Blazing Star sprite graphics glitch

Ghandi

4" Chinaman Slave, ,
Joined
Jun 6, 2013
Posts
33
I'm getting some weird vertical lines on Blazing Star. None of my other games seem to have this problem. It's only on my ship and bosses. Any ideas? I've cleaned the cart pretty well. The game is entirely playable with the glitch, but I'm just curious to see if anyone else has experienced this or if it's an easy fix.

Photo:
IMG_20140828_132650_761.jpg

Thanks for the help!
 

ballzdeepx

Rugal's Secretary
20 Year Member
Joined
Sep 20, 2004
Posts
3,073
Start off by cleaning the contacts with an art eraser, or if you have it deoxit. From there you'll need to look at the boards most likely and inspect for some bad solder joints that might need to be heated up again.
 

Pedrobear

Cheng's Errand Boy
Joined
Mar 1, 2012
Posts
113
Is it MVS or home?

It's not a bad contact on edge connector, this would give the issue on all graphics.
Looks like a bad data line on a select rom.
 

Ghandi

4" Chinaman Slave, ,
Joined
Jun 6, 2013
Posts
33
It is MVS. The contacts are really clean, I'm gunna pop it open and see if any joints look bad.
 

Ghandi

4" Chinaman Slave, ,
Joined
Jun 6, 2013
Posts
33
14 - 1.jpg14 - 2.jpg14 - 3.jpg14 - 4.jpg14 - 5.jpg14 - 6.jpg14 - 7.jpg14 - 8.jpg14 - 9.jpg

Most of the solder looks fine, just one spot where 2 joints are connected that I'm pretty sure shouldn't be, one trace that looks funky and a bit of flux on 4 joints. I'll go over these points tomorrow and test it.
 

Pedrobear

Cheng's Errand Boy
Joined
Mar 1, 2012
Posts
113
Check data pins on C1-8 chips.
Your game has been board swapped tho, if that's a previous attempt to repair by someone else it's probably a faulty rom chip.
 

hezkezl

n00b
Joined
Aug 15, 2014
Posts
19
It looks like an address line on a ROM is floating, or shorted to VCC.

I can't tell due the the bloom in your picture whether the red lines appear under the sprite, or are added into the sprite. (Depending on how this behaves could point to whether it's a data issue (Bad rom data, bad rom, bad connection from rom, bad trace), or an issue with the MUXing of the data (the logic that handles displaying transparencies in sprites.) If you only see problems with this one game, then it's most likely a data issue.

The fact that the line repeats every 8 pixels (from what it looks like), makes me think that the pins that sends data representing the high bit of the red channel is stuck high.

If you have a multimeter, check for continuity between the top of each pin of every graphics rom (C1-C8), and where it is soldered into the board. If everything has continuity, then check from where each pin is soldered into the board, to where each trace ends up (or the spot where it routes to the other side of the board).
 

Xian Xi

JammaNationX,
15 Year Member
Joined
Dec 1, 2005
Posts
27,750
Did you buy this from that coinop guy on ebay? Swap it with another one.
 

Tyranix95

Chang's Grocer
Joined
Jun 30, 2010
Posts
4,593
Messy board work. :shame:

CRC the board with a UNI-Bios.

Then double check the C Roms (gfx roms) on the CHA board. Look for bad traces and cold solder joints.

If you know a buddy with a BS cart, you can swap boards around to help narrow the fault down.
 
Top