Finally splurged on a Whirlwind, the pin I remember most when I was playing at the bowling alley while my parents did league nights. It is otherwise in complete working order, except for the "adjust failure"/"factory setting" issue.

There is zero battery corrosion on this board. It is very clean and in excellent shape, so rule that out right away. The battery holder had been cut off long ago. I did remove the ram at U25 and installed a socket for a 6116 NVRam.

I have +5 at U25 pin 24, both sides of d1 and d3, and one side of d2. I did replace D2 and D3 just in case, but D2 shouldn't even be used anymore since there are no batteries anyway.

The NVRam is in working order as I swapped it over from my Big Guns temporarily, where it has been without issue for several years, until another one arrives for the Whirlwind.

The coin door closed memory protect switch is working correctly. With the coin door closed at power up I get "adjust failure", with the coin door open at power up I get "factory setting". When you power up with the coin door open and do the quick power on/off, it does go right into attract mode.

I have tried several times and it will never ever save any changed settings (to free play for example), and always comes back up with the same adjust failure/factory setting messages.

I did read some notes on NVRam and having to change jumper W5 to W6, but that is only with a dip switch settable NVRam, which this is not, so there should be no need to change that jumper at all.

You can power it up to the factory setting message, go through the menu to change the settings, cycle to the end of the adjustments menu and it comes up in free play mode and you can play the game. It will keep the high scores and settings until it is turned off. The game is 100% working otherwise, all lights, switches, coils, display, and plays great with zero issues.

I've played for several hours, and yet it never saves the changed settings or high scores after power off and I still have to rest it to free play for the next time I play.

I've never had this issue not go away after installing NVRam.

Any suggestions?

Things that go BUMP in the night.....

There was no remote battery holder or anything when I got it last week. The original battery holder had been cleanly cut from the board with nothing replacing it.

I've tried 2 different 6116 NVRams in the Whirlwind with no luck on either. They both work just fine in other games.

I will try the jumper around D1 and see if that changes anything tonight.

Thanks for the suggestion!

I'll double check that everything has continuity with the new socket that I installed. Maybe I missed one by accident, but I have checked and re-flowed those socket pins again just to make sure.

I installed a jumper over D1 and it did not fix the issue.

Oh man, this is embarrassing.

So, I double checked continuity on the socket I installed and all was good. I was going to start comparing things as you suggested, between my Big Guns and Whirlwind boards, when I went "Oh Fuck, that's it right there." I had removed and put a socket on the 6116 at U23......

So, I put a new 6116 back at U23, removed the correct one at U25 and installed a socket with the NVRam.

Done. Works just fine now.

I still cannot believe I did that.