CPS2 A-board broken pin repair? - FIXED -

[Porl]

Hi everyone,

I went to try my new CPS2 games and motherboard last night ( i was very excited because I'd waited all month for them ) and when I plugged SFZ + A board to my Supergun I got the Fan spinning but then nothing, no video or sound, just the fan wurring away.

I thought that maybe the boards weren't pressed togethor tightly enough so I pried A and B apart, had a quick nose at the connectors and was amazed at how many IDE pins there are put the boards back together and gave them a squeeze and tried again. Fan spun up but still nothing.

I seperated them again and spotted that a pin was completely folded over in the top left connector. I then tried to gently un-bend the pin out with some dental hook style tools and it snapped.

I then quickly tried Vampire Hunter just to see if maybe the pin wasn't needed and SFZ wasn't working but still nothing.

I'm wondering if anyone has repaired broken pins on the connectors before? I read on Neo-Geo.com that someone has seen a repair with a sewing needle before so It can be done I guess but i'd prefer to use a proper IDE wire really. I can't find what to use via google though. The age old problem of not know what the parts are called.

I'm picking up some Torx bits later so I can open it up and have a nose. Any help would be greatfully received I don't have the money now to buy another A Board so repair is my better option at the minute if possible.

thanks

Paul''

[idc]

If you can get the broken pin out somehow (juggle a soldering iron and needle nosed pliers or ask a friend for an extra hand) it might be possible to replace it. You may then be able to force a replacement pin through by pushing it in from the rear with a chisel tipped soldering iron, then soldering into place just like the others. Just be careful not to melt the plastic too much or bend any other pins.

You can get cheap pin header blocks from eBay. You can usually pull single pins out of those quite easily using pliers.

Note that I've never actually done this, but I'd probably attempt it if I had the problem you're having.

[Porl]

Hi idc,

That's what I was thinking to do but having not opened the case up I wasn't sure if that way might be a possibility I have a spare PC motherboard I was thinking of getting the pin from but this morning I saw a photo of the internals of an A-board and the connector looks double height Do you know if they come apart or i'll need to find a double height pin?

I'll have a quick look on ebay for some header blocks

cheers idc

Porl''

[idc]

You'll need to find a pin of the correct height.

[Porl]

A bit of a daft question I'm sure but I thought I would ask as I'm not able to work on my A-Board until later on (got some Torx bits at lunchtime and had a nose in the case now). Does 1 broken pin completely stop the A-board working normally? I've seen via google discussion searches that a broken pin normally ends up with the graphics or the sound glitching rather than getting nothing at all.

Does it all depend on which pin is bent / broken wether its a complete non-booter or a graphics glitch?

Also from a slightly different angle, would I need to adjust my PSU to get it to boot maybe? Just to see if the board is working in a glitchy way as the Fan is wurring? I haven't messed with the adjustment on my arcade PSU as it runs my Jamma Teki-Paki game as well as my Neo-Geo MVS 1-slot perfectly.

Thanks for any help

Paul''

[chacal]

No problem the pin she's not connected on Trace PCB

[KmanSweden]

you might wanna flip the board over and check the other side too.

[crunchywasp]

I'd recommend checking the voltage on the +5v line at the JAMMA edge (pins 3,4,C or D). You may need to tweak the PSU up a little. Although you may be able to run a 1 slot ok it may not be up to running the CPS2 without a little more juice. The fan'll whir as it's 12v but you'll get a black screen & no sound if your +5v is low.

Don't tweak it upwards too much though! I like to keep mine at around 5.05v under load at the JAMMA edge.

[idc]

I'm not sure if that pin connects to anything, but definitely check the other side, and check your voltages as advised.

Try de-casing a B-board also, and carefully but firmly press the two de-cased boards together. You may just be getting a poor connection. You can push the boards a little closer together outside of the casing. Be careful not to snap anything when pulling them apart again.

For dirty motherboards in the past, I've take some fine emery cloth to the pins to get the crap off, then finally cleaned them with "Q-tip" cotton bud sticks and alcohol. It's a little awkward, but it works.

[Porl]

Thanks guys for the help.

I spent a few hours trying to get the broken pin out, desolder the whole connector so I could get better angles on the pin without the fear of damaging the capacitor right next to it etc but no joy. I couldn't get all the pins to come loose enough cus there are so dang many of them haha

So I resoldered them all and decided to try the tweaking of the PSU to see if the board would run at all and if it did what happens. Well, my PSU was running at around 4v I think so that was way too low. I tweaked it to 5v and the motherboard on its own would show a white screen (i think my colour was set a little high possibly?) but when I plugged a game in it wouldn't boot so I tweaked the PSU again to just over 5v and the games booted

Unfortunetly there is graphics glitching all over the screen though and the colours and fidelity don't match what I've seen on google images and youtube videos. Just from 1 pin

But a good thing is I know both of my games work and which is the phoenix (SFZ) and which isn't. And I can play them in a glitchy way until I can source a cheap replacement A-Board.

I've included photos of the glitches so you can see.

Thanks again for the help guys

Paul''

[FrancoB]

Are the boards firmly mated together? I've had similar issues when they have not quite been seated properly.

[Porl]

hmm I think they were, i gave them a squeeze but they don't click or anything so I guess I'm not sure if they are properly together. Were you getting the funny colours as well? I know there is going to be something up with them because of the broken pin but would 1 pin make glitchy lines as well as the weird colouring?

Also, I traced the pin from the top of the board rather than the bottom and there is a trace coming from under the connector and heads off to a smallish surface mounted chip - 2W LS157 and it goes to the leg which lines up with 5 in the print on the board.

Would having the +5v too high cause colour problems like in my photos?

Cheers

Paul''

[crunchywasp]

I've seen similar issues too (vertical bars / odd colours) when the A&B boards aren't firmly joined together. Try reseating it a few times and see if you get different (preferably better) results. The boards won't click together, sometimes you just have to squeeze harder and in the right places until you get lucky!

It's worth trying to source a couple of the clips that firmly hold the boards together. I've none spare at the moment I'm afraid but sure someone here will have some.

If you run the A board without a B board then the fan will turn on but from memory you'll see just a solid colour on screen - I'm not sure if the colour has any significance but I recall seeing different colours before (including white) on various A boards that had no apparent issues.

What's your +5v currently sitting at? You'd usually know about it if your +5v's far too high! At worst burning smells and popping noises I've had CPS2 stuff running at 5.1v before with absolutely no issues but wouldn't tend to run it for prolonged periods of time at that if I could help it. I find 5.05v is good.

I've not seen odd colours with CPS2 stuff as a result of a slightly high +5v before. Does your supergun have the means to adjust the red, green & blue levels? It may be as simple as that?

[Porl]

Cheers Crunchywasp,

I'm not sure what the +5v is at as I slightly tweaked it after I'd been trying my 2 games out. I'll check tonight and tune it down to 5v so I know I won't blow or burn anything out haha

Kernow, I was wondering that this morning wether the CPS2 really pushes out a stronger video signal or something than an older "normal" jamma game? They need to be stronger because they ran / run on larger monitor cabinets or something?

Yep I built my Supergun with adjustable R,G,B channels so I'll give them a real mess around. I slightly tweaked them last night but didn't move them too much because I've not had to really with my other games and it was getting late.

I'll try out the suggested tricks tonight and see if I can get a better result out of the games. Should my +5v level be safe for my other games / boards? My 1 Jamma game and my MVS 1-slot? or is tweaking the voltage something that needs to be done a lot?

Every day is a school day hey haha

Porl''

[idc]

Also, I traced the pin from the top of the board rather than the bottom and there is a trace coming from under the connector and heads off to a smallish surface mounted chip - 2W LS157 and it goes to the leg which lines up with 5 in the print on the board.'

The LS245 is a logic chip, and will almost certainly cause the problem with the vertical lines... You could test this theory by pressing the boards together when de-cased and temporarily soldering a wire from the back of the pin on the B-board to the back of the broken pin on the A-board.

[Porl]

Ah that would make sense if that's the case idc I'll be decasing both of my games to give them a good clean out as the A-board had a fair bit of dust in it when I opened it up last night. When I have them open I'll give the wire trick a go and see if it sorts out the glitchiness. Never hurts to test out to see what's what hey.

Paul''

[crunchywasp]

Should my +5v level be safe for my other games / boards? My 1 Jamma game and my MVS 1-slot? or is tweaking the voltage something that needs to be done a lot?

You should really check the +5v every time you change a board over. I tend to check it only now and again though purely out of laziness. The last time I checked my SG and cab were both around 5.05v when running CPS2 boards. I've had a one slot, 4 slot (with 4 carts in), HNG64 and a couple of loose PCBs on the SG, checking the +5v only periodically - it runs all of these without issue and I've not felt the need to adjust it for ages.

Responsible advice though would be to check it every time!

[Porl]

Okay doke crunchywasp I'll take that advice onboard as I don't want to be messing up any of my games due to not checking.

I'm thinking of making a hole in the side of my Supergun so I can access the adjustment pot with a screwdriver rather than taking it apart all the time. So when I do this I will easily be able to check and tweak the voltage.

Just from this thread I've learnt a heck of a lot about my Supergun as well as the CPS2 stuff.

Paul''

[crunchywasp]

Hope you can repair your A board with little fuss!

[Porl]

Thought I'd post an update as I've tried out a few things this morning with my CPS2 set-up. I checked the 5v adjustment and re-did it to be sure it wasn't too high. I was getting the game starting at 5v but when it would start to load the first fight it would crash out. So i tweaked up the PSU a smidge and it seems to be working fine now.

Also the colours were as Kernow said, far too strong! I've turned my channels right down and balanced them out and now the game seems to be coloured correctly without blown out colours. I'm very happy about that. Still got the glitchy lines down the screen but not so bad now that the colouring is how it's meant to be.

I'm still thinking of ways I can get that broken pin out and replaced so I can get rid of the graphics glitch. A bit stuck at the minute but I'll try to get that sucker changed out eventually

Porl''