I've got an issue with a Gottlieb Genie. Every time the machine is powered on, three solenoids (that I know of) immediately lock on. The saucer outhole kicker, ball trough kickout and knocker solenoids are the three that are locked on (unless a relay coil or one that is not easily seen is also locked). All transistors tested good but I replaced them anyway. Also, the interconnect harness is new. If I disconnect it from the driver board, the coils do not lock or fire at all. The only other culprit that I can think it might be is one of the "spider chips" on the main MPU board. Is this a possible cause of this behavior or is there another possibility I should look into? This behavior was not happening but started all of a sudden while I was shopping it out and doing some restoring on the machine. That's why I was hoping it was something simple that happened and not the MPU board crapping out on me. Any suggestions or things to check would be greatly appreciated.

Calling all system 1 gurus! I would like to get this up and running before the State tournament on the 18th if at all possible. I don't want to buy a $250 board if it is something I can fix or if it is something else altogether. Help!

Genie is one of the system 1 games that does not have any under the PF transistors. I do have a logic probe if you can help guide me on what to test. If this helps, with the 25 volts disconnected from the transformer, the MPU plays and scores perfectly fine. Sounds play, switches score, displays all work, just no coils of course.

Ok, here is some more information so maybe it will help pinpoint the problem. According to Clay's guides, a bad U4 could cause coils to lock on. I figured nothing else had worked and I had a donor board, so I replaced U4 with the one from the donor. No change It exhibited the exact same behavior as before. So now I assume, unless the U4 chip from the other board was bad in the exact same way as the other one, the problem is somewhere else. But where? This is driving me nuts. I can only think maybe some kind of grounding issue but if three of the CPU controlled coils are locked because of that, wouldn't all of the CPU controlled coils be locked on? Where should I check the ground to test this theory? Any other suggestions?

Thanks for all the help so far.

Yes the it has the ground mods. The problem occurred all of a sudden a while back and I just now got back around to working on it. Yes I did test the coils and diodes and they seem to all be within spec.

Just a quick update. I ended up getting a Ni-Wumpf board like Pinmike suggested and it corrected the locking coils. Both U4 chips that I had must have been bad or either it was something else that I could not find. Thanks Pinmike and Northvibe for the help.