MVS Cart Repair - General Questions

Dropwire

Kuroko's Training Dummy
Joined
Jul 27, 2018
Posts
75
Hey folks, let me start off by saying don't beat me up too bad. It has probably been asked before, but are there any documents floating around on MVS Cart repair? Other than clean the contacts and check the traces?

I've seen the some of the write ups on Jamma Nation and Neo-Geo Dev Wiki on the various board functions and chipset. Was hoping to see if anyone had some practical experience with a repair. I am also assuming that the repair process would vary based on game, original or bootleg (pirate), and encrypted board or not.

I have a few mixed carts some original and some not that have various issues and wanted to start learning to repair them.

Thanks in advance all, just looking to expand my skill set . :scratch::loco:
 

ShootTheCore

Bead Banger
Joined
Feb 11, 2015
Posts
1,498
Cleaning contacts and checking traces for continuity covers most of the easy cart repairs. If you still have a malfunctioning cart after ruling those out then you likely have either a failed ROM chip or a failed memory controller chip.

You can troubleshoot the ROMs by desoldering them from the PCB, dumping them with an EPROM programmer and checking the dumped ROM checksums against MAME. Matching your symptoms up to the appropriate memory bus and the ROM chips that supply that bus will narrow down your ROM chip testing (ie C ROM = sprites, S ROM = fix layer, V ROM = audio samples, etc)
 
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Dropwire

Kuroko's Training Dummy
Joined
Jul 27, 2018
Posts
75
Cleaning contacts and checking traces for continuity covers most of the easy cart repairs. If you still have a malfunctioning cart after ruling those out then you likely have either a failed ROM chip or a failed memory controller chip.

You can troubleshoot the ROMs by desoldering them from the PCB, dumping them with an EPROM programmer and checking the dumped ROM checksums against MAME. Matching your symptoms up to the appropriate memory bus and the ROM chips that supply that bus will narrow down your ROM chip testing (ie C ROM = sprites, S ROM = fix layer, V ROM = audio samples, etc)

Thanks for the info, appreciate it.
 
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