(Topic ID: 243385)

Revenge From Mars is dark - New Question

By Grangeomatic

4 years ago


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#1 4 years ago

I’ve got a Revenge from Mars that I bought a couple years ago. Got it cleaned up and working with some pretty serious repair to the driver board, but it’s been running great since then. It’s been rotated over to my buddy’s place, and he’s been enjoying it for a while, and then one day, he says he went upstairs and it was fine. When he came back downstairs, it was dead.
Had him do some digging, and he confirmed that the power supply was good (5V, 12V supplies good, etc).

Now I’ve got the computer here on my bench, and I’ve pulled the prism card out, and I’m able to get into the BIOS. I’ve replaced the 5 electrolytic caps as I’ve seen recommended in a few places.
With the Prism card out, it appears to try and boot, but of course, there’s nothing to boot from. With the prism card in, the monitor is completely dead. The little LED on the prism card is on steady.

So I guess I’m looking for any additional suggestions.
Is the prism card LED supposed to be solid, or blinking?

Will I be able to see ANYTHING on a modern LCD monitor, even if it’s working, or do I need to get an adapter to use that kind of monitor, just for testing? Or do I need to get the computer back into the game to use that monitor?

Is it possible that the BIOS settings have defaulted to a value that it’s not trying to boot off the prism card at all?

Note that the power supply appears to have been replaced by the previous owner, and I replaced the CPU heat sink fan a couple years ago.

Any help would be appreciated. If I can’t get this working, I’ll need to explore the Nucore/Pinbox option, but for now, I’d prefer to see if I can get this computer running.

Thanks,
Jeff

#2 4 years ago

I’d like to know the answer to any of those questions as well.

#4 4 years ago

You won't be able to see anything on a standard LCD. The RFM video out uses a 15kHz sync frequency for output to a standard resolution arcade monitor. In order for you to connect that to a standard LCD, you will need a sync combiner and a converter. Khar sells the combiner and you can get the CGA to VGA converter from Amazon

#5 4 years ago

This is the easiest option for hooking up LCD to your RFM. It can be used with both original CRT and LCD https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/revenge-from-mars-add-lcd-and-sync-adapter#post-2684234

#6 4 years ago
Quoted from Andyzola87:

This is the easiest option for hooking up LCD to your RFM. It can be used with both original CRT and LCD https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/revenge-from-mars-add-lcd-and-sync-adapter#post-2684234

I forgot about his sync combiner! Its very nice and integrates perfectly with the computer case... but you still need the external CGA->VGA converter.

#7 4 years ago

Reseat the cpu ram. There is a coin cell battery in between the board stacks of the prism card as well.
You might want to check considering its 20 years old now.

#8 4 years ago

Thanks for the tips. So basically, if I’m doing a bunch of things (or anything), the only way to test it is to either get some extra hardware, or put it back into the machine? I can only check the BIOS and non-prism booting with my LCD monitor.

I don’t think it’s a RAM issue, because it’ll pass the RAM test, but I’ll reseat it anyway.

Will a dead prism battery keep it from booting?

Can anyone answer the questions about the Prism LED or if the BIOS boot pointer problem is a real possibility?

Thanks,
Jeff

#9 4 years ago
Quoted from Grangeomatic:

Thanks for the tips. So basically, if I’m doing a bunch of things (or anything), the only way to test it is to either get some extra hardware, or put it back into the machine? I can only check the BIOS and non-prism booting with my LCD monitor.
I don’t think it’s a RAM issue, because it’ll pass the RAM test, but I’ll reseat it anyway.
Will a dead prism battery keep it from booting?
Can anyone answer the questions about the Prism LED or if the BIOS boot pointer problem is a real possibility?
Thanks,
Jeff

The LED on the Prims card. Is only for the DCS portion. It has nothing to do with the core game. If you have an WPC-95 game. The red LED on the AV-Board is exactly the same.
The LED is either on or off during boot until the DCS is done testing itself. After the Bong the LED starts flashing in an 250ms frequency.

#10 4 years ago
Quoted from Midway-Man:

The LED on the Prims card. Is only for the DCS portion. It has nothing to do with the core game. If you have an WPC-95 game. The red LED on the AV-Board is exactly the same.
The LED is either on or off during boot until the DCS is done testing itself. After the Bong the LED starts flashing in an 250ms frequency.

So if my LED never starts flashing on my bench, then is it safe to assume the computer is never completing its boot/test cycle?

Just trying to see what I can learn without actually having the full game on hand.
Can I hook up a speaker to the special speaker output connection (not the normal computer speaker output) and see if I get a bong?

Thanks,
Jeff

#11 4 years ago

Ok, so my original computer is not cooperating.
But thanks to Pinside, I’ve been able to get my Pinbox computer up and running. Sure, it’s not in the game yet, but it’s running.
Now here’s the question:
Do I immediately modify to an LCD monitor, or am I better off staying with my current good CRT? If the latter, what kind of hardware would I need?

Thanks,
Jeff

#12 4 years ago

You need a pci card to be able to continue using the standard monitor. I don't know much about them (which one is best, etc) because I just ended up swapping the original monitor for an LCD. However, prior to that, I did fix some issues related to the game not booting (at all, or only partially) / random resetting with the original computer by (in order) a) replacing caps + fans, b) replacing psu, but what ultimately fixed all the issues reliably was to take out and reseat all the ic's on the prism board, after applying some stabilant 22 to all the contacts.

#13 4 years ago

Thanks for the suggestion. I hadn't thought of reseating all the chips in the Prism sandwich. I'll give that a try this week, but since I seem to have the Pinbox working, I'm still looking for recommendations for the monitor(s). I think either way, if I use Pinbox, I'll need to buy new hardware (either a new LCD, or a computer card to run the original monitor off of Pinbox). Recommendations either way would be helpful.

Unless, of course, I can get one last stab at getting the original computer running (I've already replaced the caps, fans, PS, reseated the prism, replaced the battery, reseated the RAM, checked the BIOS).

Any additional suggestions are appreciated.

Jeff

#14 4 years ago

I reseated all the chips on the prism board...still no go, at least no flashing LED on my desk.

Still looking recommendations if I need to go the Pinbox route, if anyone's got any pearls of wisdom.

Thanks,
Jeff

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