Nice!! Thank you for telling me. I will certainly try this when I get home from assignment!

Will reducing the power percentage on the other areas add longevity to them? (GI, flashers, LCD screen)
If so, significantly?

One of the first things I did on Ghostbusters, the backbox is way to bright.

I mentioned before, I used a FLIR to look at the CPU temps. I was surprised at how toasty things were. When I was chasing my problem down, I noticed the woofer chip (TI TPA3123) was rated for +85C. And the FLIR indicated it might be an issue, so I turned down the LEDs as a precaution. Obviously, it runs cooler now. Anytime you can keep something cool - it's a good thing.

Not sure if I mentioned earlier, I used to design high power RF amplifiers, so a good chunk of my career was keeping things cool (with help from the thermal engineers).

FLIR below. But PLEASE take it with a grain of salt, didn't verify temps w/a thermal probe. This was a very informal test...just for me. And I'm not implying there's a design issue - there's probably tens of thousands of these boards out that work just fine. The woofer chip is circled in blue on the left. LED's on the left and right sides.

LED's 100%
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And with the LED's off (color scale likely different than above):
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Then I added a fan to the CPU board:
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Even tried a thermal pad to backbox (but the CPU board is too far away from backbox to make a huge improvement):
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Sorry about the thread derail from Stern IC.

Thanks. Didn't mean to derail your IC disconnect problem thread - they just started to get entwined at one point. I guess I'm going to wait on installing my new Munster's CPU until this IC thing is sorted out.

Part of me still wants to work of the woofer problem because I did install a new TPA3123 woofer chip and even made sure the thermal pad underneath was soldered (that's how the heat gets out of it) - to no avail. I think one area that is so-so is the power up sequence (or lack of one)...so that's not an easy fix (i.e. not just a part change). I'd have to cut traces, add parts, etc...ugh. And it's probably somewhat affected by temperature, plus I don't know if Stern uses temperature stable capacitors or not. So just a lot of variables I'd have to sort out.

Here's a SnipIt from TI about the power up sequence.

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Here's a post at TI about the same problem problem I was having.
https://e2e.ti.com/support/audio-group/audio/f/audio-forum/458433/tpa3123d2evm-high-iq-and-non-op-at-high-temps-40c

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But I could just be barking up the wrong tree. Plus the wife tells me "The pins are meant to be played." LOL...and she's right, so I just ordered a new CPU instead.

Yeah, me too! So have you sent the board back yet?

I was waiting to see what you found out, but I guess I could always reinstall the current CPU if IC doesn't work.

FWIW thank you for the heads up; I have dialed my LED's from the default (apparently 100%) to 35%. May as well be safe than out a grand or more.

Is the serial number on your machine 334328?

TheProgrammer, I would recommend posting this to Twitter referencing #righttorepair and @fighttorepair. Louis Rossmann is basically the face of this movement and if he can respond, maybe Stern will think twice before engaging in this type of anti-consumer behavior. This very specific type of problem with niche hardware and software is right up his alley.

https://twitter.com/hashtag/righttorepair

https://twitter.com/fighttorepair

While annoying for the OP, the only problem is that IC won't work? But otherwise the game is working fine? I guess it's a trade-off. And now we all know that swapping in a new board can screw with the Stern connectivity stuff.

I mean IC didn't even exist until a year ago, so its not like it's exactly essential to the gameplay experience. But I get the frustration, particularly if you paid extra to convert your old games to IC.

If that's the case, I'll install my new CPU then and report back. Might take 1-3 days tho.

There’s always some nefarious underpinning to what the evil geniuses at stern are up to.

Always a good guy and a bad guy, always a hero and a villain, always a fair maiden who has had her reputation impinged.

It’s what keeps us watching!

Not sure if serious...

Then it simply should be treated as a DOA board and Stern should advance replace a replacement under warranty..

but..

They don't.

Do you mean Insider *connect*?

"Insider trading" is something completely different...

And now the good news:

Remember ... with WPC-S in the old days WMS tried to get rid off "grey market" or "importet" games.
25 years later you can buy "hacked" security roms.
So in my oinion it is just a matter of time until the serial will be "hacked" on Stern.

Hopefully Stern will survive the next 20 years ... otherwise people with newer Stern machines will have a problem if a board fails and no replacement is available and .. no aftermarket out ...

We will see. For me one of the reasons not to buy any Stern more and hold it as a keeper in my collection.

Remember this ?

The replacement board works fine, it just can't connect to Insider without Stern's configuration. If Stern is gone, there won't be an Insider to connect to, so no problem!

This 'configuration' is the security protecting Insider from unauthorized access. Stern is doing nothing out of the ordinary keeping that in-house.

Except that Stern is likely to be in business for many decades to come. So hopefully Stern will see the value in continuing to support their older products.

If Stern does move on to a new system and decides not to continue to support the Spike system in any way, then I would think they'd license the rights to make support/node boards to another company. There's too much money to be made.

Just look at how PP licenses out the WPC board rights. There's a lot of money there.

Then again, Stern has been known to leave money on the table before. Just look at the travesty that is their accessories department.

The OP seems to have gotten his information from stern directly. What you are saying doesn't seem to quite mesh with that.

Are you just guessing/speculating just based on the error message being displayed? Or do you have other information?

If what you say is correct, then it's concerning in another way--boards that were not ready for installation would've been released into the wild.

Having to send a brand new board back to the manufacturer for them to finish in some way is an extra step that should not need to be done, and I agree that it does have something to do with right to repair. If the game owner doesn't have full control over their device in order to perform repairs on their own, that is an issue.

They're basically saying the same thing. The board won't connect to Insider without being fully programmed. This final programming contains security/encryption components that Stern is not going to release outside their company. Stern says "serial number" but there's certainly encryption and security settings involved as well.

Has anyone sniffed/dumped Insider traffic from their game? I would bet it's encrypted.

The only issue here is that PBL and other resellers need to indicate their replacement boards do not yet contain Insider programming and must be sent to Stern before that will work. The board WILL allow the game to be played, and for some folks that's all they need. Maybe PBL is also tired of Stern being slow and wants to get the boards to customers who just want to play?

He's right. The 20 or 30 thousand Spike 2's that are working are junk. Glad he shared his data to prove his point.

They are not supporting some of their older titles right now.

People have been asking them to do another run of certain MPU boards and Stern has been radio silent.

I think it just comes from the fact that Stern has survived all the ups and downs of the industry for decades, and if any company will be left standing after all others go under, it’s probably going to be them.

Raw Thrills has been doing this for years. Nothing new here.

I'm convinced TrixTrix has accurate information.

Solving TheProgrammer 's issue with this board in an expedient manner is another matter.

You do remember that Stern Insider was started as a fan-club product right? Where you were supposed to be getting early access, insider access, etc.

I just replaced my CPU w/a new CPU from Stern via my Distro. I can confirm the Insider did work (after setting up again) on my Munsters. Of course, the pin registered as a new pin, so I deleted the 'original' Munsters. No big deal in my case since I had just setup the prior CPU on IC, so just a few games on IC.

But if you have a bunch of IC achievements on your original CPU and want to transfer those to a new CPU, then I guess the path forward would be to coordinate the S/N issue with Stern prior to getting a CPU.

If it was through your distributor and the serial was known by Stern during the interactions, perhaps it was coded before shipping? Did your serial change with the new board?

I bought the pin used, not thru the distro - so they didn't have the S/N. Nor did Stern ask the distro for my S/N when I ordered the CPU.

And since the pin registered as a different pin on IC (i.e. my original CPU pin was listed along with the new CPU pin), the S/N or achievements definitely didn't transfer.

Keep an eye out that there is a few percentage points that introduce a strobe light effect that you might not notice right away. They must be using a pulse width adjustments and it gets into an off period frequency I can perceive and it looks like hell out of the corner of my eye. Distracting when the game next to you is strobing. Just a couple clicks higher or lower updates faster than my eyes notice and looks fine.

I turned down the playfield GI and inserts some too, just a little bit to take some stress off of the LEDs for likely more usable life. Some of the inserts are SMT LED beads soldered to a PCB not easily replaced in the field.

If I was stern, I would use the next size bigger SMT LED and just run them less hard for the same brightness. I guess that $0.005 difference adds up when buying millions of the LEDs.

All the more reason to avoid insider connected. We should speak out with our wallets against this BS.

Achievements are associated with the player, not the machine so this is not necessary.

Hmmm, didn't know that. But I admit, I just started to use IC - so all new to me.

I hadn't noticed any pulsing, but I assume they are doing what you mentioned - pulsing.

Going with bigger LED's still has some drawbacks. The LED's can be cooler with a bigger die (lower thermal resistance), but the same amount of heat is still being dumped into the CPU board - and that's what seemed to aggravate my CPU's problem. It would be pretty easy to manage the heat from the LED's...if the system is designed from scratch to do that. Just provide a thermal break (i.e. slots in the board comes to mind) between the LED's and the rest of the CPU, then provide a thermal path from the LED's to the backbox since it's just a huge piece of metal (i.e. a great heatsink). Stern could always use seperate LED boards, but that complicates the BOM, parts/inventory, cost, etc.

Apparently it's not a one-off mistake. I just replaced my Spike 2 board in a stranger things premium and the game itself works fine, but having the same IC issue "invalid factory config, contact your distributer". So I'll be trying to get ahold of stern tech support next week.

Had my board RMA'd and Stern received on the 10th, Still haven't heard anything or received any return shipment notice yet. But was also told that the "Invalid Factory Config" issue meant that the board CPU was improperly programed to begin with, requiring factory reset. But in my case, they told me for ST premium and LE, the board required special programming that would have required the board be sent to them anyways, something to do with the projector working properly, although in the day I had the board the projector seemed to be working normally. For me e-mail response time from Stern was quick, but now that they have the board, I'm left in lingo. Tried to check status on the RMA, and all they said is they confirmed receiving the board and don't know what the hold-up is. I was hoping to have it back before thanksgiving since I have the family coming to my house this year, but doesn't look like that will happen.

EDIT: Got my Spike board back today the 25th, got it installed and everything is working properly now including Insider Connect.

Feel like we should file a class action against them at this point.