A week ago Friday I was working on my SS at the arcade bar I tech for. (A few of the games belong to me, Elvira is one of my babies.)

One of the pop bumpers broke and while I was out to purchase new lock nuts for the skirt ring my apprentice tech fired it back up and things did not go well.
He said the lights went weird and then the G10 error came up.

A friend recommended changing U14 and U24, which I have done. In fact, there was a bit of that old electrical odor around that spot that seemed to go away after I removed one of them.

My usual suppliers don't even stock those chips anymore so when I found some I bought 20 chips and a bag of sockets too. Hoarding for future repeats or to help someone else down the road I guess.

Changing them was not pretty. I had a ridiculous time getting the solder cleared from the vias. I recently purchased a desolder pump, but I guess it's time to get a real Hakko or something because this Chinese deal isn't cutting it on precision work....

For the second chip I just cut the chip free from the legs and soldered the new socket on to the old legs instead of trying to pull them out and clear the holes. Looks a little hokey but the connections are good and I didn't lift any traces/vias on that one.

I thoroughly checked all the traces and repaired the ones I damaged in the process and when all was said and done I went to try my board in another machine... Still get the error. (Tried in another machine to rule out any still existing shorts etc. Once I get my board booting I will carefully go through my wiring before putting it back in Elvira.)

At this point I'm kinda hoping its the G10 chip itself that is still bad, as there is someone relatively close to me that has a couple available and I won't have to worry about installing another socket/soldered chip.

However, I've read there are a few more potential culprits in the mix: u23, u13, u5.

My question for those in the know:

Is there any risk to the "donors" to swap good known security chips and ROMS on to my board, or putting my G10 and game ROM on to another board for testing?

If I end up ruling out the G10 chip, is there a way to definitively determine which other component is bad so I don't waste any more time guessing?

I have access to an Attack from Mars and an NBA Fastbreak, but the boss will only let me swap parts if it is deemed safe for his games. Doesn't want to risk taking one of them down too.

Also, once I get the board working, will the game even power the lights and solenoids without this board plugged in all the way? Does the other board power the solenoids and this one just the switch matrix....just trying to figure out how to best be sure I've cleared any shorts before blowing chips AGAIN. If I can let the solenoid power through without connecting the switch matrix connectors back on I could probe for higher voltage in addition to visually checking for shorts.

Probably only need to check right around that pop bumper, but I'd hate to make a $40+ assumption there...

Thanks so much!
-Eric

Thank you TDH!!!

This is the kind of information that will get me moving. Sound like if my G10 is bad there is likely more upstream of it to repair as well but at least I can make some progress on the troubleshooting. I know I can safely compare readings between the same components between boards, but any advice on how to definitively test the chips such as u20, u23 etc?

Am I looking for dead shorts as tell tales? Or opens?

I think I will make some progress when I get to the other machines this afternoon, but have a feeling I will be digging a little deeper and perhaps having to order and wait for additional parts. Sigh.

-Eric

A quick check of resistors showed some standing out...

Most are reading a hair under or over 1K ohm, but I have a few showing less: r67 at 350 ohm, r70 at 338. No burn marks, and definitely not shorted or blown open.

Well, some more checks against the board from the AFM led me to purchase a new board. I want to get the game back up and running ASAP, and then I can take my time to try to repair the rest of the issues on the board or send it to someone else to be fixed.

In addition to some resistors standing out from the herd, I also got different readings when I made some random comparisons between some of the chips between the two boards, enough to suggest to me that another 2 or 3 of the chips are damaged. (Especially one chip where one pair of legs had a dead short on mine but not the working board.)

When I put my G10 and game ROM into the AFM board and powered it up I got the "Factory Settings restored and data cleared" message, so it looked like those 2 chips were fine.

Before my new board shows up (hopefully tomorrow), what can I do to best ensure that I don't have a remaining short problem?

Can I connect a meter lead to each of the solenoid lines and then probe all of the switch column and rows in sequence or something along those lines in addition to a visual check around the area I suspected the problem arose from?

Definitely do not want to repeat the issue and blow parts on a new board wasting more money and time!

Thanks so much!
-Eric

After putting the main chips on to the new board I powered the game up without any of the lower connectors on it.

Grounded one lead on my meter and started probing every line for voltage. Didn't find anything higher than slightly less than 12V.

Proceeded to put the connectors on one at a time until I could get into the test mode and didn't see anything abnormal in the switch tests.

Before I fired it up with the solenoids live I handed someone else the cord and said if I made a face or yelled to unplug it!

Played several games over the course of a few hours. Seems okay, but I did have a couple issues where I'd get more balls in play than should have been there. I even double checked to make sure I hadn't accidentally put 5 back in.

Just a bit concerned that there's a little bit of weirdness going on....

What should I did into because of the extra balls? Maybe need to clean the trough optos?