pcbrown
Beginner
Hi all, I recently went through the process of troubleshooting my Darksoft CPS2 setup and figured I would share my experience. I had to do a lot of poking around this forum and in random other places via Google, and while the troubleshooting thread here is fairly comprehensive, I figured my anecdotal report might be useful in a different way. There's one bit of advice at the end that I think will be especially useful to some folks using Suzo Happ power supplies.
For reference: I'm new to arcade hardware and that will factor into my notes/process.
I started with a working CPS2 A board and a dead Rev. 7 B board (Street Fighter Zero 2, JPN), a new HAS 3.2 supergun, and a Suzo HAPP Power Pro 110w power supply.
Broken Pin
Things got off to a great start when I broke a pin while aligning the largest Darksoft board. I broke the lowest pin on the right side. In this case, at least, I was able to solder a wire from the pin's head on the top of Darksoft board, and then to the bottom of the socket on the underside of the B board.
Solid Red/White Screen
Pretty soon after resolving the broken pin and seating the boards I loaded my Micro SD card (8GB Patriot) with the latest roll-up base pack. The kit's display showed every game, and confirmed when flashing was complete, but after powering off and on I was met with solid colored screens instead of the game I flashed. I tried two A boards and would consistently get either a red or a white screen.
For a while I assumed it was due to improper seating of the various Darksoft boards, which led to repeat and harrowing removals and replacements of the kit.
Eventually, I stumbled on the real culprit: I hadn't installed (or even thought of) the four key writing wires, so I needed to use the OLD roll-up base pack. I swapped the files and was able to boot games… sometimes.
Corrupt Foreground Sprites
While I wasn't thrilled by the intermittent success of loading games, I was more immediately concerned by the corrupt graphics I was seeing on screen. I again worried about the Darksoft installation and kept applying pressure in various places in desperation. No effect.
While I believed that I had properly opened and shorted my B board's jumpers, I took the common advice of severing traces as a potential fix. Rather than remove the kit, I started by using a blade to cut through any open jumpers in plain sight with the board installed. Success! When I could get a game to boot, the graphics appeared correctly.
Inconsistent Game Loading
This was the most unusual resolution of the bunch. To combat not being able to consistently boot games, I again repeatedly reseated the Darksoft boards. I formatted and recopied files back to my SD card. I carefully dialed up the power supply's voltage above 5v. I shorted the EXC5 capacitor near the battery space on the CPS2 B board a dozen times. Once in a while a game would work, but most of the time I couldn't repeat my success.
Then I stumbled on a post I've now lost track of where a user suggested that another troubled customer eject their SD card after flashing the game and powering off. Lo and behold, this allowed me to boot games consistently. I took for granted how the kit works and assumed once a game is flashed that the SD card doesn't play a part in booting, but clearly I was mistaken.
Of course I hated the thought of having to constantly remove and replace the card, so I decided to do what everyone suggests when the Darksoft kit acts up: I used a new Micro SD card. Wouldn't you know it, the new 2GB Sandisk card I put in worked perfectly from the get-go. I was now booting games every time without having to eject the card.
No Sound
Most of my troubleshooting was done on a PVM (1343MD) that doesn't support audio when using RGBs. With the games booting and the graphics looking good, I grabbed some speakers and plugged them into the B board RCA ports. No sound. I used the A board volume buttons but still couldn't get sound. I then found a tip about resetting the board's default audio level, and did the following:
Garbled Audio and Random Sound Effects
With my experience fixing the corrupt sprites earlier, I assumed the jumpers were once again to blame. I removed the Darksoft kit for the last time (thank goodness) and found that jumpers I assumed were open had in fact been closed during manufacturing by the tiniest conductive trace. I cut the bastards and raised my fists in the air. Finally, I had resolved every issue I was having with my installation of the Darksoft kit.
But wait… there's more!
Rolling Diagonal Video Interference
With the CPS2 side of the equation working as expected I was now going to tackle the slight video interference I noticed both when playing on my PVM and via OSSC. I double checked that my video and power lines were separated. I re-examined all of my PSU wiring. Eventually I hit Google and discovered a solution. Other arcade users had noted that the Suzo Happ PSUs (or at least the ones they had access too) didn't bridge Earth Ground and AC Ground within the case. Suspecting the same was true for mine, I crimped a new wire across the two ground points on my PSU and was delighted to see that it completely eliminated the interference I had witnessed.
The Final Step -- The Non-Functioning Button 6
No matter what I did, no matter how I tried to remap my controller via the HAS's built-in functionality, I couldn't get Button 6 (regardless of where it was mapped) to register on my controller. I shot an email to RGB, and to my surprise, he said that I had to DISABLE the button toggles for Buttons 4, 5, and 6 on the bottom on the HAS when using CPS2. Bingo!
The End
If anyone has any follow-up questions please fire away. Otherwise, I can only say thank you to everyone here for contributing to an awesome forum, and to those special few responsible for designing and distributing custom hardware like the HAS and the Multi kit.
For reference: I'm new to arcade hardware and that will factor into my notes/process.
I started with a working CPS2 A board and a dead Rev. 7 B board (Street Fighter Zero 2, JPN), a new HAS 3.2 supergun, and a Suzo HAPP Power Pro 110w power supply.
Broken Pin
Things got off to a great start when I broke a pin while aligning the largest Darksoft board. I broke the lowest pin on the right side. In this case, at least, I was able to solder a wire from the pin's head on the top of Darksoft board, and then to the bottom of the socket on the underside of the B board.
Solid Red/White Screen
Pretty soon after resolving the broken pin and seating the boards I loaded my Micro SD card (8GB Patriot) with the latest roll-up base pack. The kit's display showed every game, and confirmed when flashing was complete, but after powering off and on I was met with solid colored screens instead of the game I flashed. I tried two A boards and would consistently get either a red or a white screen.
For a while I assumed it was due to improper seating of the various Darksoft boards, which led to repeat and harrowing removals and replacements of the kit.
Eventually, I stumbled on the real culprit: I hadn't installed (or even thought of) the four key writing wires, so I needed to use the OLD roll-up base pack. I swapped the files and was able to boot games… sometimes.
Corrupt Foreground Sprites
While I wasn't thrilled by the intermittent success of loading games, I was more immediately concerned by the corrupt graphics I was seeing on screen. I again worried about the Darksoft installation and kept applying pressure in various places in desperation. No effect.
While I believed that I had properly opened and shorted my B board's jumpers, I took the common advice of severing traces as a potential fix. Rather than remove the kit, I started by using a blade to cut through any open jumpers in plain sight with the board installed. Success! When I could get a game to boot, the graphics appeared correctly.
Inconsistent Game Loading
This was the most unusual resolution of the bunch. To combat not being able to consistently boot games, I again repeatedly reseated the Darksoft boards. I formatted and recopied files back to my SD card. I carefully dialed up the power supply's voltage above 5v. I shorted the EXC5 capacitor near the battery space on the CPS2 B board a dozen times. Once in a while a game would work, but most of the time I couldn't repeat my success.
Then I stumbled on a post I've now lost track of where a user suggested that another troubled customer eject their SD card after flashing the game and powering off. Lo and behold, this allowed me to boot games consistently. I took for granted how the kit works and assumed once a game is flashed that the SD card doesn't play a part in booting, but clearly I was mistaken.
Of course I hated the thought of having to constantly remove and replace the card, so I decided to do what everyone suggests when the Darksoft kit acts up: I used a new Micro SD card. Wouldn't you know it, the new 2GB Sandisk card I put in worked perfectly from the get-go. I was now booting games every time without having to eject the card.
No Sound
Most of my troubleshooting was done on a PVM (1343MD) that doesn't support audio when using RGBs. With the games booting and the graphics looking good, I grabbed some speakers and plugged them into the B board RCA ports. No sound. I used the A board volume buttons but still couldn't get sound. I then found a tip about resetting the board's default audio level, and did the following:
- Turn off game and hold-press the VOLUME DOWN button.
- While holding the button, boot the game and continue to hold.
- 5 seconds after boot, release the button.
- With the audio levels reset, raise the volume using the VOLUME UP button.
Garbled Audio and Random Sound Effects
With my experience fixing the corrupt sprites earlier, I assumed the jumpers were once again to blame. I removed the Darksoft kit for the last time (thank goodness) and found that jumpers I assumed were open had in fact been closed during manufacturing by the tiniest conductive trace. I cut the bastards and raised my fists in the air. Finally, I had resolved every issue I was having with my installation of the Darksoft kit.
But wait… there's more!
Rolling Diagonal Video Interference
With the CPS2 side of the equation working as expected I was now going to tackle the slight video interference I noticed both when playing on my PVM and via OSSC. I double checked that my video and power lines were separated. I re-examined all of my PSU wiring. Eventually I hit Google and discovered a solution. Other arcade users had noted that the Suzo Happ PSUs (or at least the ones they had access too) didn't bridge Earth Ground and AC Ground within the case. Suspecting the same was true for mine, I crimped a new wire across the two ground points on my PSU and was delighted to see that it completely eliminated the interference I had witnessed.
The Final Step -- The Non-Functioning Button 6
No matter what I did, no matter how I tried to remap my controller via the HAS's built-in functionality, I couldn't get Button 6 (regardless of where it was mapped) to register on my controller. I shot an email to RGB, and to my surprise, he said that I had to DISABLE the button toggles for Buttons 4, 5, and 6 on the bottom on the HAS when using CPS2. Bingo!
The End
If anyone has any follow-up questions please fire away. Otherwise, I can only say thank you to everyone here for contributing to an awesome forum, and to those special few responsible for designing and distributing custom hardware like the HAS and the Multi kit.
