Pinball Magic
Capcom, 1995When I boot up my Pinball Magic I get a "Non Volatile RAM" Error and the game has reverted back to factory settings. I assume that means the battery needs to be replaced, which is a Lithium battery soldered onto the board instead of AA batteries.
Also it now has started rebooting as soon as I lose ball 1. Is this an entirely new problem or linked to the RAM issue?
Interesting.
If that is what it means, the phrase is inaccurate.
Batteries are used to supply power to "volatile RAM" so that it doesn't loose it's contents.
Volatile RAM memory can not retain it's contents without power. These are sometimes called static RAM.
Non-Volatile RAM retains it's contents across power cycles. The SIMTEK RAM eliminators are an example. Going way back, there was "bubble memory" and even further back "core memory".
It might mean the battery needs to be replaced, but I don't know with certainty.
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Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.Team-EM.com
http://webpages.charter.net/chibler/Pinball/indx.htm
http://www.PinWiki.com - The Place to go for Pinball Repair Info
Capcom used NVRAM? The few times i messed with them i didnt think that was the case.
Coin battery should read around 3vdc. I would check that before going further. Black lead on ground. Positive lead touch the top of the battery.
Quoted from barakandl:Capcom used NVRAM? The few times i messed with them i didnt think that was the case.
Coin battery should read around 3vdc. I would check that before going further. Black lead on ground. Positive lead touch the top of the battery.
Sounds good and I'll give that a try. Thanks!
I thought it was some weird chip / battery combo doohickey that once it's dead you are hosed. I don't think there is a battery you can replace.
I looked for one and then searched the forum and apparently this was some weird thing capcom did and there has been no fix for yet.
The only thing I can think of would be using p-roc, buying a board for a parted out out pin, buying another pm, or hoping pps does BBB and makes a board set you can pop into pm
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but that's that the bad news I found on the internet after I could not visually find a battery nor locate one in the manual.
It seems pm is not popular enough for anybody to find a fix and/or not enough have had their battery on the ram chip die yet.
Hopefully it's just a loose connection or something that needs repair other than a bad "battery"
If there's a button battery please post a picture.. Maybe I'm just having a bad acid flashback LOL!
The board has a "zero power RAM" unit - actually not "zero power", it has the battery built into the RAM chip. I don't know if the warning you are getting reflects a dead battery.
Once the board powers up for the first time, the battery kicks in, and will eventually die. I have a few Capcom games, so have wondered when one will go....
I bought a few of the specific 6116/6264 version of the anyPin NVRAM Battery Eliminator which Rob says works great in Capcom games. I have not yet had one die, so haven't tested one myself. http://lockwhenlit.com/anyPin.htm
I would not attempt the replacement myself, the chip is soldered in and should be left to a pro to fit.
I would love to have a picture of this error message on the display, as well as a picture of the part on the MPU, so that I can add this to the PinWiki. This issue is bound to become more prevalent.
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Chris Hibler - CARGPB #31
http://www.Team-EM.com
http://webpages.charter.net/chibler/Pinball/index.htm
http://www.PinWiki.com - The Place to go for Pinball Repair Info
Quoted from vegemite_nick:I bought a few of the specific 6116/6264 version of the anyPin NVRAM Battery Eliminator which Rob says works great in Capcom games. I have not yet had one die, so haven't tested one myself. http://lockwhenlit.com/anyPin.htm
Mine did not die but I have NVRAM installed and it worked great.
vegemite_nick and TheLaw are correct, anyPin works fine in Capcom games. Use the 6116/6264 specific version of anyPin set to 6264 for use in Capcom CPUs.
The "Non-Volatile RAM" error is indeed referring to the battery backed up RAM. These are starting to fail in greater numbers now. U14 is the IC that anyPin will replace.
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Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
borygard at gmail dot com
Not that I thought it would help, but figured it couldn't hurt, I re-seated all the connectors on the board and got no change.
Tonight when I tried to play the pin, every time I lost ball one, the game rebooted itself. Is this likely the same problem or something else?
I did go ahead and order tonight the replacement for the Lithium battery from Borygard.
Started reading about rebooting issues as the game was doing that after losing ball one. Tried re-seating all connectors, looking for cold solders and the more easy fixes. The game hasn't given me the Nonvolatile error in days. Anyway, for some reason I did a factory reset and now the game is playing fine once again. Don't know if it will last or not and have a replacement battery on the way. I'll report back if the game starts acting up in these areas again.
Thanks for the responses and suggestions.
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