Gorgar
Williams, 1979Two things I'd try to start:
1. swap the chips you socketed, see if any have gone bad
2. try grounding the resistors again, see if maybe it's just a flaky connector
Not sure what would make it cut out mid-speech... Have you recapped it yet?
Quoted from MaxAsh:Nooooo! The sound just stopped working again! zacaj I'm not sure what happened. I played maybe 20 or so games, perfect sound. This morning, started a game, and all it said was the "Gorga..." (rather than the full Gorgar Speaks line) and then all sound died. Ball kicked out for play, but NO sound is working now. When I press the test switch, all sounds are still good. What the heck happened? Is it possible something just killed the chip(s) again? Maybe I should recap this whole thing in case my voltage tests aren't solid enough?
Argh.
Edit - came back a few minutes later, tried another game, sound worked for about 10-15 seconds and then went out again. Come on Gorgar... cut me some slack.
Check the driver board again. There is a "Cancel sound" code that *can* be sent to immediately turn off a sound. It would be weird that the exact code for cancel is being "misinterpreted" and being sent to the sound card, or that the sound card is falsely interpreting but it is possible. I would strongly suggest you try the "13-sounds.bin" Test rom (http://pincoder.reversion.ca) as it will allow you to send each specific sound code one at a time to the sound card (using the switches on the coin door) while the pinball machine is doing NOTHING else. This may help you isolate the problem. It is different than using the built-in solenoids test, and also different than using the test button on the sound card. If you don't have access to a chip or eeprom programmer send me a PM. I can program a chip and send it to you for a small fee. Of course, I'll help with troubleshooting too 
Quoted from zacaj:Two things I'd try to start:
1. swap the chips you socketed, see if any have gone bad
2. try grounding the resistors again, see if maybe it's just a flaky connector
Not sure what would make it cut out mid-speech... Have you recapped it yet?
I only changed 2 caps so far on the sound board. I have the rest sitting in my GPE cart. Think I should go ahead and do that? Wasn't sure if that could cause it.
Quoted from MaxAsh:I only changed 2 caps so far on the sound board. I have the rest sitting in my GPE cart. Think I should go ahead and do that? Wasn't sure if that could cause it.
That's the most common cause of 'works for a while' type issues, although this case still seems weird
Quoted from zacaj:That's the most common cause of 'works for a while' type issues, although this case still seems weird
Okay, I'll order those and the power supply ones too for good measure. Generally money well spent anyway, and not tough to do.
As for chip swapping, the IC10 PIA I only bought one new one of since they're $9+ each. IC6 NAND was $5 so same thing. I could swap in the old ones one at a time, but I know at least one of those two was bad so I don't know if that's a good idea!
Quoted from MaxAsh:As for chip swapping, the IC10 PIA I only bought one new one of since they're $9+ each. IC6 NAND was $5 so same thing. I could swap in the old ones one at a time, but I know at least one of those two was bad so I don't know if that's a good idea!
Ah, darn. I always forget how expensive PIAs are. I've just got a giant pile of used ones I've pulled from dead boards. Surprised the NAND was that expensive though...
Swapping back can't hurt though. Or you could take out both chips and compare them with your meter: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/ic-chip-test
Not 100% but if you see a big discrepency between the two that can show something. Or, are any of the PIAs on your MPU/driver socketed?
Just turned it back on, ran it through the solenoid/sound test on the coin door and everything was fine. I left it on one sound effect for a minute or two looping just to see if it would cut out, and it didn't. So I started a game, played several minutes, the sound stayed on just fine. Looks like I have an interesting mystery.
Only thing I did since getting the sound to work was put batteries back in. I had trouble with those before, and had to use the on/off trick with no batteries installed because whenever I had batteries in, the game was stuck in audit. That's no longer a problem all of a sudden, because the game boots to Game Over now with batteries installed and remembers the high high score and credits.
As for chip prices... To be fair, I was ordering stuff from Marco and got them there... probably cheaper other places for the NAND at least.
I actually realized that the IC5 buffer chip I put back in the socket is the original. Since we figured out the problem was downstream from that, I simply put it back in. I guess I could try one of the extra buffer chips I bought (I have 5) but I doubt that will change anything. Maybe I'll pull all the chips and test like you said, see what I can figure out.
pincoder I'll send you a message - I don't have access to a nearby burner, the closest one I know that a friend owns is 2 hours there and back driving, so it's likely cheaper to have you send me one!
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Rochester, NY