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NeoGeo 6 Slot Board Repairlog


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Had Scratcha's NeoGeo 6 Slot on the bench today, fricken massive thing but unwell, it booted up giving this RAM error..

 

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e230/Womble76/DSC00534.jpg

 

These error messages can be read like this...

 

..the board tried to write XXYY to the two ram chips in the memory stack at the location stated, XX to the low addressed chip and YY to the high addressed chip (or perhaps the otherway round, it doesn't really matter). So from the above error you can infer that both chips are faulty, but only if you assume that its not a problem in the RAM controller logic, which is also possible. NeoGeo boards have an onboard battery that leaks corrosive shite when they age and the tracks on these boards are microscopic, they don't like the battery acid and they just corrode away to dust, track damage is a common problem.

 

The second problem with NeoGeo boards is finding which RAM chips the error message is talking about, half the problem there are so many board variants so chip location advice you find for a 2 slot board is not much use for a 4, or even a 6.

 

Anyway - with a bit of googling I found that the address the error message refers to determines which chip type is considered faulty.

 

Address 0000 means the board thinks the surface mount 62256 RAM chips are the problem, if that was the error for this board I would consider it scrap, or a boat anchor, its big enough.

 

Thankfully this error was at address 8000 which meant it was the Sony CKX5814 chip pair in the top right-hand corner of the lower board. It also helped that my logic probe showed the lower of the pair had its I/O lines D3 to D7 stuck low. The other chip looked healthy based on pin activity alone.

 

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e230/Womble76/DSC00535.jpg

 

 

Desoldered this chip and tested on my eprom burner/chip tester and it showed up as faulty. Comparing the datasheets for this chip and the chips I had on my scrap boards showed I could use bog standard 6116 chips as replacements, so I dropped one in and fired the board back up to see what the error message would give.

 

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e230/Womble76/DSC00536.jpg

 

So now the board is writing 00 to one chip and getting 00 back, but still writing 00 but getting 04 back from the second chip in the pair.

 

Replaced the second chip (which also tested as faulty) and the board booted to the crosshatch screen, which is what a NeoGeo board should do without a game cart inserted, or in this case without the cart interface board connected.

 

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e230/Womble76/DSC00537.jpg

 

Connected it all back up, plugged it into my cab and after a bit of faff seating and reseating the carts I got it to work perfectly.

 

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e230/Womble76/DSC00538.jpg

 

Anyone know a good method for cleaning the contacts in the cart slots? The egde of the ROM cart is easy enough, but the contacts on the slot may be a pain.

 

Oh and one of the two carts gives no sound, I assume it has a very dead EPROM inside, but thats for another day.

 

One final thing I should do to this is to rehouse the battery, its just starting to leak but has only reached the leg of a resistor at the moment, should really fit flying leads and house the battery away from the PCB, otherwise this board is living on borrowed time.

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I removed the battery from the board, another 6 months to a year and it would have made a real mess, it had already eaten through the upper layer of the board down to the copper ground plane in places.

 

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e230/Womble76/DSC00539.jpg

 

Scraped away all the crud and neutralised the alkaline muck then gave it a clean up with PCB cleaner. The board works fine without its battery, Gamedude reckons the battery is only for book-keeping functions (ie how much money has been taken, length of games, etc etc).

 

Gave the slots a go over with the paper trick and it seems to have worked, much more stable, originally the slightest touch on the cart would put lines through the gfx and or crash the board - crap connections clearly.

Edited by Womble
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Anyone know a good method for cleaning the contacts in the cart slots?

 

I use white paper, sliding it from one end to the other till the paper no longer gets dirt on it.

 

I swear by the old tooth brush method using some decent contact cleaner (non residue CRC is good)

http://www.hardmvs.com/html/slotCleaning.htm

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  • 4 years later...
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Nah, haven't even looked at it, tended to shy away from NG stuff as its too much of a pita to repair. Its a bootleg multi cart so even if the ROM is bad I doubt I could find anything to replace it with.

 

First thing to try would be to dissemble the cart and polish the contacts on both PCBs.

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If other carts work fine on the board then it probably is the audio ROM board in the cart. PB is a small game so it is not likely to be a bad upper address track on the main board that allows smaller games to work but not larger ones. Desolder the ROM and try and dump it would be the next step.
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  • 2 weeks later...
Hey Womble,

You mentioned that you had a cart that had no sound and you suspected the rom. Did you end up fixing that one? I have a puzzle bubble cart with no sound also. Would be good to fix that one up.

I can fix it for you if you get stuck, I did one just last week.

 

Puzzle Bobble is a tricky one with the V ROMs for a couple reasons. First reason being if its a genuine SNK original cart, ill have some ROM chips from Power Spikes 2 in there ( number 068, V1 and V2 will be, as will C1, C2, C3, and C4 )

If other carts work fine on the board then it probably is the audio ROM board in the cart. PB is a small game so it is not likely to be a bad upper address track on the main board that allows smaller games to work but not larger ones. Desolder the ROM and try and dump it would be the next step.

 

There is two V ROMs ( sounds ) in Puzzle Bobble, and also the sound controller ROM is M1 on the CHA board. M1 on this cart is a common failure, and if it goes, will cause no sound.

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I can fix it for you if you get stuck, I did one just last week.

 

Puzzle Bobble is a tricky one with the V ROMs for a couple reasons. First reason being if its a genuine SNK original cart, ill have some ROM chips from Power Spikes 2 in there ( number 068, V1 and V2 will be, as will C1, C2, C3, and C4 )

 

 

There is two V ROMs ( sounds ) in Puzzle Bobble, and also the sound controller ROM is M1 on the CHA board. M1 on this cart is a common failure, and if it goes, will cause no sound.

Thanks for that. What replacement eprom can you use at M1 and are the rom images readily available?

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I use an ST 27C1001 for any NEO-GEO M1 chips, get the file from the MAME ROM set for that game. PM me your email address and ill send you the correct file if you have any doubts, or i can burn the chip and send it.

 

You need to check if thats the issue first, if you remove the M1 and verify it against the file from MAME.

 

I dont know where Point Cook is so not sure how far away you are if you want to post it.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Before you do go to that length, clear the backup RAM, turn on with no cart and use start to cycle through.

 

I thought id posted that before but i didnt. Hopefully i got to you before you started!! :)

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I will try that but the cart had no sound from the last person that had it before myself.

 

 

Gotcha. Try it anyway, never know your luck.

 

Before you make any new ROMs try verifying first, ill list what they all do:

 

M1 is sound controller ( 27c1001 )

S1 contains some common fonts, health bars, insert coin text, credits text, things like that. ( 27C301, but not every game has one, such as carts with the CHA FIO board )

C ROMs are the sprites and main graphics, either 2, 4, 6, or 8 of them.

V ROMs are the audio, 1-4 of them, and the chip much be 8 bit compatible ( rules out the 27C322 )

P ROMs are the game program.

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  • 7 months later...

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