Atomiswave nightmare: "Coin Error" ... Now what?

I've had this Atomiswave for way too long and and it is really pissing me off to no end. I'd love to just smash it and toss it out, but I'm afraid that that's no option.

Problem:
All it does is showing me a black screen with a white "Coin Error" text. I already tried to find a solution online, but all I could find was this:
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=52105

Which links to this thread:
http://www.gamoover.net/Forums/index.php?topic=28168.0

Thing is, there are NO buttons connected as of yet, so it can't be a problem with the coin mech or the coin buttons.
I was in the process of consolizing it. Started pretty much allover again last night at 9:30 pm and gave up at 8:00am.
I started with the GND, +5V and +12V connections. Then I soldered the RGB wires. Everything seemed fine, so I decided to wire up Joyport 1 next and I also wanted so go into the settings menu, so I set DIP 2 to "ON". That was at around 6:00am. That was when I first got the "Coin Error". I set DIP to to OFF but the damn thing wouldn't boot anymore, so I unpluggued it and waited a few minutes. Plugged it back in and it at least showed me the Sammy logo screen followed by a cart error message but that was ok since I didn't have a game inserted at the time. Powered it down. Put in a game and powered the sytem on again and was greeted by the Coin Error message ... again.
As I said, I tried to find a solution online and that was when I found the thread on shmups. The guy suggested removing the ZD7. That changed nothing. I read the other thread that he linked to and figured that the coin button has to be connected to one of the other ZD diodes (?). I removed one after the other. Still nothing. I still get that Coin Error.
I didn't even have a Stick plugged in and never tried to press any buttons. There are no solder bridges or damaged traces...

I'm pissed off and frustrated. Any suggestions? I need to get this thing out by last week. I've got more important things to worry about than videogames, atm.
Seriously, the Atomiswave has to be the worst piece of shit hardware that I ever had to work on.

Also, if you're thinking about modding an AW for someone else and the guy askes you to hurry up because he can't wait to play his precious games ... DON'T:



That was the first AW that I was working on, before I had to find a replacement. Out of my own pocket, of course. Did I mention how much I hate the AW hardware?

You sure you removed the correct diodes for both 1P and 2P?

I followed the advice in the thread that I linked to. I figured that the problem wasn't caused by ZD7, so I had another look at it and calculated that it had to be ZD4. I removed that one as well. Put the system back together, but no luck. I took it apart again and removed the other diodes one by one. Always tested the system in between. Nothing. They're all gone now.

I didn't touch anything else on the board. No excessive heat, either. I played it save and soldered to the Jamma edge and used flux to get a clean result. Not sure why the solder points look a bit dull in the picture. I cleaned them with alcohol and they look better in person. Here's a pic:



I managed to safe most of the diodes and have the first broken board that I could get more replacements from but all I really have is a multimeter and my 30 watts soldering iron.

Could it be that the problem is related to DIP switch 2? I may not be able to remove that one.

I'm not sure removing a bunch of diodes at random helped your situation, I would doubt it's related to the DIP switch. You verified this thing worked fine when you received it?

It worked with my supergun and it also worked (video and audio) when I was halfway through the process of consolizing it. At that point I didn't have the joyports wired up yet. I wired up port one and set DIP2 to ON. That's all I did. While soldering the connections for Joyport 1 I didn't touch anything else. The system wasn't in pieces at that time, which means that the board or any of it's components didn't bump into anything, either. I thought that I was almost done and everything seemed fine.

As for removing the diodes:
It was the only advice I could find and I seemed to have worked in his case.

Edit:

Before removing the diodes, I removed all the wires for joyport 1 but that didn't change anything.

I hate those boards with all my heart. They are a problem after problem mine started to give the errors 01 like it has no cart inserted, and then gave me memory ram error 00. I got a door stop.