Lord of the Rings
Stern, 2003I just picked up a few pins yesterday as a combo deal. One of which was a LOTR. I played at the location and it worked fine, loaded them up and got them home and unloaded them. Now when I turn it on, the gi lights and the dmd lights and says "Stern Lord of the Rings Pinball" like all their games do, but it just hangs there and doesn't do anything else.
I have all my lights on the I/O driver board lit, and the blinking one blinking but have no lights lit on the cpu/sound board.
any ideas?
I would check all connections everywhere, make sure nothing got pulled out when folding the head, and if that fails, first reseat the game rom, as crazy things happen with whitestar systems that setting back to factory helps.
Above that I would disconnect the 5v connector to the DMD to see if there is a strained 5v line preventing the system from booting. Usually the last thing results in infinite resets. If none of this helps, check back, as I would then start checking all the test points with a DMM.
I disconnected and reconnected every connector I could find. Still doing the samething as before, can anyone walk me through where the test points are on the board?
If your light on the IO driver board is flashing and not going solid at L204 you are in constant reset that can be a number of things broken Trace on the IO board, Minor acid damage on the CPU board that has affected the CPU game ROM, you could even have a bad chip at U210 next to the LED L204 on the IO driver board. have you checked your 5 volt on the board? I had a LotR that would boot and then lose all high voltage and it was a tiny broken trace on one of the chips on the IO driver board. Right now I am dealing with a Whitestar CPU board on Apollo13 that has Acid damage and the the game turns on and just sits like yours, its gonna need board work most likely even after the Vinegar bath, cleaning of all the traces etc most likely it took out the CPU ROM and probably something else. Good luck with your repair. What I have learned about pinball the game can be working one minute and dead the next.
Joe(acejedi)
I still wonder if resetting the system should be done first before exploring a component/board issue. I would still pull and reinsert the game rom. Whitestar is unlike most systems as many whacky whacky things can happen defying logic that get cleared up with a factory reset.
The only reason I mention this is because of the possible whackiness and that it is such as easy thing to start with,
Quoted from Atomicboy:I still wonder if resetting the system should be done first before exploring a component/board issue. I would still pull and reinsert the game rom. Whitestar is unlike most systems as many whacky whacky things can happen defying logic that get cleared up with a factory reset.
The only reason I mention this is because of the possible whackiness and that it is such as easy thing to start with,
I forgot to write last night that i did unplug the game rom and reinsert it. No change from that, what are the odds its bad?
I just reread my original post and i must have been extremely tired when i wrote it cause i left out a piece of info that is prolly really important.
When i unloaded the game, i put the backbox back up and my buddy and i were unloading some others. My brother walked over and plugged it in and thats when it did what its doing now. I looked at it and told him to turn it off and i would check it out later.
Later in the day i took the backglass off and saw the i/o driver board had come off of its screw holders and was hanging/dangling. The cpu board was also doing the samething but it was still one only one post, for some reason the screw post were backed out a lot, must of the way the old tech liked them.
I am wondering if while the boards where hanging came in contact with something in the backbox when my brother fired it up the first time?
Like i said i cant believe i left this out of the first post. I will again check connectors.
I have been reading the wiki on the whitestar boards, but is there a site that says what test post to put a DMM on, on the cpu board to make sure im getting proper voltages?
Again thanks for the help in getting this solved guys.
Yeah... I'd agree. You probably shorted something out. There's a number of folks you can contact...
Chris Hibler is one that I would contact. He's on pinside. Awesome guy.
Actually (given your latest and most important piece of the puzzle you should have started with 
) go through and pull all fuses and check them all for continuity. *MAYBE* just maybe whatever you shorted was backed up by a fuse or two blowing before doing any real damage.
I did this all fuses are good, however I did make some forward progress in this last night. I also have a ripleys and pulled the back glass on it cause it uses the same boards. I started comparing connectors and noticed that the power connector to the cpu board had one more wire then my lotr did. Went back over to lotr and found that the corner of the connector was chipped off which cause the wire to get pulled free. I put it back in its place in the connector and fired up the game and now have 2 our of the 3 leds lit on the cpu board.
Now all the GI lights are blinking in unison with the blinking l204 led and the gi relay can be heard clicking off and on.
Ok, assuming you are talking about the lower left power connector on the CPU board. This connector is prone to alll kinds of issues from being an IDC. Try repinning this to a molex connector with trifurcon pins next.
In order for a WS board to boot, on the Power Driver board (the one below the CPU board) you need at least the L2 (5v) and L203 (12v) LEDs to be on. That's because the 12v feeds the regulator for the 5v so both are necessary to have the voltages present for the board to boot. If these are not lit solidly, the CPU will be held in reset and never start.
On the CPU board, at least L201 has to be lit solidly for the board to boot. If it is, it shows that the 5v has made it from the power driver board and is powering the logic on the CPU board.
Having LED2 lit simply means that the 5v that made it to the board has been regulated to 3.3v for the Xilinx for the sound and LED1 shows that the sound section is running.
If you have all those LEDs lit the next thing to look for are L200 on the CPU board and L204 on the Power Driver board.
L200 only lites when two conditions are met: the voltage is above 4.75v and the EPROM bank select signal is running. If L201 is lit but not L200, you have a problem somewhere on the CPU board - either ROM, RAM, CPU, sockets, battery damage, other board damage, etc. on the CPU board.
If L200 is lit on the CPU board, then the CPU board is running. The last LED to look at is L204 on the Power Driver board.
If this LED is not lit, it's either because the CPU is in reset (L200 isn't lit) or the voltage is below 4.75v. If L204 is pulsing on and off (CPU L200 lit), this means that the watchdog on the Power Driver board is not being fed from the CPU board. Thing to check there is the ribbon cable and connectors from the CPU CN1 to the Power Driver board J1.
viperrwk
Viper thank you so much for that brake down, that will help me immencely! When i get home i will run through the leds and see what is lit and what isnt and go from there.
Again, Thank you!
Well here is something new. To narrow it down a little, and make sure it was the cpu board, I took the cpu board out of my ripleys cause they use the same ones. I put the lotr chips in it and put it back in lotr and it fired right up and played fine.
To double check my work I put the lotr board with the ripleys chips in it in ripleys and powered it on. It to ran perfectly fine and played fine. Being stumped as can be I took both boards back out and put them back in their respective machines. Ripleys played fine, lotr was back to doing what it was doing before.
Viper back to your explanation of the leds, when the lotr board is in lotr, the l200 led does not light, all other leds light except the l200 led, and the led1.
You know you have a good cpu then. Again, I would repin that power connector for the cpu, as they all need it anyway, and it's a good place to start to make sure you are getting a strong connection there. Then, if still no go, swap the driver board from the rbion.
I still wonder if the wires were pulled from that connector, or caused it to break enough (it gets brittle over time) to cause issues.
Atomicboy, would you happen to have a link to the connector you are talking about? i seem to be having trouble finding one that looks like it would fit the connector on the board.
I emaile someone i know about the issues and whats going on and knows a heck of a lot more about board work then i do and here is his reply, which seems to make since.
"You seem to have multiple points of failure on the LoTR. The new board in LoTR is *enough* that it overcomes the weakness on the associated system, but when ALL the weak components are together, they fail. 50/50 in each machine= success. 100% original in each = failure, because one SET has multiple problems. By mixing and matching sets you are overcoming the problem TEMPORARILY. The bad components will eventually stress the "good" board and make it fail, too."
I guess i am going to pull the lotr board and start meassuring all the resisters to make sure they are with in spec and go from there, i am really new to this type of work and thats the only place i can see starting at. I am afraid that putting the lotr board in ripleys perminately will make the ripleys board also fail.
Did you measure and adjust the 5v? That would be the first place I'd start. Just because the LED is on doesn't mean the power is sufficient for the board. You could get the LED on at 4.78v and have one board boot but not another with such a marginal voltage. Also, try swapping the Power Driver boards and leaving the CPU boards in place. That will tell you if its a power issue or connector issue.
viperrwk
i have 5.05 volts coming out of the driver board, i will remeasure what it is on the cpu board.
I will also put the boards back in their respective cabinets and switch the power driver boards to see what happens.
Quoted from Dr-Willy:"You seem to have multiple points of failure on the LoTR. The new board in LoTR is *enough* that it overcomes the weakness on the associated system, but when ALL the weak components are together, they fail. 50/50 in each machine= success. 100% original in each = failure, because one SET has multiple problems. By mixing and matching sets you are overcoming the problem TEMPORARILY. The bad components will eventually stress the "good" board and make it fail, too."
When I first read this, I thought, eh....I don't know....
But, I can see the first part of his logic, but don't necessarily buy into the temporary part.
What we know...
A. LOTR MPU in RBION...works
B. RBION MPU in RBION...works
C. RBION MPU in LOTR...works
D. LOTR MPU in LOTR...fails
E. You've measured 5V correctly when the failing MPU is in the game.
As a few folks have noted, connectors are an issue.
Check out this picture from a WPC game...
http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=File:WPCWornPowerConnectionJ210.jpg
It's possible that by swapping MPUs, the connectors are worn just differently enough that they work fine when installed in another game, but in LOTR, the worn spots coincide (which they naturally would). When you have wear-on-wear, while there may be voltage, current is reduced.
You may be able to identify connectors as the issue by wiggling or pressuring the power connector a bit. Power comes onto the MPU along the lower edge, a few inches from the bottom left. It's a 6 or 7 pin in-line connector IIRC.
Having said all of that, what you are seeing now (all lamps being turned on then off continuously) is characteristic of an MPU board that isn't able to read the game ROM, either due to circuit board damage or due to a failed ROM.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.Team-EM.com
http://webpages.charter.net/chibler/Pinball/index.htm
http://www.PinWiki.com - The new place for pinball repair info
Quoted from Atomicboy:You know you have a good cpu then. Again, I would repin that power connector for the cpu, as they all need it anyway, and it's a good place to start to make sure you are getting a strong connection there. Then, if still no go, swap the driver board from the rbion.
I still wonder if the wires were pulled from that connector, or caused it to break enough (it gets brittle over time) to cause issues.
I am ordering up the connector from pinball life with some other things, I am also ordering the male side of it, and will change it out on the board to make sure its not that. In the mean time I did as you suggested and switched over the power driver board from rbion.
With the LOTR cpu board and the RBION power driver board the game works fine. So now the brake down looks like this.
A. LOTR MPU / RBIPN DRIVER... works
B. RBION MPU / LOTR DRIVER... works
C.RBION MPU / RBION DRIVER... works
D.LOTR MPU / LOTR DRIVER... fails
Which isn't really different then what Chris wrote above, but we now know for a fact the LOTR mpu works in LOTR just with a different driver board.
Suggestions where to go from here?
More of an update, I decided to put the LOTR mpu and LOTR driver in ripleys today with the ripleys chips. The game boots up fine, however there is no sound (all that comes out of the speakers is a loud hum. The game will do attract mode just fine, but when you start a game it burns the 7A 50v coil fuse instantly.
Quoted from Acejedi:Your issue is on your IO driver board, send the board to Rob and have him fix it, LockWhenLit.com
Joe(acejedi)
Joe,
Did you review this whole thread?
How did you arrive at that conclusion. Curious.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.Team-EM.com
http://webpages.charter.net/chibler/Pinball/index.htm
http://www.PinWiki.com - The new place for pinball repair info
It has been looking like the driver for a couple days now. Chris, do you not think so for some reason?
You didn't note which machine you were attempting these set up's in each time, which is still important as there could be another problem that originally bled into the lotr driver.
The key points now are the rbion driver in lotr allows it to work fine, the lotr mpu with rbion driver in rbion allows it to work fine (did you in fact start up and play?), and the lotr driver in rbion exhibits problems. If this is correct, the driver board would be where I would be looking.
At this point you need to ask yourself if you have the board skills to deal with this yourself. Even if we all could determine in the end it was say IC "X", could you replace it on your own? If the answer is no, I would send the board out now and have that person upon fixing give you a short write up on what the issue was, you know, for thread closure.
Quoted from Atomicboy:It has been looking like the driver for a couple days now. Chris, do you not think so for some reason?
Like you note in your post, if the OP had noted which game each board combo was tested in, that would have helped.
Quoted from Dr-Willy:With the LOTR cpu board and the RBION power driver board the game works fine.
If "the game" is LOTR, then I'd suspect the original LOTR power board except that it seems to work in Ripleys.
I'm still not convinced that this isn't a simple connector issue, either on the MPU or Driver board side. He may be measuring 5V at the right place, but there still might not be enough "juice" to drive the MPU, due to worn or tarnished connectors.
The other MPU/Driver board interaction is the blanking circuit, which must cross a connector too.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.Team-EM.com
http://webpages.charter.net/chibler/Pinball/index.htm
http://www.PinWiki.com - The new place for pinball repair info
I did Read the entire thread Chris and I just dealt with some extremely weird issues on my IO driver board on my LotR, I tested all sorts of things connectors, chips, caps, cables etc and it would sometimes work in other games etc just all around act strange. I finally got it to Rob and it was a TINY trace broken leading to one of the chips and that fixed the problem. Since this game had a board set that had fallen during shipping then powered on and started having issues, Im leaning towards something similar has happened to it. I highly doubt its on the CPU especially if there is no acid Damage and the Game ROMs have been tested in working and the CPU has worked fine in the other game. I could be wrong and do not claim to know how to fix it as I could not fix mine. The OP could start but checking Continuity on Traces on the IO driver board or broken legs on Chips.
Joe(acejedi)
Thanks for the reasoning there Joe.
This will be an interesting one to resolve.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.Team-EM.com
http://webpages.charter.net/chibler/Pinball/index.htm
http://www.PinWiki.com - The new place for pinball repair info
Quoted from ChrisHibler:Like you note in your post, if the OP had noted which game each board combo was tested in, that would have helped.
I can list what items worked in what games. No problem.
RBIOR MPU/ RBION DRIVER... worked in RBION
LOTR MPU/ RBION DRIVER... worked in RBION
RBION MPU/ LOTR DRIVER... worked in RBION
LOTR MPU/ LOTR DRIVER... failed in RBION
LOTR MPU/ RBION DRIVER... worked in LOTR
RBION MPU/ LOTR DRIVER... worked in LOTR
RBION MPU/ RBION DRIVER... worked in LOTR
LOTR MPU/ LOTR DRIVER... failed in LOTR
Everyone of those that worked, I was able to start and play a game. I will do as suggested and start checking for continuity between traces on the I/O Driver board. This is my first game that has had board failure that needs to be repaired, I am looking at becoming a small operator in my town (very small) and would love to learn this side of the hobbie to beable to work on and fix games. With that said, I do know how to solder very well and feel that if I was able to narrow down and find the problem fix it myself.
I'm still betting one or more things have grounded and caused shorted components. It may be tough to find if you are not really good at board work.
Even though the power connector seems good, I still always replace this as we as the DMD controller 5v, as these eventually turn into issues anyway, and can cause low voltages.
I would just take that out of the equation for going forward, but that's just me.
The only other things I can think of without starting to chase traces and checking continuity and getting out the scope is the ribbon cable between the boards. I assume that in all the swapping that both ribbons were tried in various combinations.
Quoted from Dr-Willy:More of an update, I decided to put the LOTR mpu and LOTR driver in ripleys today with the ripleys chips. The game boots up fine, however there is no sound (all that comes out of the speakers is a loud hum. The game will do attract mode just fine, but when you start a game it burns the 7A 50v coil fuse instantly.
This makes me believe there's something with the driver board. If you're blowing the 50v fuse, there's some type of damage to the driver board that needs a closer inspection.
As for the sound not working, that could be an issue with the sound OS not being up to date to use the RBION sound ROMs.
viperrwk
Well now ive done it. I was working on the game tonight (lotr boards in ripleys) and had the game running for a few min. I unplugged the 50v high solenoid connectors off the board to see if the fuse would pop with them unplugged to see if something else was going. I started a game and they did not. I turned the game off and plugged them back in, turned the game back on and started a game up. Game started up fine and worked, I went over to grab my DMM just returned to the machine when I heard a pop and looked in the backbox. Mosfet driver q12 had exploded open and caught fire.
There looks to be no damage to the board, except the blown mosfet. I measured every resistor on the board and all checked out fine. My DMM doesn't do capasitence, so I will be off to the store tomorrow to find one that does, and will be measuring all of those as well. I also got a measurement out of every mosfet on the board except the one that exploded.
Ugh I am literally doing this as a trial by fire lol.
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