I bought a Data East Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends a few months ago, and everything has been great. Lately however, the tri-ball just won't end. As balls drain, they are immediately served back into play. The first time this happened, it was fun for the first 15 minutes or so, but it just never stopped. I had to power off the machine.

At first, I tried to set Adj. 49- Rerace Condition to EXHARD, but that didn't make a difference. Then, I tried a full factory reset, but it didn't make a change the behavior either (and I lost my high scores). Has anyone seen anything similar? Can anyone tell me if this is a program/ROM error, or is it a mechanical failure or adjustment?

Thanks in advance.

Wow! Thanks for the prompt responses everyone! I made the post last last night, and was pleasantly surprised to see a few good suggestions when I woke up this morning.

I will check the hat trick target switches first. I don't believe they were reacting improperly, but that's an easy place to start. I've seen the option to perform a switch test in the service mode, but haven't done one yet. I'll find out how to do that today as well.

Thanks again everyone. I'll post results as soon as I get the time to act on these tips.

Hooray! It's fixed. Triball ends now.

I used the switch test to check the hat trick targets first, since that was nice and easy. They all seemed to work just fine, so I started manually testing the trough switches. Left and center worked fine, but the metal switch for the right trough switch somehow lodged itself atop a small finishing nail (see pic**). I pulled the nail out, and could then trigger the "trough #3 right" switch properly. I immediately put it back together and tested triball, and IT ENDED!

Does anyone know why the nail may have been there?

Thanks again everyone!

** I tried to add the image to this post, but it's failing for some reason. I have a link to the pic here: http://i.imgur.com/LAonhqe.jpg