Question about resetting/Unibios Exceptions on an MV1-FZ

[Fayk]

So I've got an MVS board (MV1-FZ) that I've brought to a friends' house and hooked up to his cab. After playing for a bit, Unibios (3.1) will catch a random exception, necessitating a reboot. I believe without unibios these would be either a reset or a freeze. My question is... is this kind of behavior ever likely to be caused by borderline/too low voltage? Because I've never seen it do this (but it's gotten less playtime) on a supergun I have. On the cab (resetting) setup, it sometimes it goes for 15 minutes without one happening, sometimes a few happen within a few seconds.

It actually has a second which I think is wholly unrelated but doesn't make diagnosing it any easier -- there's something just a little borderline with the edge connector in some way...and this is despite having cleaned the contacts up. I've mentioned this before in another thread. I don't think there's anything to be done for this (the system seems to be in a constant resetting state on power on after attaching the jamma harness, but enough turn-off-fiddle-try-again and it works. Or if I apply (light) pressure at an angle on the connector, it seems to work fine.

 

[Xian Xi]

It could be the power supply or just a connection problem or even failing ram. Next time the error pops up write it down.

 

[Fayk]

It could be the power supply or just a connection problem or even failing ram. Next time the error pops up write it down.

I happened to snap a picture of it.

http://i.imgur.com/otRef.jpg

The reasons I was thinking something like voltage is that I've not been able to get it to happen on that other (supergun) setup, but hey, who knows. Maybe it was just luck.

 

[Qwerty 9999]

I always get a similar message (if not the same, sorry, haven't take a pic) if the cart isn't inserted properly.

 

[Fayk]

I always get a similar message (if not the same, sorry, haven't take a pic) if the cart isn't inserted properly.

Yeah, unfortunately I was seeing this consistently across multiple carts on this system, replugging them, et cetera. I'd just play for a few minutes, them bam.

 

[billbrasky]

Yeah, unfortunately I was seeing this consistently across multiple carts on this system, replugging them, et cetera. I'd just play for a few minutes, them bam.

i get an error like this just about on every cart and i can't set the bios settings anymore, it's fixed to no region and arcade. pressing A+B+C at boot no longer allows me to set the region but if i press A+B+C+D i can access the memory card menu-- very annoying going to go back to regular bios.

 

[Xian Xi]

i get an error like this just about on every cart and i can't set the bios settings anymore, it's fixed to no region and arcade. pressing A+B+C at boot no longer allows me to set the region but if i press A+B+C+D i can access the memory card menu-- very annoying going to go back to regular bios.

Something on your board maybe failing. I'd recommend getting the Diagnostic bios to fully test the hardware.

 

[Fayk]

Something on your board maybe failing. I'd recommend getting the Diagnostic bios to fully test the hardware.

This is kind of a random guess, but it may also be that his settings/backup memory have gotten into a weird state too, so failing anything in the Diag bios, if he removes the battery or otherwise wipes backup RAM, maybe it'll work.

 

[Xian Xi]

Your backup is in the best state when it has a unibios since the header will be written correctly. On a system with a stock bios, when the ram gets corrupted sometimes the header gets corrupted and gives a false calendar error and the easiest way to fix that is by installing a unibios to rewrite the header in the backup ram.

Most errors that you see with the unibios will relate to the program side of the game. Either the board isn't reading the program roms correctly due to corrosion, bad connection or broken trace and sometimes low voltage. If the graphics are failing you will see the problem on screen and if the music/sound is the problem you will hear it, this is why the program errors need a visual representation of them.

You can also run a hardware test with the Unibios, at the splash screen just press A+B+C and go to general bios settings and make sure the hardware test is on. It doesn't do a full multi cycle test I believe which is why I recommend the d-bios for testing.