Try wiggling those display connectors on the bottom of the MPU and see if you get any intermittent activity on the displays while the game is on. These commonly wear out and need to be repinned.

That's awesome yours was an easy fix! Unfortunately I have the same exact issue.. but my cables are hooked up correctly ;(

I have wiggled, and I also have the orange dots illuminated on each display. Is there a specific fuse that would cause this?

Interestingly enough, my reasoning for the inop display is similar to yours. The little battery pack in the top right had come loose on the mpu (mobo?), So i laid the top cabinet down to re-soder the negative lead. When i put the cabinet back in place, the displays are now as such.

I'm thinking maybe old wires, cracking in their sheaths would be my next assumption, although the display wires didnt really move during this operation. Any other ideas out there masterful pinball wizards?!

Thanks all!
Nick

So I'm dealing with the opposite issue on my Party Animal where the displays work when you turn the game on, but cut out after they warm up (yet I still have power at the displays). There are test points on the back of the displays-- look in the manual to see which test point gives each voltage and test with a multimeter. BE CAREFUL-- there's 190v running into those displays.

Had this problem on a Motordome once...turned out the big fat high voltage resistor on the power supply board was toast.

I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to take a moment to thank you for sharing a moment like this (i.e. a moment where you could have just as easily not reported it). I was running out of options that made any type of sense with my Party Animal and your post reminded me of the two cables I had wondered if I might mix up and then promptly forgotten about. Turns out, I did the exact same thing you did. Feeling all kinds of noobishness myself, but feeling even better about having my displays working. Thank you again!

Seeing the thread resurrected prompted me to update my own issue.

I still don't know *why* it was happening, but I sprayed a bit of contact cleaner into the connector on the ribbon cable, and let it dry overnight. Plugged it back in, and the problem is gone... it's been flawless since then.