AES board with Faulty Video/Audio

[Stuntman84]

I'm new on this forum so first of all, Hi folks! i'm Stuntman and i'm the kind of guy who recently developed a liking on fixing retro consoles, mostly early to late 90's machines, nothing too complicated, just replacing caps, fixing broken traces..., the usual stuff.
Recently i bought a couple of broken AES consoles, i managed to get one working (it was just a broken trace), but the second one is another story.
Turned on without a game shows a blue screen, but with a game it shows graphical glitches (Horizontal lines across the screen and some vertical lines on some sprites), and normally no audio, with some random audio errors, like hearing the Neo Geo jingle randomly during gameplay.
The board is a NEO-AES3-5 all factory without any modifications, i'm using a 9V DC center negative 1A PSU
I'm hoping someone would help me to find the cause or multiple causes of such issues.

 

[Heinz]

Clean the cartridge and slot with vigor.

Spoiler:

 

[Stuntman84]

that's the very first thing i did, i used contact cleaner, and a credit card with a piece of paper, got the same results

 

[TheMagicianLord]

What did you use for contact cleaner? Something like Deoxit? Sometimes you really gotta scrub.

Also, did you try a different power supply? Could be it has an issue, could be it works fine on another board, but that boards pulls ever so slightly too much. Are you trying with a standard cart or NeoSD/flashcart?

 

[Neo Alec]

Try the diagnostic bios.

 

[maki]

diagnostic BIOS is great, also have a look at the typical causes for graphics problems:

Graphic glitches - NeoGeo Development Wiki

wiki.neogeodev.org

 

[Stuntman84]

I was using my original Art Of Fighting 2 cart, but then i tried my 161 in 1 cart and i found more video and audio glitches, the audio glitches is not something like distorted audio or anything like that, it's more like different music mixed together, and cutting sound effects, i never saw something like that before, about the graphics, looks like this board shows several symptoms, at least according to this page: https://wiki.neogeodev.org/index.php?title=Graphic_glitches
It looks like C ROM and S ROM failing, can anyone tell me where's all that located on the board?, maybe i have a rotten trace, or desoldered component.

 

[Stuntman84]

btw i just desoldered the original Bios, and installed a socket to being able to use the UniBios from my working console, it shows the same issues, i don't have the tools to write the diagnostic BIOS, so i just bought one from Ebay, it arrives in a couple of weeks.
EDIT:
A thing i forgot to mention is the "scan lines", those are NOT the scan lines from my CRT, those are black horizontal lines, which mean there's another issue i have to troubleshoot

 

[Jag-Master]

@Stuntman84 since you have your home system open can you take a couple pics of the screws that hold the shell together (should be 3 screws) and post them for me?

 

[Neo Alec]

I was using my original Art Of Fighting 2 cart, but then i tried my 161 in 1 cart and i found more video and audio glitches, the audio glitches is not something like distorted audio or anything like that, it's more like different music mixed together, and cutting sound effects, i never saw something like that before, about the graphics, looks like this board shows several symptoms, at least according to this page: https://wiki.neogeodev.org/index.php?title=Graphic_glitches
It looks like C ROM and S ROM failing, can anyone tell me where's all that located on the board?, maybe i have a rotten trace, or desoldered component.

C and S roms are in the game, not the console.

 

[Xian Xi]

There's nothing wrong with the S-rom, fix layer is working fine. It's the C-rom data that's the issue for the graphics, if the sound is also messed up then it's a connection issue.

Instead of a credit card, just apply contact cleaner to the game cartridge itself and insert/remove a few times then wipe the cart contacts and repeat.

 

[Stuntman84]

There's nothing wrong with the S-rom, fix layer is working fine. It's the C-rom data that's the issue for the graphics, if the sound is also messed up then it's a connection issue.

Instead of a credit card, just apply contact cleaner to the game cartridge itself and insert/remove a few times then wipe the cart contacts and repeat.

the cartridge works perfectly on my good Neo Geo, same with the multi game cart, the issue must be on the motherboard of my faulty AES

 

[Stuntman84]

Well, now everything just got worse, i was checking the console again, and now i have the infamous "Click Of Death!"

 

[Neo Alec]

Well, now everything just got worse, i was checking the console again, and now i have the infamous "Click Of Death!"

Check the bios first.

 

[Stuntman84]

honestly, i realised this goes beyond my experience, im just a guy with a soldering iron , i can do simple stuff like fixing traces, change capacitors, and basic modding, but troubleshooting more complex stuff, like finding issues with bios, ram, cpu, etc..., is overwhelming, cause i don't know exactly what i'm looking for, or how to look for it, let alone fix it.

 

[Stuntman84]

all right!, after spending hours checking, i realised a few pins of the NEO B1 where loose, i reflowed the chip and no more click of death!
i still have the other issues, but at least the situation it's not worsen

 

[Neo Alec]

honestly, i realised this goes beyond my experience, im just a guy with a soldering iron , i can do simple stuff like fixing traces, change capacitors, and basic modding, but troubleshooting more complex stuff, like finding issues with bios, ram, cpu, etc..., is overwhelming, cause i don't know exactly what i'm looking for, or how to look for it, let alone fix it.

Well, for the bios the complete pinout is online. For the rest, there are at least some AES schematics online to follow. You just need a multimeter to check continuity. Give yourself some credit!

 

[Stuntman84]

My Diagnostics bios has arrived! , i guess i have a faulty Z80 all along, at least according with the test

 

[Stuntman84]

All right, checking the instructions i realised i could make a further test, and apparently now it's a dead ram?
EDIT: i dont have a diag cart by the way

 

[Stuntman84]

having a closer look to the ram near the coil, i realised one of the legs (marked on red) it's loose, a reflow didn't fix it still lose,
any suggestions?
View attachment 8484454.jpg

 

[ack]

That image is saying the backup ram has dead output, but AES's dont have backup ram. Are you buy chance holding down C when booting (which forces backup ram testing on AES)?

 

[Neo Alec]

That image is saying the backup ram has dead output, but AES's dont have backup ram. Are you buy chance holding down C when booting (which forces backup ram testing on AES)?

a
Maybe that test is for the one AES in the world that has a backup ram mod?