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Time Crisis 3 - System 246 odd problem

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itsintavis

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Hi,

So, we have a two player Time Crisis 3, both system 246 C.

They were both working fine until a week ago but on a standalone basis, ie the two machines were not linked.

We tried connecting them with a firewire cable and the link didn't work. But also one of the boards also stopped responding to the controls.

So the system boots fine and the game shows fine on screen, but we have no controls, no pedal, weapon or even access to the service menu. The switch does nothing.

We tried swapping boards between the two sides and we have eliminated the possibility that it is an IO board issue, since the "good one" works fine on both sides.

Moreover, we tried to access the service menu via the dip switch on the front of system 246 but this didn't do anything either.

So we are a bit puzzled on what this could be. Any ideas are welcome!

Kind regards,

Ilias
 
Change the battery and check the i/o board is a flashing light is present or no light to identify the problem ,

Check cables and power supply, cables in all parts of cabinet maybe some loose or broken lines to make contact to power supply
 
Lights normal on IO board. Also when the game boots it doesn't complain about the IO board.

We have measured voltages and they are correct.

We are in the process of validating every single cable connection.

The part we find the oddest is that it doesn't enter the service menu via the dip switch.
 
Does it have display? Clean the dongle pins and did you here a beep when booting it up
 
Yes, the system boots just fine, we can see the entire game (attract mode) etc. Beeps normal at start.

The only thing that we have is total lack of controls (both via the IO board and on the system 246 itself).
 
Does the test switch from the near the door dont function?
 
Test switch inside coin mechanism compartment does nothing and neither does dip switch test
 
An an update on this. Toggle verified ok, DVD rom verified ok, disk verified ok. System boots fine and game loads and plays on screen without any issue. Just no controls and no service menu. Also, it doesn't link to it's sibling next to it.
 
Did you ever get this issue solved? I'm having this problem too and may know the cause. It could be cold solder joints or a broken USB connector. I noticed this the same behavior if you boot Time Crisis 3 with the USB (JVS) cable unplugged and plan to replace the USB port soon.
 
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Not yet. Still fighting. We are reviewing everything from cd media to the security dongle and from the cd rom drive to the connection ribbons. But will move into solder joints soon
 
Decided to look more into it and found this thread: https://www.ukvac.com/forum/threads/testing-namco-system-246.57211/

This person attempted to run Time Crisis 3 without a JVS IO board and shows the same symptoms as both of us. This is the result of what happens if Time Crisis 3 boots and doesn't talk to an IO board. S/N number displays blank, erratic behavior in attract, DIP 1 does not respond at all. I will now cross my fingers replacing the USB port would do the trick.

To add, I find it weird there is no sort of error handling in Time Crisis 3 when it doesn't detect an IO board unlike Time Crisis 2 with the "SUBCPU TIMEOUT" error.
 
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Will resolver and possibly replace our usb ports also and let you know.
 
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