So, I've thought a lot about making this post. As some of you may know, I'm very new to Arcade stuff. I make that a point not to seem desperate for help, but to clarify what level of understanding I have when discussing this genre and hobby. I started off with a goal of getting just a couple systems simply working. Seeing the hard work people like Darksoft, RGB, Mitsurugi, Raph_Friend, Frank_fjs and countless others on this forum put into this craft I was inspired to look into a few of these systems. ArcSys101 reached out to sell quite a few of these pieces to me and really got the ball rolling in my new interest.
Let me start off by saying it is fair what ArcSys101 sold me. I purchased a Japanese CPS2 A and B board from him along with a Naomi 2 and Capcom I/O all with appropriate cables. Apart from some interesting conversations about things we had in common I can't say the interaction was bad in any way. He seems to come from a genuine place to sell the boards and resources he has. Communication was good, he uploads videos of his sales for the buyer to understand what they're receiving, and things seemed to be packed appropriately for shipment. Pricing to my untrained eye seemed good at the time. The videos for my purchases were uploaded quickly and gave me a good first start at understanding what I was getting into.
I definitely take partial blame in where the issues come in but let's get other things out of the way first. Compared to what I've seen from other CPS2 systems, the boards I received were relatively... dirty. It took quite a lot of IPA, time, and effort to get these to the point where dirt wasn't simply rubbing off on my hands. For the most part, that's fine. I clean up any console or retro item I receive. The A board was missing the external buttons for the volume controls and test menu. The super capacitor that handles saving system settings also seems to have died, a piece I'll be replacing soon, requiring the volume to be set on boot each time. These weren't things I was told about when buying the board. I also didn't fully understand that these even could be issues since I had never seen a CPS2 board in person before. Yes, pictures and videos online exist but you don't often notice these things until you have it in front of you.
The B board was just as dirty if not worse than the A board. Tons of dust/dirt to clean up which called into question the state of the board. I bought this board being told that it was a suicided Marvel Vs Capcom board, revision 7. This seemed like a perfect candidate, just as ArcSys101 said, for the Darksoft Multi that I had also bought (shout out to High Score Saves). I bought the board with the understanding that I was buying it as is, untested. This was my mistake, definitely. It turns out, the board does not produce sound. I've cleaned the contacts, checked every trace that looked suspiciously corroded, checked for bad capacitors but I just can't figure it out. The dirtiness being a huge issue seems to really show up with poor traces throughout the board which probably means it's not long to live even in the state it's in. When I did have the multi installed, it also ran in a degraded state, with the game slowing down over time to a crawl. With the help of other great people on this forum, I bought an infinikey to revive the original board and got some incredibly patient troubleshooting help as well. Marvel Vs Capcom runs... okay on it's own without sound. Having tested everything with other known working boards from friends in the area, it's just a shame to see the items from ArcSys101 not working and in this condition.
Next up, the Naomi. The contacts on the outside are pretty dirty, but the internals and PCB itself seem perfectly fine. I have some pretty bad video noise but apart from that (which I think is the cable) I have no issues to report. The Capcom I/O also works as expected but again is a bit dirty. Thankfully he also sent cables to get it tested and working as soon as I could.
All in all, I think this is fair to say that there's more that could have been done from ArcSys101 to ensure the boards he was selling me were in the condition he described. Either that, or the issues I've described above could have been diagnosed before being sold. Ultimately, it's my responsibility for buying an untested board that was claimed to be suicide instead of being non-functional. To that extent, I suggest anybody buying to really understand what they're getting. I'm appreciative for the items that work and would just ask for a bit more effort from both buyer and seller here.
Sorry for the really long winded post but I wanted to write out my thoughts in a respectful way that hopefully helps any new members as well. Given that the MVC CPS2 board is the only non functional thing and that I bought it as untested (despite being claimed suicided), I'm not sure if I should ask for a refund.
Either way, learn from my mistakes. While I've learned a lot from the great people here diagnosing and troubleshooting these boards, at the end of the day I don't have a system that works. There's a lot of different pieces and making sure they're all playing nice can be daunting.
Thanks for reading, and sorry, I tend to write a lot...
Let me start off by saying it is fair what ArcSys101 sold me. I purchased a Japanese CPS2 A and B board from him along with a Naomi 2 and Capcom I/O all with appropriate cables. Apart from some interesting conversations about things we had in common I can't say the interaction was bad in any way. He seems to come from a genuine place to sell the boards and resources he has. Communication was good, he uploads videos of his sales for the buyer to understand what they're receiving, and things seemed to be packed appropriately for shipment. Pricing to my untrained eye seemed good at the time. The videos for my purchases were uploaded quickly and gave me a good first start at understanding what I was getting into.
I definitely take partial blame in where the issues come in but let's get other things out of the way first. Compared to what I've seen from other CPS2 systems, the boards I received were relatively... dirty. It took quite a lot of IPA, time, and effort to get these to the point where dirt wasn't simply rubbing off on my hands. For the most part, that's fine. I clean up any console or retro item I receive. The A board was missing the external buttons for the volume controls and test menu. The super capacitor that handles saving system settings also seems to have died, a piece I'll be replacing soon, requiring the volume to be set on boot each time. These weren't things I was told about when buying the board. I also didn't fully understand that these even could be issues since I had never seen a CPS2 board in person before. Yes, pictures and videos online exist but you don't often notice these things until you have it in front of you.
The B board was just as dirty if not worse than the A board. Tons of dust/dirt to clean up which called into question the state of the board. I bought this board being told that it was a suicided Marvel Vs Capcom board, revision 7. This seemed like a perfect candidate, just as ArcSys101 said, for the Darksoft Multi that I had also bought (shout out to High Score Saves). I bought the board with the understanding that I was buying it as is, untested. This was my mistake, definitely. It turns out, the board does not produce sound. I've cleaned the contacts, checked every trace that looked suspiciously corroded, checked for bad capacitors but I just can't figure it out. The dirtiness being a huge issue seems to really show up with poor traces throughout the board which probably means it's not long to live even in the state it's in. When I did have the multi installed, it also ran in a degraded state, with the game slowing down over time to a crawl. With the help of other great people on this forum, I bought an infinikey to revive the original board and got some incredibly patient troubleshooting help as well. Marvel Vs Capcom runs... okay on it's own without sound. Having tested everything with other known working boards from friends in the area, it's just a shame to see the items from ArcSys101 not working and in this condition.
Next up, the Naomi. The contacts on the outside are pretty dirty, but the internals and PCB itself seem perfectly fine. I have some pretty bad video noise but apart from that (which I think is the cable) I have no issues to report. The Capcom I/O also works as expected but again is a bit dirty. Thankfully he also sent cables to get it tested and working as soon as I could.
All in all, I think this is fair to say that there's more that could have been done from ArcSys101 to ensure the boards he was selling me were in the condition he described. Either that, or the issues I've described above could have been diagnosed before being sold. Ultimately, it's my responsibility for buying an untested board that was claimed to be suicide instead of being non-functional. To that extent, I suggest anybody buying to really understand what they're getting. I'm appreciative for the items that work and would just ask for a bit more effort from both buyer and seller here.
Sorry for the really long winded post but I wanted to write out my thoughts in a respectful way that hopefully helps any new members as well. Given that the MVC CPS2 board is the only non functional thing and that I bought it as untested (despite being claimed suicided), I'm not sure if I should ask for a refund.
Either way, learn from my mistakes. While I've learned a lot from the great people here diagnosing and troubleshooting these boards, at the end of the day I don't have a system that works. There's a lot of different pieces and making sure they're all playing nice can be daunting.
Thanks for reading, and sorry, I tend to write a lot...
