Hey All - I picked up an Arena yesterday, my first System 80B. I was mostly an EM guy, but started learning SS and newer games over the past few months. I've been reading up on the large amount of info out there on 80B troubleshooting (pinwiki, pinside, etc.), so I know there's plenty I need to do. Hoping some Pinsiders can weigh in with advice on the display issue as I go, since I'm new to these.

What I know: I had a friend scout out the game a couple of days before I picked it up. They played it, worked great, including the display 100% fine. Friend powered it down, removed the translite and display to take pics of the boards for me, then put it back together and left. When I arrived to pick it up, the game powered on fine, but the displays were dead. Given that the only thing done between seeing them 100% working and being dead is that the display board was pulled to take pics, I'm hoping that something simply got knocked around or messed up during that basic process. The previous owner had never pulled the translite or display (or even lifted the playfield), so it was probably the first time anything had been messed with in years.

Some things I did so far:

- Reseated the connectors
- Checked for continuity between A1-J2 connector and the display edge connector (good)
- Checked for good connection between 1A-16-J1 / 2A-16-J1 and the display boards (good)
- Disconnected fluorescent lighting connector (saw some people saying it could cause display issues)

I'm including a couple of pics of the related areas, but let me know if there's stuff you guys want to see.

Sidenote: I'm also including the ground area, as I know the ground mods have never been done on this machine. I also noticed some weird things going on there, see pic. Note the burnt pin on the random molex that doesn't look like it should be there, along with some extra/hacked wiring stuff. I know I'll have to address all that too eventually. Also, I have a small amount of corrosion beginning near the battery (which I'll be removing asap). Nothing major, thank goodness.

Arena_DisplayRear (resized).jpg
Arena_A1-J2 (resized).jpg
Arena_Grounds-Power (resized).jpg

Update: I tested all of the voltages at the edge connector on the display board, as well as on the U1, U2, and U3 positions where the voltages should be present. Everything tested good, so it looks like power getting to the board isn't an issue.

Now here's where things get weird. I decided to do some house keeping, so I started replacing some dead insert and GI bulbs. As I replaced them, I turned the machine on and off to check progress. The display did nothing per usual.

Then, after replacing the last GI bulb that was out, I turned the game on and the Display was WORKING! It was displaying everything perfectly. I left it in attract for a few minutes, snapped a picture (see below). All looked good. I started a game, and the display seemed fine for a while.

Somewhere between ball 2 and 3, the display suddenly garbled and had lots of junk mixed with the correct info. See additional pics. It stayed that way, so I shut down the game, waited a moment and turned it back on... display is Dead again. (Apologies for the glare in the pics, I had the translite off and fluorescent bulb back in.)

Clearly possessed. Thoughts?

Arena_Display_Good1 (resized).jpg

Arena_Display_Junk1 (resized).jpg

Arena_Display_Junk2 (resized).jpg

So the display came on for a while yesterday and worked for about 5 minutes or so, then went wacky again. Upon power-down and power-up, it was dead again. No life since.

Just finished the ground mods, didn't help, not a big surprise there. Any help/suggestions appreciated... moving onto connectors.

Thanks for the reply Chris, much appreciated.

I pulled the connectors/harness section out and did a thorough cleaning. Did the same for the edge connector (shined up nicely). Plugged it back in and the display came right on. Knock on wood, been running great since then, no garbled sections, no dying.

I'm going to repin the connectors to help bulletproof things, since that's clearly the issue like you said. Pulled the board for a cleaning tonight (thanks to my buddy WB for lending a hand). I'll hook things back up in the morning and give it a test. Fingers crossed I'm good to go.