Andro Dunos AES Cart Graphics Issues

So I've had this cart for over 10 years now and I feel I should probably get to the bottom of what's exactly wrong with it and how it could be fixed, I never got round to it before because at the time I just bought another copy to play and sort of forgot about this one.

If I remember rightly it was bought as NOS or something and when I got it I found it had these issues, at the time I tried cleaning the contacts to see if that would help but it didn't, I've done the same this week with rubbing alcohol but still had no joy (and the contacts look pretty good to me)

I figured I'd post here to check if any of you tech guys might know from the photos and video provided below the possible causes of the problem and what lines I should take to hopefully get it sorted out.

Video showing the issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dCxKR7wH28&t=

Photo links:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v510/OllyC/Andro Dunos Errors/Untitled.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v510/OllyC/Andro Dunos Errors/Untitled2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v510/OllyC/Andro Dunos Errors/Untitled3.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v510/OllyC/Andro Dunos Errors/Untitled4.jpg

The game passes the CRC check and plays all music fine via the Jukebox and in game.

Also as mentioned I have another copy of the game which works fine so if you see photos in that album that look fine then that'll be my working copy for comparison.

Any ideas on the problem just looking at those?

Id start with some contact cleaner like deoxit first just to rule things out before having to fix or reburn roms.

S1 CHIP IS FAILING
BB

BIG BEAR said:

S1 CHIP IS FAILING
BB

Click to expand...

Okay, thanks for the info BB, anything I can do about that?

Is it something than can be swapped over from any other cheap board or would it require some sort of fresh chip with Andros Dunos specific S1 chip data to be burnt onto it?

Cheers Olly

The later... Get somebody to burn you a m27c1000 chip with Ando Dunos s1 data on it unless you can find a cheap copy of the MVS version and swap the chip out of that.
BB

TrueTrials said:

Okay, thanks for the info BB, anything I can do about that?

Is it something than can be swapped over from any other cheap board or would it require some sort of fresh chip with Andros Dunos specific S1 chip data to be burnt onto it?

Cheers Olly

Click to expand...

As both fix and sprite graphics are affected, I'd suggest there's a connectivity issue with the NEO-273 in the cart.
Check that all the orange pins are connected to the cart edge:



Reflowing them can help, as pressing down on the pins with a multimeter probe can make you think the solder joint is good. If reflowing doesn't change anything, NEO-273 might have dead inputs.

@furrtek - Thanks for the input, any possible help with solutions to the carts issues are greatly appreciated.

Similar question again, if in the worst case scenario the NEO-273 has dead inputs is that something that can be replaced from any other AES/MVS carts or elsewhere without a donor cart?

Thanks!

Yes you could replace the NEO-273 with one from a working cart, they're all the same.

If you can't get a donor cart, depending on how many inputs are dead, you could wire standard 74HC logic chips to fix the affected lines. Would require quite some work though.
Let me know if you need help regarding that.