I recently acquired a home use FP purchased new in 1981. The boards look almost new (seen here https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-firepower-club/page/24#post-3608170 ) . After a good cleaning, conversion to LEDs and some touch ups, it plays just fine.

However, after about 30 minutes in attract mode it will start playing sounds, randomly placing numbers in the player 1 display and will ultimately blow the F2 solenoid fuse.

I can play for hours with out this happening. It only happens when I leave it alone in attract mode.

Besides the obvious "turn it off after playing" solution, does anyone have an idea what might be going on. It seems like it could be temperature related but I can't figure out why it only happens in attract mode.

I haven't touched the boards to "bullet proof" them. Perhaps its time.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

Definitely haven't tried separating the boards. I assumed that pulling them apart might cause more problems than it helps given this connector is the first thing everyone says to replace.

I'll try reseating the sockets this evening. Then the 40 pin.

It may be a bad assumption on my part that this stuff is ok as is given the better than normal condition of the boards.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Thanks for the description of how to separate the boards. I'll give it shot. Looks like I may spend some time this weekend with the soldering station .

Thanks again. I'll post if I see any improvement (or not).

Sorry its taken me so long to get back to this.

I replaced the 40 pin connector on the driver board (only the driver board for now because I only wanted to change one thing at a time). Voila...success no more F2 fuse blowing after ~30minutes in attract mode.

However...Now the bottom right jet bumper will fire randomly during game play. Sometimes it will stay activated which I solve by turning off the machine. I've checked the switch gap and it seems ok and I've checked for shorts without finding any.

My next course of action is to replace the header on the computer side of the 40 pin connector to see if that has any effect. Followed by reseating the chips.

If anyone has insight into what else it might be, I'd be grateful to hear about it.

So I win the bone head award for today.

It was indeed a switch gap issue.

Logically, the bottom right jet bumper is not the bottom right jet bumper when you stand the playfield up against the back box. Its the top right...arrrggghhh.

I checked the wrong switch.

Now that the correct switch has been adjusted everything is working VERY well.

Thanks for the help and sorry for the stupid mistake.