Odd MVS Cart Problem

I've got a Puzzle Bobble MVS cart that will work in my 1-Slot board attached to a HGA Supergun, but it won't work in my 4-Slot Neo Geo arcade cabinet. In the arcade cabinet, it just shows up as a blank screen, and I could swear that it's got different music! I've tried cleaning it, but that didn't do any good.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Check the voltage at the harness on your 4 slot. It may be slightly too low for PB.

leave the harness plugged in. You have to put the leads on the backside of the harness where the wires go in - just push the leads in far enough that they make contact with the metal ends. Put one lead on one of the Ground wires and check the +5V and +12V.

Briggs, I was wondering how far you can up the voltage safely?

Is it worth bringing the +5V up to +6V, or is that just crazy talk?

Just curious, as I'm still getting a z80 error on a brand new Strikers 1945 plus I just recently bought.

Thanks!

Zane, this is also something to at least try and is decidedly low tech. I have found that certan games that I have (not many, mind you) prefer certain slots on my board. For example, my Super Sidekicks 2 likes to be in slot 2 of 4 to get the best results. In one slot, it isn't even recognized and in another it has graphical glitches. Try moving the thing around and see what you get.

Also, and this is a great tip, often, pushing the cart all the way into the slot for some reason makes for less than perfect contact. This usually results in graphical glitches (much less severe than what you are talking about). Most of the time, when I put a cart in the board, I push it all the way down and then pull ever so slightly back up again. Not much, just a little bit so that the cart cards are not maxed into the slot. Seems to help with those pesky graphic glitches. Some games seem to be more sensative to this than others as well.

Hope some of our suggestions help you.

[ February 19, 2002: Message edited by: RyoGeo ]</p>

After re-reading this thread, I wanted to add one more thing. By far and away, Puzzle Bobble is the most tempermental cart I own. I have three of them, and they all require a little playing with to get them to seat right and make good contact. Otherwise you get junk on the screen.

Don't know why, but that's the way it is for me, and I have seen other people post the same thing.

This is interesting, I spent a good chunk of the weekend cleaning all of my Neo Geo carts, as well as the slots on both the 4-slot for the Arcade Cabinet, and the 1-slot for the HGA Supergun. While doing this, I tried to get it working in each slot of the 4-slot while it was empty, it almost worked in slot three.

After reading RyoGeo's suggestions I decided to give it another try, this time pulling the cart out slightly. I pulled out all the carts so I could try in each slot. It almost worked in slot 3 again, BUT THEN, for some strange reason I decided to try and play it. Slowly the screen faded in, first having bad vertical lines, and then it had almost a horizontal snow, then it popped in crystal clear. Managed to play a game like that, and when my wife came in to try it, it went back to the lines <img src="graemlins/annoyed.gif" border="0" alt="[Annoyed]" /> and slowly it went through it's paces back to crystal clear.

I then tried following Briggs' advice on measuring the voltage. I just can not get a reading from the back of the harness! I even tried putting a aligator clip connector on the one lead and sticking a sewing pin in the clip (this trick works great for old computer equipment). Still no luck.

I finally gave up, powered it back up, and after going through the lines/snow/crystal routine I was able to play 3 or 4 games with it crystal clear. While playing the games I realized something else, after I lose, I don't see the numbers counting down, it's just a black screen.

Powered down again, and very carefully put three more carts in the board, ensuring I didn't touch the Puzzle Bobble cart. Powered back on, and the Puzzle Bobble cart wouldn't even display, but the rest would.

I've decided that this cart just doesn't play well with others, and that if we want to play it I'll just have to break out the SuperGun and put up with it's wierdness.

Zane

Zane, have you opened it up to see if it's not a boot? I have seen about 10 of these carts, and they were all boots, With either pure eprom's or Flash chips, I have yet to see an official one.