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Noob 246 power question.

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MongoTX

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I picked up an old time crisis 3. I bought a new power supply from twisted quarter that has the correct 5v and 12 rails. I have this on my workbench and when I power it up nothing. Been reading on the forums about the 5v rail and how if the 5v is low it will not run. I have measured and adjusted the 5v rail from the connector when it is not connected to the 246 and reads 5.1. When I connect it to the 246 and read the input power connectors, they read 4.87. So is the 246 draw causing the rail to drop and do I need to raise the 5v up to get this thing to work. The second question is is it safe to raise the power while the system is on?

Thanks!
 
The systems are power hungry but they should still turn on though. Is the fan spinning? Do you get any activity through the dvd drive?
 
When I'm installing any gameboard/PCB, I first take a reading of my voltages with no board connected.
Then I connect the board, and while powered, taken another reading making adjustments/fine tune.

IF the PCB is power hungry, adjusting it under load should find a value that makes it boot.
That said, I would max-out at about 5.2v, 3.4v and 12.4v, if its still not booting you have other issues at that point.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
One more thing, the system will still boot without the I/O board connected. Do you happen to have a picture of the type of power supply you bought?
 
The fan does spin but I get no response from the dvd drive. I believe I am just a little low on the voltage. Since I have it on my bench I only have the power, dvd drive and a Dell lcd monitor hooked up. Just trying to get proof of life before I put it back into the cabinet.
 

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That looks like the correct power supply and I think the dvd drive might be shot, not sure yet though. A lcd monitor will not work with TC3 as it’s a 15khz low resolution game meaning that it doesn’t support 31khz, you’ll need a converter or a monitor that supports 15khz. You could replace the dvd drive or check the connectors inside the game board, one thing I would check first is the IDE ribbon cable. Check if it’s firmly plugged into the game board and the dvd drive. You could also replace it with a new one.
 
Thank you all for the help. Looks like tomorrow I will be going through all the wiring in the cabinet checking to make sure it is good since this was in a storage unit with mice. I will then be able to put the PC back in with the new power supply and see what I get.
 
I like to check the voltage on the molex plug for the dvd drive while its connected. Check both 5v and 12v to see if they are under.

It also not uncommon for the ide ribbon cable to be bad.
 
If i remember correctly the power connector is not reversed on the 246 compared to 256 so careful the 12v and 5v are not in the same position.
 
Narugawa said:
If i remember correctly the power connector is not reversed on the 246 compared to 256 so careful the 12v and 5v are not in the same position.
Click to expand...
That’s for the 246B as the connector is upside down, the 246C and 256 have the same orientation.
The only thing I don’t like about the 246C is that the sync is a bit off while playing the light gun version of Time Crisis 3, most of the 246Cs were used for the CCD camera version. The 246B is a better option for playing the light gun version.
 
ok, quick update. I put the new supply into the cabinet and hooked up the pc with the sound. When I turn it on I get a couple of seconds of screeching out of the speakers and then nothing. I have four 246c systems and I know one of them is bad because it has a blown cap on the bottom but the other three look fine and give me the same result. I do get two red power lights on the boards when I turn them on but no DVD drive power. I hit eject the disc and nothing.

Voltages on the motherboard are 5.02 on both rails and I get 5.02 and 12v out of the DVD drive cord.

Any thoughts??
 
I have tried different DVD drives that I know are good and also a different IDE cable.
 
Did more troubleshooting today and measured all the current power supplies and the voltages on them. I did this measurement from the supply and not hooked up to the system. I have four complete cabinets but since they were in a storage unit by the ocean I don't quite trust the power supplies.

Do these look in spec.

System 1
5v = 5.41
12v =12.06

system 2
5v = 5.13
12v = 11.15

system 3
5v = 5.13
12v = 12.13

System 4
5v = 5.74
12v = 12.18

New Supply
5v = 5.16
12v = 11.20

How important is the 12v rail if I push the new supply to 5v to 5.54 then I get 12.05 on the 12v?

One again thank you for the help!
 
Hmm, very strange, I haven’t messed around a lot with the 246C as I have been fixing a lot of 246Bs. What I can tell you is that most of the time, the PlayStation 2 board is the part that fails the most, the Namco board is always good (except for a future issue of dying RAM). The voltages all look pretty good. The 12v rail is not as power hungry as the 5v rail. Did you ever get any sound from the speakers that sound something like this?
View: https://youtu.be/Gn5_pYyCIYM


Is the dongle connected and have you tried to clean the contacts on the dongle? Dust can build up in the memory card ports and cause a contact issue.
 
MongoTX said:
I did this measurement from the supply and not hooked up to the system.
Click to expand...

Measuring PSUs without a load on them is meaningless.

Hook up the systems and adjust +5V close to 5.00 or very slightly over. Take measurements from the system. Once your +5V voltages are in line, power cycle the cabs.

What's your +12V now showing? Unless it's way under, it should be fine.
 
OK put my supply in and it is running +5v = 5.02 and the +12v = 12.29. I tried two boards and nothing but the third board beeps 6 times and then stopped. I attached a different cdrom and it beeped three times and then went into like an alarm loop.

Do you happen to have the beep codes?
 
3 beeps followed by a constant wah sound means that the dongle and media isn’t being detected. 6 or more beeps means that the dongle is detected but if you’re getting a black screen after the dongle verification, then that means that the DVD or DVD drive isn’t working.
 
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