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Sega Chihiro Type 1 issues - House of the dead 3

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16shelford

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Hi there

Regards from singapore!
Bought a non-working HOD3 2 months ago (my absolutely fav shooting game back in the day) and making some progress.
It is my first restoration and although been into pinball almost 10 years i'm really scratching my head with the sega Chihiro system....definitely not for beginners!

small recap of the issues i found/fixed and whats remaining. Any advise will be appreciated

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When i bought the hod3 there was an error 25 (gd-room not connected). Even that the cd was spinning the gd-room wasn't reading. Bought one in ebay, replaced the old one and the game loaded! Success!
However.......couldn't be that easy, isn't it? after playing a game of about 5' the arcade switched off (kind of no-signal into the monitor) status leds in the chihiro red and green both blinking
Noticed the chihiro was a bit hot and decided to contact SEGA. After a couple of mails/reminders without any assistance or reply whatsoever decided to man up and open the Chihiro
2 cooling fans inside. The small one in the center of the lower board was moving and the big one on the side was spoiled. Replaced the fan (the original is a 12v 0.4 A but only found 12v 0.2A in the hardware shop please let me know if that could be a problem) took the opportunity to replace the button battery too.
After replacing the big lateral fan the game works, however....here we go again! you can play one game and although the chihiro run without any issues (the green status led is always on) the monitor start showing some interferences.
I thought that it could be the vga cable but after replacing it the situation is pretty much the same, I play one game but after 5' only have interferences in the monitor,i have sound i can press start and play but i can't see a thing. if i restart the game although the sound is there it goes directly into big interference lines as in the pics. If i wait 2 hrs and then restart everything is normal for about 2' (i can see the chihiro loading message in the screen) and then i have the interferences in the monitor again. If instead i switch off the game and i try the day after i can play 1 game no issues but i will have the interferences after 5'. Suspect it is something with the video board maybe overheating...could it be the small cooling fan in the board that was spinning and hence not replaced?

thansk for reading! hope isnt too long...tried to put as many details possible.
Any help will be appreciated

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As you say it could be the fan on the GPU overheating but it could also be power to the monitor that's flaky.

There's also the possibility that this is caused by failing caps on the monitor chassis which requires a monitor recap.
Gotta keep in mind these monitors are over 20 years old and have had a tough life, recapping should be your first action but if you want to confirm that the problem is the GPU, plug another monitor. Doesn't matter if its LCD, if after 5 minutes the same glitchiness manifests itself then the GPU is the problem, if not then the monitor has to be recapped.
 
hi Emmanu

Thanks for the advise! Actually the monitor screen takes a couple of minutes to show image after warm up after that that everything "greenish" for a couple of minutes
5' after switching on and by the time the game finish to do the loading/checking is all pretty much normal.
However it is a good point. Will try connecting a computer monitor and see how.
 
No problem. I do hope though that the Chihiro outputs a signal that a standard monitor will display.
Me reading too quickly i thought you were dealing with a Lindbergh considering the extensive research i did last fall to help a friend revive his Rambo cabinet.

But chances are the Xbox that the Chihiro is based on probably can output a VGA signal to a standard monitor.

Keep us updated!
 
Tried with a pc monitor and the result is the same.
I can load the game and play a little but then it will lost the signal
If at the moment of losing the signal in the monitor switch the vga cable to the crt i will see the distortion shown in the pictures

Once the distortion is there i need to wait 2-3 days for the game to load again as otherwise the distortion appears immediately after switching on
Could it be something to do with the memory? i opened up the chihiro but didnt touch the dimm at all

thansk for the heads up
 
It could be the memory that's corrupting itself and causing the Chihiro to crash.

Change the RAM on the board, Chihiro's have a battery to keep data sustained between power off's in the RAM.
So if it takes a few days before you can reboot your board once it crashes, its almost certainly bad RAM sticks that are causing the issue.
 
thanks a lot! Will open the dimm and see if i can get new RAM
Do you have any idea about the RAM model i have to buy?
I was thinking to remove them and see if i can get it in the electronic shop
 
I think the Chihiro uses DDR RAM and i doubt any electronic shop carries those anymore.
Your best bet for new RAM sticks would be eBay.
 
Opened the Dimm yesterday. Found a dead battery (pic below) inside and got access to the RAM....not so sure if they are 128mb or 256mb but if the sticker in the box is right (512mb) i guess it should be 2 sticks of 256mb each
Will replace the battery and the memory as soon i can get spares and report


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The battery pack might only be dead because it hasn't been charged in a while.

Leave it in the Naomi for a few hours and measure with a multimeter to see if there's any juice left in it.
 
Thanks DJ!

Any idea if a allegedly non-working battery could cause all the issue? switched on the machine for a short while last week although you may be right that the arcade wasn't powered long enough to get it charged.
Anyway, i managed to purchase a new battery, should get it deliver next monday. At least i can exclude one of the possibilities

for the memory sticks it is a bit more complicated.
Found a lot of them in ebay but the frequency is 133mhz however the originals appear to be 200mhz (128MB DDR SDRAM at 200MHz)
As per the info i got from old threads "Samsung 256MB PC133 SDRAM 168pin DIMM M366S3323CT0-C75" should be compatible
 
If the battery wasn't working at all, leaving the cabinet off for a few hours would be enough to wipe the RAM content clean so that when you boot it back up, it has to reload the entire game.
Hopefully fingers crossed, changing the RAM out will clear out the glitchiness you're experiencing
 
Hi guys
The Chihiro is now working thanks to ken@irepairsega.
The fact that the previous owner used the arcade with the fan inside the chihiro out of order for who knows how long damaged chihiro's core.
Core was replaced and HOD3 has been used at home for the last couple of months without any issue. My kids and their friends couldn't be happier

Thanks to all that tried to help with comments!
 
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