alright, so when i got to the board today, it was consistently booting on the bench. That made me wonder if it was a power issue. In the game, I checked all test points on driver board and mpu, and they were all correct. i connected the rest of the cables, and the game booted up correctly, but then crashed after about a minute.
I then replaced VR1. the one i took out read 0 volts in both directions.
Game was then consistently getting the first flicker, but would not get the first flash, even when jumping the cpu pins.
I burned a new U6, and now it boots up correctly. i got it into attract mode multiple times, and played for about ten minutes. turned it off, and back on and it went to attract mode again.'
holding my breath but it seems okay now.
@quench thanks a lot for the leads. i really appreciate it.