Naomi 2 won't boot!

[classiccor83]

Ok, 1st of all a little back story, the Naomi 2 board has been happily netbooting for sometime, my Naomi Upright driver cab had been sitting unused for maybe 6 months or so due to lack of space in the garage. I cleaned it up somewhat, reconnected the pedals and turned it on, booted up straight away. Tried netbooting a couple games, no problem. Fancied playing a little ID3, so booted that up, went into settings and set it to free play and disabled the card reader as I don't have one.

Now I noticed that that start button wasn't working, it was lighting up but I'm sure that just means power is going to the bulb etc, anyway, I went back into the settings and to the button test menu, checked the steering wheel was working, the pedals, all was fine but not the start button. So I thought I may have changed it around into the Sega IO panel to get Crazy Taxi to work, So I left it on the button test menu and went inside to find the pin layout on my computer, was inside for maybe 20 mins and when I came back the screen was black. So I turned it off, still black, left it for a few minutes and no change, the Sub on the cabinet was making a funny repetitive sound at a VERY low volume but that was the only "output" from the board.

I picked up a few spares previously before I had my cabinet to just get the board up and running with a netboot system, a PC psu with the cables changed to the amp up connectors etc, a spare IO board and USB so I could get it up and running with an old VGA lcd. So I took the board out and set it up but still no change, it powers up, fan running all necessary lights but no output on the monitor. Is there anything I can check or do to bring it back to life??

Any help would of course be appreciated.

[classiccor83]

I think I may have found the issue, a leaking capacitor near the battery. It looks like there is some corrosion of sorts, would anyone know how to remove it and then fix any possible issues?

See the pic for proof!

20160718_144944.jpg

[Sp33dFr34k]

It's a 0.1F supercapacitor, you can replace it by just desoldering from the bottom of the pcb. Check carefully if you can see traces eaten away by the leakage, especially underneath the eprom. It is just there to save settings, but could cause issues due to the leaking... You could remove it without issues, just make sure to clean the board properly.

[skate323k137]

Hope you can save it. I personally remove the supercaps from all my NAOMI boards... most common cause of damage and they're not necessary.

[classiccor83]

Hope I can save it to...ok went through the nerve wracking process of de-soldering it. I get all nervous when someone mentions soldering, managed to get it removed, I can't see what looks like any serious damage but I'll go over the board with some white spirits and a few cotton buds in the areas it might clear it up.

Here are some pics of the immediate surrounding areas:

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20160718_203815.jpg

If anyone has any recommendations or cleaning tips please do let me know.

[Sp33dFr34k]

By the looks of it no real apparant damage, at least not as far as I can see. Might not have been the cause of your issue, but it's still a good thing to have it removed considering the condition of the cap. Is there anything else you can identify when inspecting the PCB?

[skate323k137]

Do you have a spare filter board you can test the PCB with?

Also have you tried booting without a cart/dimm inserted? You should at least be able to get the boot up screen / test mode that way with any luck.

[classiccor83]

I'll give it a clean tomorrow, got side tracked building a pc for someone (if you can call that side tracked).

The closest I have in terms of a filter board is this:

20141130_230841_resized.jpg

From the hopper control board i got with my cabinet, I'm hoping I can use that?
It's just been sitting in my loft doing nothing.

[skate323k137]

I guess to clarify what I was asking, a better way to say it would be;

do you have another working NAOMI or NAOMI2 motherboard you can borrow the filter board from?

Using a different board like that probably isn't going to help. The filter board is the same between Naomi and Naomi2 systems though. I recently had to replace one of mine for audio issues, seemingly inexplicably.

[classiccor83]

Well a little update...
After getting the hopper board out and remembering somewhere that someone said its basically a Naomi 1 board I thought I would try and connect it all up after removing the 2 mounted boards as no searching of the models on them gives me any information (840-0130B - this also has a EPR-24083 eprom on it & 837-14381).

Well connected it up and got the normal Naomi start up screen, went in to settings had a look a round, all the ram tested out ok, so then I then thought lets try this board on the Naomi 2 filter board as it obviously works ok, it worked like a charm. So tried the Naomi 2 board on the Naomi Hopper filter board and nothing. Just for kicks I put the netdimm on the Naomi Hopped and was able to netboot a few games so everything else is working fine, just this damn Naomi 2 board.

I went over it with a light and any contacts or legs that weren't clean I gave them the once over with some cleaning alcohol but alas no change. Is there anyone on the board I could send my Naomi 2 board to have a look at it? I'm somewhat happy that I have a working Naomi 1 setup but want my Initial D 3 back

received_10153601484305458.jpeg

[skate323k137]

At least it sounds like you ruled out the filter board. That is progress.

Normally I'd recommend Ken at iRepairSega, but he's US based and shipping would probably kill you. He's the best in the business though. Maybe hit up andy geezer and see if he can help you out or find someone?

[classiccor83]

Dropped Andy Geezer a pm, fingers crossed.