(Topic ID: 316225)

NGG not booting after swapping out MPU

By SimplePin

1 year ago


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  • 19 posts
  • 7 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 1 year ago by SimplePin
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#1 1 year ago

This issue started when one the coils (underground pass) stopped working. I did all the usual testing to rule things out.

After ruling out everything but the MPU I decided swap the original board with a Rottendog board. I swapped over the chips and when I turned on the machine I get a single bong and nothing else. No GI no DMD. Coin door lights are on. LED201 on the MPU stays on. LED203 is off. LED202 is on.

Wondering if I screwed up one of the chips moving them over. I had to straighten two of the pins on CPU chip. I've not had any issues with Rottendog boards before. Any ideas?

Thanks

#2 1 year ago

Connector in wrong spot or on wrong. Bad chips. Or bad board.

LTG : )

#3 1 year ago
Quoted from LTG:

Connector in wrong spot or on wrong. Bad chips. Or bad board.
LTG : )

I'm going to assume the board is good for now since it is new. I'm pretty confident in the connectors. Is there a reliable way to test the chips?

Thanks

#4 1 year ago

My best guess is that the ROM or one of the other chips was not installed completely.
Note the orientation of each chip. Notch should be oriented as shown in the silkscreen.
A ROM inserted backwards and powered on will destroy the ROM.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.ChrisHiblerPinball.com/Contact
https://www.youtube.com/c/ChrisHiblerPinball
http://www.PinWiki.com - The Place to go for Pinball Repair Info

#5 1 year ago

It appears you have an NBAFB - probably best to bring that into the mix of MPU testing if you can't find anything obvious....

#6 1 year ago
Quoted from Sonic:

It appears you have an NBAFB - probably best to bring that into the mix of MPU testing if you can't find anything obvious....

They sit next to each other in the lineup for that very reason. I've used them to diagnose each other before. Last time it was NBAFB that needed help.

1 week later
#7 1 year ago

Update. I have the game booting now. I replaced the CPU chip and it boots. However there are two problems that weren't there before my issues started. One is the DMD. It's now glitching out on the right side. I checked all of the cables and everything looks good. The other issue is that it's not retaining settings on shut down. I have to set the date and time and other settings when the game boots. The good news is that the game boots and the plays 100%. Two steps forward two steps back.

Any ideas on the settings and DMD? If I damaged other chips when I moved them over to the new MPU board could that explain the new issues?

#8 1 year ago

Settings: Have you installed NVRAM? Or, are you using a battery backup?
DMD: We'll need to see a video of the behavior to be of much help.

--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.ChrisHiblerPinball.com/Contact
https://www.youtube.com/c/ChrisHiblerPinball
http://www.PinWiki.com - The Place to go for Pinball Repair Info

#9 1 year ago
Quoted from ChrisHibler:

Settings: Have you installed NVRAM? Or, are you using a battery backup?
DMD: We'll need to see a video of the behavior to be of much help.

I have batteries in the battery pack. New batteries. Here is a a video of the DMD. Ignore the flickering. That is from the phone camera. After closely watching the DMD animations for some time I can clearly see that the distortion is frame based. Meaning that the extra pixels are unique for each frame of animation.

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#10 1 year ago

Interesting.
Can you post a video of display test running?
NGG is a WPC-95 game. The "DMD Controller" has been integrated onto the A/V board.
I'd try a different DMD panel first to see if the problem remains.
Then I'd try a different AV board to see if the problem remains.
I know that most people don't have an extra AV board laying around but if you have two WPC95 games, you can try that. You don't need to swap ROMs. No damage can be done by doing this.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.ChrisHiblerPinball.com/Contact
https://www.youtube.com/c/ChrisHiblerPinball
http://www.PinWiki.com - The Place to go for Pinball Repair Info

#11 1 year ago
Quoted from ChrisHibler:

Interesting.
Can you post a video of display test running?

Here is the video. The test errors out at the end with "RAM ADDRESS ERROR"

Thanks

#12 1 year ago

Interesting.
I've never seen that.
I think I would focus on the 3 skinny DIP RAM chips (usually Cypress branded).
That AV board is not trivial to work on.
If you don't have significant PCB repair experience and the right tools, send it to your favorite board repair guy.
--
Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.ChrisHiblerPinball.com/Contact
https://www.youtube.com/c/ChrisHiblerPinball
http://www.PinWiki.com - The Place to go for Pinball Repair Info

#13 1 year ago
Quoted from SimplePin:

The test errors out at the end with "RAM ADDRESS ERROR"

This is going to be a problem on the AV board not the DMD (display). The interface between the AV and the DMD is a serial interface running on a clock that just passes the bits of the active pixel buffer to the display serially.

Quoted from ChrisHibler:

I've never seen that.

I've seen this on WPC-89 DMC boards. You can actually use a WPC-89 DMC in a WPC-95 as the software interface did not change between WPC-89 and WPC-95. This fact doesn't really help diagnose the problem though.

Quoted from ChrisHibler:

I think I would focus on the 3 skinny DIP RAM chips (usually Cypress branded).

These ICs are used by the ADSP-2105 not the DMC side of the ASIC. They are a static RAM area for the ADSP software to use. It's essentially an 8k 24-bit vector data cache.

The "RAM ADDRESS ERROR" would be coming from the pixel buffer SRAM and that is the 6264 (2016) on the AV board. That is U25 (the 28-pin wide DIP). This SRAM is programmed by the game software on the CPU board (via the ribbon cables) through the ASIC.

Quoted from ChrisHibler:

That AV board is not trivial to work on.
If you don't have significant PCB repair experience and the right tools, send it to your favorite board repair guy.

100% agree on this. I have destroyed an AV board trying to fix a problem on one. Don't practice on a $400+ board with dwindling ASIC supplies available. Rottendog makes the WAV-095 but I see a lot of merchants out-of-stock. You can still buy a blank board from Mr. Pinball in Australia.

#14 1 year ago
Quoted from DumbAss:

This is going to be a problem on the AV board not the DMD (display). The interface between the AV and the DMD is a serial interface running on a clock that just passes the bits of the active pixel buffer to the display serially.

I've seen this on WPC-89 DMC boards. You can actually use a WPC-89 DMC in a WPC-95 as the software interface did not change between WPC-89 and WPC-95. This fact doesn't really help diagnose the problem though.

These ICs are used by the ADSP-2105 not the DMC side of the ASIC. They are a static RAM area for the ADSP software to use. It's essentially an 8k 24-bit vector data cache.
The "RAM ADDRESS ERROR" would be coming from the pixel buffer SRAM and that is the 6264 (2016) on the AV board. That is U25 (the 28-pin wide DIP). This SRAM is programmed by the game software on the CPU board (via the ribbon cables) through the ASIC.

100% agree on this. I have destroyed an AV board trying to fix a problem on one. Don't practice on a $400+ board with dwindling ASIC supplies available. Rottendog makes the WAV-095 but I see a lot of merchants out-of-stock. You can still buy a blank board from Mr. Pinball in Australia.

I also have populated tested Williams AV boards as well

2 weeks later
#15 1 year ago
Quoted from Ballypinball:

I also have populated tested Williams AV boards as well

PM Sent

1 week later
#16 1 year ago

Update: Finally got around to swapping my AV board from NBAFB to my NGG. The NGG AV board is the culprit. I'm considering my options.

1. Send the board out for repair. I will do this anyway but I hate to be down a game for many weeks. The repaired board will serve as an extra for the future or go back into the NGG.

2. Get replacement original board from Ballypinball

3. Get the PINSOUND WPC-95 AUDIO/VIDEO BUNDLE https://www.pinsound.org/shop/en/75-pinsound-wpc-95-audiovideo-bundle.html

Does anyone have experience with the Pinsound solution? It's the most expensive option but also interesting.

#17 1 year ago

I like options 1 and 2. I am a fan of original boards. I am not a Pinsound fan.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of quality issues with new Rottendog and Pinball Basement boards. It is like playing roulette. You win some, lose some too. Lots of Pinside failure reported threads on both manufacturer boards.

You should contact who you bought the Rottendog board from to see about a warranty repair/replacement.

#18 1 year ago
Quoted from SimplePin:

1. Send the board out for repair. I will do this anyway but I hate to be down a game for many weeks. The repaired board will serve as an extra for the future or go back into the NGG.

Your game has already been down for many weeks already as this thread is 47 days old.

Repair is almost always cheaper than replace. The DMC SRAM is possibly the cause and the easiest thing to change out to see if the problem goes away. Beyond that you are looking at replacing the 120QFP ASIC. You should find a repair technician that is experienced and competent at SMD repair and rework as well as one that knows where to source the 120QFP ASIC as well as test your repaired board afterwards. All those requirements will greatly limit your choice of repair technician to a very few reputable repair technicians.

Good luck. This board is a tough board to deal with. It is not fun any way you look at it.

Quoted from SimplePin:

I'm considering my options.

There is one other option (https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/dumbass-test-and-reproduction-pcbs/page/9#post-6156088) but it does not meet your requirements of "hate to be down a game for many weeks".

Quoted from PinballManiac40:

Unfortunately, there are a lot of quality issues with new Rottendog and Pinball Basement boards. It is like playing roulette. You win some, lose some too. Lots of Pinside failure reported threads on both manufacturer boards.

I agree with this (thumbed up). The following is not a response to the quote but a general comment for the OP.

Pinball Life is a distributor for Rottendog boards and I have never seen them carry the WAV-095 board. I am guessing the new owner of Rottendog probably doesn't want to deal with this board and issues with it. Rottendog has contact information @ http://www.rottendog.us/?page_id=12 and they should be able to help you out. It is their board so they should be able to help you.

Pinball Basement does NOT make this board. He did hint / suggest that he may make this board (https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/grand-opening-of-the-pinball-basement-check-it-out/page/2#post-6059932 and https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/grand-opening-of-the-pinball-basement-check-it-out/page/2#post-6060699) but that was probably over a year ago. Announcements and "vaporware" are fairly commonplace nowadays.

#19 1 year ago

Thanks for the continued feedback guys. I think I may have muddied the waters here with two topics in the same thread. My NGG is booting and playing fine now with the Rottendog MPU that I purchased. The issue was that I destroyed one of the chips accidentally when swapping. Replaced the destroyed chip and now the game boots just fine. The issue with the board not saving settings was resolved by removing the external battery box to check voltage only to discover that the wires from the battery box where never stripped of their insulation at the connection point.

Remaining issue was the DMD pixelation and AV board rebooting. Once I swapped the NBAFB board both of those problems were resolved. Which brings us to todays post. Again I appreciate the continued feedback.

A local operator recommended Clive at Coin-Op Cauldron and I know some of you also do these repairs.

I am tempted to just order the Pinsound solution right now as it's available. I have no interest in swapping in custom sounds. Curious what people think about this as a solution.

I will be sending out my boards for repair either way.

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