Weird AES Cart Problem

Hiya guys.

I'm having some strange problems with a cart I bought off these forums.

I purchased Magician Lord and King Of The Monsters: 2 a few months ago from a guy in the US, who I won't name.

The deal went very smoothly, postage was fast, and the prices were reasonable. I haven't been able to test the carts until now because I've been moving house, and all my NG stuff was packed away.

Magician Lord plays great, it's KOTM:2 that's a problem.

Firstly, it won't fit in my modded JAP AES nicely - I only have a few carts so far, but they all fit in and slot firmly into place, with a little jiggling about of course!

This is a squeeze to get in, and doesn't slot into place correctly.

When I power the AES on, all I get is a white screen. No sound, just a faint hiss from the speakers.

Any ideas? I'm a n00b - I have no real experience with opening the carts, or anything.

I cleaned the contacts, but they look fine to me.

Thanks,

- Ben.

Any pictures of the cart... could be that the boards are in backwards or something. Had you opened it up at all?

Do you by chance have a unibios installed using the piggyback method?

Heya guys.

No, as stated, I have no idea how to open the carts up, and have not tried.

I have a UniBIOS - I'm unsure how it is installed, though. Could this be the problem, then?

Thanks,

Ben.

Might be a problem. If you look in your cart slot to the right if you see a double stacked chip then you have a piggybacked mod. I noticed sometimes when I had a piggyback mod some games had a hard time playing, I think it might be due to the cart slot flap hitting the unibios chip. I only noticed this mostly with newer games, maybe they were thicker. I remember one time I was trying to play SS2 and I accidentally popped the unibios out of the socket because it was a tight fit.

So what can I do if this is the case?

Any easy fix for it, or do I just have to not play newer AES carts lol?

Ben.

L4byr1nth said:

So what can I do if this is the case?

Any easy fix for it, or do I just have to not play newer AES carts lol?

Ben.

Click to expand...

If that's it, you could just take the old bios completely out and mount a socket in there direct to board.

Ok, I just checked my AES, it doesn't have a stacked BIOS.

What else might this be?

Ben.

You've done mods before dude. So if it is piggybacked just remove the bios and put a socket on the PCB.

Since you dont have a stacked bios it could be warped boards.

What board revision do you have? 3-X?

Forgot to say, if it's a squeeze to get in it's possible the cart was opened and the board divider is upside down.

Xian Xi said:

What board revision do you have? 3-X?

Forgot to say, if it's a squeeze to get in it's possible the cart was opened and the board divider is upside down.

Click to expand...

Yeah that's what i was thinking it would be...

Heya guys - sorry for the thread necro.

Finally got around to taking the cart apart today (been real busy as of late).

Anyone have a picture of the inside of an AES cart with the boards in the correct way, and the divider round the right way?

Pretty sure it wasn't right inside, as there was so much play (much more than any of my other home carts). I've never taken an AES cart apart before, so what's the correct reassembly procedure?

Ben.

hum,
I think your KOTM2 is a MVS cart.

L4byr1nth said:

Heya guys - sorry for the thread necro.

Finally got around to taking the cart apart today (been real busy as of late).

Anyone have a picture of the inside of an AES cart with the boards in the correct way, and the divider round the right way?

Pretty sure it wasn't right inside, as there was so much play (much more than any of my other home carts). I've never taken an AES cart apart before, so what's the correct reassembly procedure?

Ben.

Click to expand...

You have a picture of how things were?

L4byr1nth said:

Heya guys - sorry for the thread necro.

Finally got around to taking the cart apart today (been real busy as of late).

Anyone have a picture of the inside of an AES cart with the boards in the correct way, and the divider round the right way?

Pretty sure it wasn't right inside, as there was so much play (much more than any of my other home carts). I've never taken an AES cart apart before, so what's the correct reassembly procedure?

Ben.

Click to expand...

Label side is flat on the table. For the divider you will notice one slot is closer to the side than the other. The slot that's closer to the edge is the label side.

cartridge case on a table with label facing up

both boards with the chips facing down

PROG board at botton

CHA board on the top

divider longer slot interval back of the case.

attention to the divider sleeves at the case.

It's not even possible to swap the boards or put the divider upside down and be able to close the cart completely. It would clearly look not well closed and bent and impossible to be inserted in the system slot. The only possible mistake is when the boards are upside down (not CHA in place of PROG or vice versa) with the divider correct.

holyver said:

hum,
I think your KOTM2 is a MVS cart.

Click to expand...

So anyway...

Took some pictures of the board and closed the cart back up today.

Interestingly, it was the right way round, and the divider was fine. So I opened up my Fatal Fury Special cart as well, and swapped the boards, using the FFS case to see if the KOTM2 boards would work.

The cart fit in the AES fine. So it must be that the KOTM2 case is somehow warped.

Turned it on, and got the same thing - just a white screen, with some kind of slight crosshatching.

Take a look at these pictures of the boards, and see what you think. I've seen a couple of damaged areas that I think might be the reason for it not working.

Here's the PROG board. Middle-right, can you see what looks like a gouge out of the board?



Here's a close-up;



Not sure how vital that might be.

This is the back of the CHA board. Looks like a lump of solder is missing from the column in the middle, at the bottom;



Here are a couple of close-ups of that;





The only other thing I can think of that it might be is the connectors. Do these looks overly worn/dirty to you?



Any hints/opinions welcome! I really want to play this game.

Ben.

the lump of solder is nothing as there is no component connected to it.

that trace cut looks like it was done on purpose, it may be required for the game to run but I don´t have a kotm2 board to confirm it.

post a pic of the back of the prog board,

try cleaning the boards connectors with pencil rubber

pull the cart a little from the system and see if works.

Already cleaned the connectors with contact cleaner - still nothing.

It's the same screen I get when there's no cart inserted and I turn the power on, so obviously it's just not detecting the cart. Might this be down to the contacts?

I'll try some other methods of cleaning later, and see if I can get at least the start up screen out of it!

Ben.

Contact cleaner will remove oils and gunk, but won't removed oxidation from the connectors...

Clean the cart connectors with a pink pencil eraser. Scrub well.

Thanks for the tips guys - I've finally fixed this now!

Weirdly, although I didn't notice it on the first disassembly (too busy looking at the board), but the board divider itself was warped! Not sure how this happened - it looked like it had been exposed to excessive amounts of heat at some point in its life.

Bent it back into shape with the help of a cigarette lighter, cleaned the contacts one last time, and Robert's your mother's brother.

Ben.