Hello fellow pinheads!
Thought Id make a thread here even though this is a rather standard issue on system3.
First, I have read through Clays system3 pinball repair site, watched some videos etc, but Ill describe my issue and maybe some of you have some tips also.
Last week I picked up a stargate. Before packing it together, the former owner powered it on, it booted fine.
Arriving with the game at its destination, I set it up,connected its power chord to a power strip and when I booted it, it was only the typical garbage on the display. No sound.
Today, I powered it on and it was garbled display for a second and then it booted as it should. Turned it off, then on again and then it was stuck with the garbled display again.
Troubleshooting time:
1. I measured the 5v, trimming the pot up to 5.15, and down to 4.8 but it did not make the cpu board suddenly boot, still stuck in garbage land.
2. Turned off game, reseated all connector. Booted, still garbage dmd but now we had sound!! A constant BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.
3. We measured the battery, it was good but we still replaced it with a new socket and battery. Still the same garbage display.
4. We reseated all the ROMS, no change.
5. It seems the only thing left, according to pinball ninja, is to update the firmware to the latest .4 or .5, as this was supposedly containing a fix to this issue?
The current game eprom does not have the #version number printed on, so dont know if its .2,.3 or later.
Any other ideas to try, could the culprit be something else?
It seems as the game is booting okay the first time, aka when its cold and havent been started in a while. But after that it goes straight to garbage dmd.
I am also unsure how high it is safe to trim the 5v pot when testing.
We will burn the latest stargate game rom on friday, so will in any case update of the progress.
Thanks,
Morten