DARKSOFT The Definitive Guide to Fixing Your CPS2 Multi Kit

[VILLAIN]

I hope you good people can help me out with a bizarre issue I have with the Rev.2 kit.

Background:

I purchased a built to order Consolised CPS2 in November that was working near perfectly, however, there were the odd issues with jailbars when flashing certain games that was driving me crazy. I opened up the B Board to use contact cleaner to clean the contacts, tested and the situation slightly improved. Getting a little too confident I took the entire kit out to reseat it and bent one of the pins on the fingerboard, which I later snapped when trying to straighten it. Anyhow, having average soldering skills I decided to purchase another kit and have the first one repaired and sold on in longer time.

Problem:

The new kit arrived and I removed the old kit (which incidentally had key wires installed for encrypted games) and installed without wires. I downloaded the old decrypted rom pack, but it failed to load and went to the yellow/brown screen which usually suggests a suicided board. I removed and re-seated everything again, ensuring the bridge adapter had J1 going into the top board with the SD Card and J2 into the sub-board - as per instructions on here. I shorted the EXC5 and still the problem persists.

The Strange Part...

The only rom and key that works in the 'encrypted' 1944 The Loop Master - considering the key wires are no longer in place for encrypted games?! Flashing any other rom (encrypted or decrypted) keeps the system on the yellow/brown screen. It should be noted that whilst 1944 works, it displays patterned glitches, and when flashing a new game the image looks like a bad VHS tape with the tracking out. I have inspected all pins on the A/B Boards and the rom sockets for issues.

I would really appreciate some help. Thanks in advance

 

[Arthrimus]

I hope you good people can help me out with a bizarre issue I have with the Rev.2 kit.

Background:

I purchased a built to order Consolised CPS2 in November that was working near perfectly, however, there were the odd issues with jailbars when flashing certain games that was driving me crazy. I opened up the B Board to use contact cleaner to clean the contacts, tested and the situation slightly improved. Getting a little too confident I took the entire kit out to reseat it and bent one of the pins on the fingerboard, which I later snapped when trying to straighten it. Anyhow, having average soldering skills I decided to purchase another kit and have the first one repaired and sold on in longer time.

Problem:

The new kit arrived and I removed the old kit (which incidentally had key wires installed for encrypted roms) and installed without wires. I downloaded the old decrypted rom pack, but it failed to load and went to the yellow/brown screen which usually suggests a suicided board. I removed snd reseated everything again, ensuring the bridge adapter had J1 going into the top board with the SD Card and J2 into the sub-board - as per instructions on here. I shorted the EXC5 and still the problem persists.

The Strange Part...

The only rom and key that works in the 'encrypted' 1944 The Loop Master - considering the key wires are no longer in place for encrypted games?! Flashing any other rom (encrypted or decrypted) keeps the system on the yellow/brown screen. It should be noted that whilst 1944 works, it displays pattered glitches, and when flashing a new game the image looks like a bad VHS tape with the tracking out. I have inspected all pins on the A/B Boards and the rom sockets for issues.

I would really appreciate some help. Thanks in advance

Sounds like the key for 1944 is currently written to your B board. Does your B board still have a battery? If not try to short the legs of EXC5 with the B board disconnected from the A board and then try running decrypted roms.

 

[VILLAIN]

Sounds like the key for 1944 is currently written to your B board. Does your B board still have a battery? If not try to short the legs of EXC5 with the B board disconnected from the A board and then try running decrypted roms.

Thanks for the advice. The battery was taken out in November, and I removed the EXC5 this morning. Not sure if you can still drain the power in all the Caps (short) without the EXC5? Incidentally the board behaves the same without it - in regards to only booting 1944 encrypted.

I left the board to discharge over night (about 10 hours approx) but that didn't change the behaviour.

 

[Arthrimus]

Was your B board still connected to the A board when you left it to discharge?

 

[VILLAIN]

Was your B board still connected to the A board when you left it to discharge?

Yes it was. I will separate them tonight and see if that flushes the keys.

Is the weird glitch pattern (like symmetrical pixel blocks scattered around the screen) normal behaviour when booting an encrypted rom in this way? Is this what a board on the brink of suicide would do? 1944 does briefly flash a red screen before it boots - no ROM/RAM check screen.

Thanks for all your help so far

 

[xodaraP]

You need to reinstate EXC5 - you will get issues with it removed because it's not the cap that holds them in memory when they get stuck like this (it's stuck bits in the SRAM itself which is within a custom on the B board), but the cap is the part of the circuit you can use to clear the memory.

Reinstall it and short it with the board powered off to clear the keys from memory. That should resolve your issue

Your jailbars are caused by bad connection between A and B, reseating and using clips should help there.

The later graphics glitches you are getting may be suicide related, sounds like what you get when the wrong PAL is installed. Until you reinstate the cap and clear the keys properly though you won't be able to confirm what is actually causing the issue

 

[VILLAIN]

You need to reinstate EXC5 - you will get issues with it removed because it's not the cap that holds them in memory when they get stuck like this (it's stuck bits in the SRAM itself which is within a custom on the B board), but the cap is the part of the circuit you can use to clear the memory.

Reinstall it and short it with the board powered off to clear the keys from memory. That should resolve your issue

Your jailbars are caused by bad connection between A and B, reseating and using clips should help there.

The later graphics glitches you are getting may be suicide related, sounds like what you get when the wrong PAL is installed. Until you reinstate the cap and clear the keys properly though you won't be able to confirm what is actually causing the issue

Thanks!

Do you think it would be possible to use jumper wire to create a short, I really don't fancy solder EXC5 back in.

Any other method to clear the keys are most welcome

 

[Darksoft]

The EXC5 should be soldered back. And the method to short the keys is to short the EXC5 pins with the B Board unplugged and the A and B boards separated. Just shorting the EXC5 should be enough, so I wonder what is keeping your B board holding keys even with the battery removed. Are you sure that there are no other battery hacks or modifications in your board? Can you post a couple of pictures?

 

[nam9]

You just need to touch a bare wire over the three through-hole legs of the EXC5. Nothing more involved. It’s just a temporary short to Gnd.

 

[VILLAIN]

Thank you all for your help

@Darksoft - attached are pictures of the board. I assure you the bridge adapter is the right way - the arrow sticker came off. Incidentally the arrow was pointing up towards the bigger board - J1 interface at the top. This shows that no additional mods have been done

 

[Darksoft]

Those pictures look good IMO. I see that you are not injecting any keys, so right now only the games have key full of 0xFFFFFFFF should work.

 

[VILLAIN]

Those pictures look good IMO. I see that you are not injecting any keys, so right now only the games have key full of 0xFFFFFFFF should work.

Thanks. Yes, the previous install had the key writing wires, but I don't play at tournament level to justify every byte of information needing to be pitch perfect and, besides, Team Avalaunch have done some amazing work on the decrypted games.

Those pictures look good IMO. I see that you are not injecting any keys, so right now only the games have key full of 0xFFFFFFFF should work.

UPDATE:

I tried the EXC5 short method after leaving the board seperated for 24 hours, but still no luck.

Here is what happened:

Avalaunch Roms: LCD says that key writing has failed - stays on yellow/brown screen.

CPS2 OLD Roms: "Programming Keys" and "Have Fun" messages displayed - stays on yellow/brown screen.

Do you think adding the key writing wires might resurrect the board?

 

[Mitsurugi-w]

It looks more like a b-board issue than anything else to me.

 

[VILLAIN]

It looks more like a b-board issue than anything else to me.

Damaged/Corrupted B Board?

 

[Mitsurugi-w]

I've had b-boards that wouldn't save keys. Your key injector might not be working correctly. I personally never got the injector to work on -3 or -4 pcbs. Never had a problem with the DS kit injecting keys if wired correctly. You can try another b-board or send what you have to someone else to confirm your issues.

 

[VILLAIN]

I've had b-boards that wouldn't save keys. Your key injector might not be working correctly. I personally never got the injector to work on -3 or -4 pcbs. Never had a problem with the DS kit injecting keys if wired correctly. You can try another b-board or send what you have to someone else to confirm your issues.

Thanks for your advice. I was always dubious about having a Rev.4 board for this reason.

This is where the key writing wires were from/to in the previous install/kit:

 

[Mitsurugi-w]

The wires look correct so I'm suspecting a fault on your b-board.

 

[VILLAIN]

The wires look correct so I'm suspecting a fault on your b-board.

It seems to be the conclusion.

Any idea which donor game would likely to have the ideal B-Board revision? Hyper SF2 is likely the safest bet for compatibility, however it's too rare to cannibalise IMHO.

 

[Darksoft]

I agree with Mits on that. Any B should work, but if you see one open or can ask the seller to open that would definitely be better.

 

[xodaraP]

It seems to be the conclusion. Any idea which donor game would likely to have the ideal B-Board revision? Hyper SF2 is likely the safest bet for compatibility, however it's too rare to cannibalise IMHO.

There's no specific game you're guaranteed to get a specific revision, I've seen games on all different revisions because Capcom did factory conversions.

You ideally want a revision 6 or 7 board. I've found most Marvel vs Capcom and Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter are on rev 7 (but I've also seen MvC on rev 3) if you want a reasonably priced option to look out for.

I also feel like your current board may still be able to function if you reinstate your EXC5 cap.

As Mitsu mentioned the Rev 3/4 can be really finicky but I've never had any problems with DS kits on them apart from stuck keys cleared by shorting the cap.

Decrypted ROMs do also sometimes lock up and the cap needs to be shorted.