The machine was giving me a

FAIL 5EST U-8

code on the DMD.

The LED on the game board was flashing five times indicating that it was failing test 5.

That's a test of one of the chips on the board in socket U-8

So I took the chip out, cleaned the legs a little and re-seated it.

Didn't help.

When the game first malfunctioned, it flashed a error message about checking fuses.

But it never flashed it again.

So I checked all over the game, the 2A fuse under the playfield was dead.

Changing the fuse fixed the game, works perfect.

I thought that the way that fuse made the PCB check fail was a little weird, thought I'd stick this up here as food for thought.

ALSO - the fuse wasn't burned, the glass and metal end was separated. Never seen a mechanical failure like that on a fuse before. A visual check of the fuses didn't pick it up, I went back with a continuity tester and caught it.

If I hadn't checked the fuses with the continuity tester, I would have ended up playing around with that "failed chip" problem for who knows how long.

Here's another thing -

One of the flashers on the game was dead, the guy who sold it to me said there was mysterious problem in the wiring somewhere.

He also said he was a King of All Pinball Repair Experts.

Turned out to be a burned fuse.

Thankfully the game is 100% intact, he decided to sell it instead of making Expert Repairs (tm).

Thanks

I will take you up on that offer if the situation arises.

So far the game has been very reliable, this is the first problem and it was just a fuse.