I am new user that just bought a broken AES from Japan on Ebay because I love collecting and repairing game consoles. I purchased it with the belief it wouldn't power on but it instead gives me a red screen without a game installed. I'm using a Genesis model 1 transformer to power the unit as it did not come with a power adapter. My initial research leads me to believe this is a work ram error so I ordered 4 CXK58257AM-10L chips in place of CXK58257AM-12L. I think the 10L just stands for the speed in nanoseconds and faster is fine. The chips I could licare with 12L would take a month to get here from China and I'm impatient. The motherboard looks to be in way better condition than I expected for being so old. I have been testing continuity the best I can for the 2 CXK58257AM-12L near the edge of the board on the same side as the AV power ports because I believe these are the work ram chips. Some of the traces can be tested between the 2 memory chips and the rest seem to go to LSPC2. Other than waiting for the new memory chips to come in the mail is there anything else I can try. Am I testing the correct CXK58257AM-12L chips? There seems to be 2 more on the board which is why I ordered 4. I can provide pictures if it would help.
Neo Geo AES 3-6 red screen without game installed.
- Thread starter aapuzzo
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- Nov 29, 2005
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- 4,275
Work RAM has the address lines and data lines connected to the CPU. Video RAM has them connected to the LSPC chip.
Where can I find a diagram with the chip locations?I found the issue and have a blue screen now. I don't have a game to fully test because I didn't want to buy one until I knew I had a working console. There was actually a non visible hairline crack in the board which you can see inside the red circle. Weird spot for a crack and was probably due to a poor design if I had to guess. There wasn't any copper showing though. I exposed it by barely scratching with my fingernail. This caused one of the working traces to stop working and I located the original problem one right next to it. The pins on the "working ram" chips that were broken were actually the only pins that seem to go to a totally different spot on the board. They were the hidden vias under the memory chips labeled WE/U17 that a found in an image by Maki on this forum. I attached the image below. Now I am debating on the correct way to fully resolve this issue as technically all the traces in that area will probably break in time when inserting a cartridge. Do you think I should jump all the traces out in the area to existing solder points or should I try and expose the copper in the area and lay a fine strand of wire over each trace and solder it in? The blue jumper wires are 30 gauge for a size comparison to the traces.
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- Dec 7, 2000
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Yeah, a blue screen is great progress, but you never know if things are 100% until you test with a game. You'd better confirm what you're dealing with before proceeding.
How many traces are we talking? I personally don't mind jumping them all as long as the wiring doesn't obstruct anything, but do what you're comfortable with.
How many traces are we talking? I personally don't mind jumping them all as long as the wiring doesn't obstruct anything, but do what you're comfortable with.
I jumped all 10 out the other night and now waiting for a cartridge to come in the mail. Tried locating one locally but no luck. I think the break was caused because the bottom shell has a flat standoff that pushes pressure in that spot. The shell definitely isn't as ridged as the main stream consoles were. The other 8 traces were much easier to jump because they all had continuity over the crack. I didn't have to hunt around. That type of break wouldn't cause a short across the traces especially since I cleaned the area with a razor.