So last night I was playing my Meteor. Everything was going well until in the middle of a ball it started counting bonus, but it wasn't counting bonus I had collected, it just kept going and going and going. I drained the ball and it didn't stop. I restarted the game, it didn't do it right away, but as soon as I launched the ball it started doing this, I noticed it kept firing the trough kicker while it was doing this. It finally stopped. I launched another ball, same thing, only this time it kept firing one or two of the coils for the Meteor targets at the top of the playfield. It eventually stopped. I launched another ball, started doing it again, but this time didn't fire any coils. I pulled the glass and knocked down all of the drop targets and hit all of the standup targets, but that didn't stop it.

Does anyone have any idea why it is doing this or what I need to look at first?

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8LKsouTS1igYy16SmJkU1VzNEk

ah ha, good call! Any ideas where to start looking to see why none of them are firing?

Cool, I'll give the fuses a check and do some research to figure out how to run test mode; never done it before on an early Stern.

Yes the outhole kicker would fire sometimes, sometimes it wouldn't, same with one of more of the coils for the meteor stand up targets.

Ok, I'll check the under PF fuse, but coils other than the flippers are working. I will also check the gap on the outhole switch.

I will report back what I find.

Thanks to everyone for all of the replies and info

I spent some time on Meteor last night. The gap on the outhole switch is set correctly. I pulled the under playfield fuse out of the game and tested, it's good.

I started looking at other stuff. I figured out on the bank targets labeled with number one, when the last of the three is dropped, doesn't matter the order, it will start counting down the bonus and firing one of the coils for the bank of targets that are the Meteor letters- I think the second "E" coil. The same thing on the bank targets labeled with number two, only it will fire the outhhole kicker repeatedly and count bonus once the last of the three targets is knocked down.

I manually reset the banks and it will finish counting down bonus, say for about 7 seconds and won't do it again until the last of the three of each target bank is dropped and then it will start counting bonus like crazy again.

Does that give anyone ideas on what to look at or what might be the problem?

Ok, makes sense it's scoring the rocket value over and over since the targets are all down and not resetting.

Dropping all #1 targets = outhole fires YES
Dropping all #2 targets = 2nd Meteor E target fires I am pretty sure it's the second E, but would need to confirm
Hit pop bumper = Right sling fires Not sure, would need to check
Hit left sling = Bank #3 resets Not sure, would need to check
Win a game (knocker) = Meteor bank resets Not sure, didn't get this far.

Wow, great detailed guide there!

I will try and check it out this weekend and get back to you guys.

Thanks to everyone that replied!

Good point about testing from the back of the solder joint to the back of the solder joint on the other board to get the most accurate results. I have .156 trifurcons, molex housings, and the required crimpers. I'm not able to do the board work so I wonder if I should just go ahead and replace both connectors since you said they get brittle and break and then see if I still have the problem and if I do I can get the header pins replaced next. Good plan?

No problem, I have .100 pins and housings also. Although it looks like the MPU connector might be 19 or more pins so I will probably have to order one of those, I know I don't have one that big.

That's good, I didn't lay eyes on it yet. It sounds like these are already in molex-type housing then. I am used to when fixing Bally/Willliams games the connectors are insulation displacement connectors (IDC) and I have to convert all of the wires over because I don't trust or want to use another IDC connector.

Should I just replace the one wire in the connectors then I guess to see if the problem goes away?

I was referring to the connector housing, but it sounds like they are already in a molex-style connector so I think I can just replace the one wire's terminal on each board and if that doesn't work I will see if my friend can replace the header pins on the boards.

good point!

you guys are awesome! Last night I pulled the J4 MPU connector, replaced the female pin for position 1, plugged it back in and it was fixed! I took Zacaj's advice and replaced all of the female pins in connector J4, played for about a good hour and it played great!

While I was working on it I moved the upper flipper EOS to engage sooner in hopes that the standups would knock down a little easier as my friend suggested, it seemed to help a little bit, but not as much as I was hoping. Is there a trick to getting them to fall down easier and not just stay standing when they get a medium to hard hit from the ball?

Cool, I'll check it out when I get a chance. I guess the whole unit comes out fairly easily?

Thanks for the advice!