MVS 4-25: The Green Monitor of Doom!

Sort of like the Blue Screen of Death?

My recenly-purchased MVS cabinet seems to have one main flaw. Every once in a while, my screen will turn rather greenish. I noticed that if I moved the video cable coming out from the 4-slot to the monitor PCB on the monitor side, the screen would change between normal and greenish.

I swapped the green and blue wires around in the connector to see if my colors were okay, and other than the blue color being in the green box and vice versa (on the testing screen), everything was the same. Its almost like the green was bleeding out onto the entire screen, if that makes sense. Its exactly the same shade as the green box on the testing screen.

The shop who sold it to me (and may work with me for warranty repair) has suggested that most likely the connector on the monitor pcb needs to be resoldered. I wanted to ask you all for a second opinion. What do you guys think? Does this sound at all familiar?

Please let me know! Thanks~

I would think the connector on the monitor pcb is one of the last things it would be..
more likely to be on the jamma connector end..

But if I wiggle it on the side of the MV-4F, I get no change in video. Only when I wiggle it on the monitor pcb side.

solder

Sememmon said:

But if I wiggle it on the side of the MV-4F, I get no change in video. Only when I wiggle it on the montir pcb side.

Click to expand...

In that case resolder those connections...it sounds like you have found the problem, you just need to fix it...

I'm just worried that its not something else on the monitor pcb.. Do soldering joints really wear out or become loose like that over time? I mean, its not like anyone is constantly plugging/unplugging the connector back there..

Keep in mind I know next to nothing about soldering and circuit boards and all that good stuff.

Yes it does happen..the monitor pcb gets hot, joints can crack and need reflowing ie heat with a soldering iron and dab a bit of solder on the joint..this will only take a few minutes..

I hope that's the case. Thanks for the input! Going to take it in to work and get assistance from a friend who is a master-solderer tomorrow so I'll likely report back with the results.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this before I end up trying it?

Sounds like a dry joint on the monitor rgb input. Should be a sraight forward fix

The quest continues...

I'm attempting to _remove_ the montior PCB from my MVS-4-25. The board slides in to a little metal tray of sorts to which it is screwed onto. That tray is then screwed on to a metal platform which is screwed onto a pair of long arms of sorts.

There are a number of cables attached to the monitor PCB: one RGB signal cable running to the neo geo itself (who's connector I need to resolder), one control cable for hue, saturation, etc, one with two red cables that runs up between the right side of the monitor (facing the back) and the cabinet and disappears, and then lastly the evil one that goes to the monitor itself from what looks to be some sort of power supply. This cable has the nice little tag "WARNING High Voltage" on it and is attached to the monitor with some sort of suction cup. The other end looks like it just pops onto the power thinger.

Anyway, I need to remove that PCB, so I need to disconnect everything from it. Needles to say, I'm just a bit scared of that warning tag. I could use some recommendation here .. and having a professional do it for me isn't really an option. I just need to know how to remove that board. I'm willing to take the risks myself just as long as I know how to do it. I don't want to start randomly unplugging things =]

Please advise! If necessary, I can post pics of this. I can't imagine it being _that_ rare a thing around here to do though.

Thanks~

Victory! With the assistance of Gene at Vintage Arcade and a co-worker skilled in soldering, I have succesfully removed the monitor chassis, resoldered the video connector, and reinstalled it. It looks like quite a bit of repair has been done to that board over the years as there are a number of really bad soldering joints on the board. Cold solders, big globs of solder, bridges.. I wish I knew which of the bridges were intentional and which weren't so that I could make sure everything is okay on the board.

Anyway, just figured I'd post an update. Looks like everything is happy now, no more green screen!