the chips could be reprogrammed, and then reattached after.

Post a fresh picture after you open up if there's any differences. If the game still glitches after removing and reinstalling each EPROM then it's possible that the data in one of the EPROMs is corrupted. If you'd like, I can reprogram any EPROMs you need for just the cost of shipping.
 
That's kind of you, thanks. I went out and bought a bit, but it turned out to be the wrong size. No store in my area seems to carry the right size, so it looks like I won't be able to open the damn thing up for at least a week.

If the problem comes down to the EPROMs, it would be safe to go ahead and install the kit, since that entails replacing the EPROMs anyway, right? Can I assume that the A board is probably okay? If I install the kit and still have problems, can I remove it from this board and reinstall it in a working B board?
 
Yes, that is correct - if the issue is only with the EPROMs then you could safely install the Multi. It is also possible to remove the Multi after it's been installed - you just have to be careful when doing so because the needles that extend off the bottom of the Multi and connect into the B board sockets are fragile and it's easy to snap the tips when removing the kit if one side of the PCB pops loose and the other side stays seated. Been there, done that...
 
Well, I rolled the dice and bought the Multi. I was hoping that the phoenixed EPROMs were the problem and figured that I was going to get the kit set up one way or another, so I might as well buy it now. I installed the Multi, and, surprise surprise, same problem. The games flash normally and load up fine (although some of them seem to have these weird vertical lines for some reason... guess I'll deal with that later), but after a minute or so the video cuts out and the game freezes up. If I cut the power and start it up again, whatever game is loaded freezes right away or I get a black screen. If I wait a few minutes and try again, it goes back to working briefly before freezing. I took pictures of a few spots on the B board before I installed the kit:

This capacitor looks like it might have been replaced:

F492B12E-B5C7-43DF-A281-C333D1077628.jpeg


And these little dollops of solder look like they could have been added later:

158CC5B9-F768-4F1F-BFDB-A523FBB218D7.jpeg


Those are the only things I noticed. I'm guessing the B board suicided at some point, since the battery is missing and there was a little bit of gunk where it used to be. There's no InfiniKey or anything, so the previous owner must have just reflashed the EPROMs.

Anyway, now I'm trying to figure out what to do next. Is there any way to tell if the problem is the B board or the A board? If I have to try replacing one of them, which one is the best bet?
 
Unfortunately, there's several possibilities here. First off, the replaced capacitor and solder blobs on the jumpers won't be causing the problems you're having here.

From what you've described, the game malfunctions as it heats up. That hints to me a loose solder joint - likely with one of the surface mount custom chips. A chip leg makes contact with its pad when the board is cold at first startup, but then as the chip heats up and expands, the loose leg shfts off the pad. Closely examining the SMD customs or just reflowing all of them on principle would be where I'd start. You'll definitely want SMD soldering tools and prior experience to do that though.

The easiest and most effective way to narrow down whether it's your A board or B board that's faulty is to get a known-good B board and swap it in. Someone here may be willing to sell or loan you one.
 
Unfortunately, I have no experience with soldering. I want to learn, but I haven't yet. Wouldn't it make more sense to try an A board first so I don't have to swap the kit out and risk damaging it? Or do you think the B board is more likely to be the problem?

Is there anyone I could send both boards to for servicing?
 
The CPU is in the B board and it's the CPU that's freezing up, so I think the B board is more likely to be the problem. I'd try a different B board first.

As for servicing your current board, I do that kind of work here and there, but I'm backlogged for months. Some other folks on here like @Hammy, @caius or @Apocalypse might be willing to look at it for you, although frankly buying another inexpensive B board donor for your Multi would probably cost the same or less than paying to get your current board serviced. You can land Marvel Superheroes, XMen Children of the Atom or XMen vs Street Fighter for around $100 - $150.
 
Still sounds like low power to me (freezing/booting issues), and just a loose connection between A and B board (vertical lines). What is the voltage on the jamma edge under load? Are you booting these in their plastic shells? Are they super tight?
 
I tried it on a supergun and a cabinet. The results were the same both times. The supergun read 5.09 volts. I'm not sure about the cabinet (don't know how to test it under load), but it should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 5V. What is the optimal voltage for CPS2?

So how does this test ROM work exactly? I might be able to get into a game long enough to run the onboard memtest from the service menu. Are they different?
 
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