Sound just stopped?

Are there any common reasons why sound on an MVS cart would just stop? Granted, this one is a bootleg, which I'm sure has more to do with it than anything else, but is there anything I could try in particular to get sound going again? It was working fine up until yesterday.

The only thing I did to it was swap cases on it. I had another game with a fake case but this boot had an original, so I swapped them (seemed to make sense to keep the boot case with the bood game, right ). Don't really see why that would make a difference, but that's all that's changed since I last played it.

Did it stop for just this cart?

If so then you have a problem on the top board which has the sound and program ROMs on it.

Take it apart and clean it.

If it is hand soldered then resolder the ROMs and check other solder joints on the cart.

If there is no sound for other carts then the cart is fine and you have a bad speaker, wiring harness, or cap in the sound subsection on the board.

RJ

Just that one cart.

Thanks for the info. Will look into it all tonight. Here's a pic of the top board if it helps at all. I have a pic of the back of it, but not on me, it seems. I don't recall seeing any bad joints, so hopefully it'll just need to be cleaned. I've cleaned the contacts already, which helped with previous graphics problems, but not the audio.

Looks like a boot, could be a bad connection on that adapter board.

yeah, there's no doubt it's a boot. I'll look at all the connections tonight. I do recall seeing a possible bad connection on the back somewhere, now that I think about it. Hopefully that's it as I remember it being a simple fix.

Did you try it back in the case it was originally in?


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Some boards don't fit in other cases correctly causing the boards to warp when tightened..
:you'd know this by the boards feeling really tight in the case,no movement in the boards.
:when you tighten the screws down fully in the caee it feels spongy.

:Cart going into the mobo real tight/not sliding in smooth.

You can sometimes see how much the boards are being bent in the case by putting a ruler up to the edge along the boards bottom..

If all else fails you can lay down some liquid rosin flux on those tiny surface mount chip pins and take a hot soldering iron with a small ball of solder to reflow the solder.

If you bridge pins you can put a little more flux on them to get the solder to unbridge with the iron .

Did you try it back in the case it was originally in?

Click to expand...

Not yet, but I did think of that. I do plan to attempt that before anything else. I don't see why it'd make a difference, but if it does, I'll leave it in the other one

Although it is odd because the case it's in now is sort of hard to fit into the slot (which isn't surprising since it's a fake case...I had a thread about it in boot or no boot)...but when it was housing the other game, it fit in the slot fine...weird. Perhaps one or more of the contacts just isn't lining up quite right if that has something to do with it, however unlikely it may be.

If all else fails you can lay down some liquid rosin flux on those tiny surface mount chip pins and take a hot soldering iron with a small ball of solder to reflow the solder.

If you bridge pins you can put a little more flux on them to get the solder to unbridge with the iron.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. Luckily, I have a little flux left from another project I was working on a while back. I'll give that a shot if nothing else works out.

crap, I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier...but when I took the cart apart when I first got it, the bottom board had a LB move sticker stuck over it (see pic). When I swapped cases, I took the sticker off and, for whatever reason, threw it away

I knew why that was there, as dumb as it seemed, yet I still tossed it without thinking.

Anyway...I wonder if the two boards touched and shorted the sound? I don't see any signs of burns or anything else, so I don't think anything like that happened, but it's a possibility, I guess.

...Speaking of which, can anyone tell me if there's a specific kind of material I should put between the boards for future use?

I also tried loading the boards in the system without a case at all. Ironically, any minor graphical glitches that were present before are totally gone, but the audio also remains missing.

Didn't try putting it back in the old case, but I don't think it'll make a difference at this point (not that it probably ever would). Will try tomorrow anyway, though.

The one part that looked like it might could use some fixing was on the underside of the top board, so hopefully that's it.

I got a blues journey boot that will not play sound until 2 full game attraction cycles with neo splash screens, then the sound works. Anyway, that's what works for me on my problamatic cart.

Weird. Would be somewhat nice if that works for me, too. Will give it a shot

Mattroid said:

Weird. Would be somewhat nice if that works for me, too. Will give it a shot

Click to expand...

Hope it works. I just kind of stumbled on that fix as I got tied up doing something after I powered up the cab and then noticed after a few minutes that I had sound on that cart. It's kind of annoying as I generally start playing a game shortly after I power up my cab, but if I want to play Blues then I got to wait a few minutes if I want sound.

It's a no go I left it sitting through the screens at least 4 times with no luck. I then played the game for 10 minutes or so just to see if playing it would do anything. Nope.

Found the move sticker that was on there previously, so I'm putting that back on there and going to try a few of the other tips in this thread to see if anything helps.

topher said:

I got a blues journey boot that will not play sound until 2 full game attraction cycles with neo splash screens, then the sound works. Anyway, that's what works for me on my problamatic cart.

Click to expand...

Try clearing the backup ram memory,that may help..

Well, I tried putting it back in the other case - no luck

Tried resoldering the one spot that looked bad - no luck.

Is there a specific place on that board that I should be looking at for audio? Something where I can at least narrow my troubleshooting down some?

Interesting turn of events...or not...

I got a new Metal Slug 4 kit recently. The sound works when the game starts, but soon goes away. Sometimes it comes back...not always everything, though, sometimes just the sound effect, sometimes just the music. And sometimes the effects are the wrong ones.

I also did a soft reboot at one point on the PB cart and got a Z80 error of some point during the hardware check. I've not been able to recreate this error, though.

Is it possible that it's my motherboard and not the cart(s)? I tried a few other of my carts and none seemed to present any audio problems at all. Although some of the music in KoF94 seemed higher pitched than I remember, but it's been a long time since I've played it, so I could be mistaken.

From experience with New MS4 and 5 kits

I can tell you this much.

That new carts connections have to be cleaned...I think the new carts come with a protective film on the connectors.

Anyway: my new MS4 cart kit gave me so much trouble before I cleaned it..."and" the case wasn't right.
The case was too fat whereas it would not fit into the top of my smaller 4 slot mobo in my candy cab.
Looking at the sides of the cart I could see where the front was spread too much though it was fully tight./but not fully closed..
I had to do some slight shaving in the inside of the case to get it to close properly,that and the cleaning fixed the problems.

Go figure: I get this brand new kit,expect it to work right off the bat and it gives me a bunch of problems.
I almost thought I got screwed and was ready to get intouch with the seller until solved the problem myself.

I think there are a few threads out there stating that there's somethng wron gwith MS4 cart shells.

Thanks a lot for that info, I was starting to wonder. I did think it quite odd about the sound and I had posted about the MS4 case when I got it. I don't have any other cases with that matte finish and different arrow. I wasn't worried that it was fake or anything, but I was curious if the newer carts were different from the old ones...of course, the KoF2003 is like the old ones.

I did clean the contacts when I first got it, but I guess I'll have a go at it again. There wasn't any film on them, though. Any recommendations on the best way to clean them? Most people just say alcohol or pencil eraser or whatever, but I dug up one of those old cleaning kits for cartridge games and have been using that.

As for the case, it did seem that it was a bit wider or something, but fits fine in my MV-1. But I'll keep that in mind for when I get a 4 or 6 slot someday. I'd hate to have the mess up the case like that, but if it must be done, it must be done.