MV-1B red tint video and funky text.

Finch

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Got this board from DaisyAge simply for testing a method of flattening a MV-1B by just swapping plugs on the main board (SUCCESS, I posted about it in the tech support thread).

DaisyAge was kind enough to give it to me for the price of shipping and did let me know what it was a bit "funky". Seems to work ok but the video is tinted red. Crosshatch and basic setup/color test menu all work and all 3 colors are present and everything is clear, but there is a distinct red tint to the whole screen, and notable in the background. It's never black, always deep red. If you unplug the red line (running straight RGB to a PVM) the background is perfectly black as it should be. I have plugged other NeoGeo boards into this PVM, they all display correctly so it's not the TV.

IMG_7620.JPGIMG_7621.JPG

This was present before I switched plugs to flatten it, and no wiggling of the plugs, or board twisting, or chip poking makes any difference. I inspected the board under a microscope for broken traces or anything, and while I might have missed something, everything suspect seems to actually be ok.

Things done to board are 5v Mod, and battery mod (although the battery is currently uninstalled. Original Bios is still on there.

I mentioned funky text because when I plugged in a 161-in-1 cart to test things there were bits of text missing, like a few pixels from each character. Although I did not do extensive cleaning, wiggling or anything to see if that went away, or tested with a official cart, so that might not be a real issue, but thought it needed mentioning.
 

DaisyAge

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You might want to swap out the resistor DAC as that was what I was planning on doing in the future. For me, the entire background was red (using JROK component encoder) and I could never find the source. You might be able to add a 500 ohm pot to the red lines and adjust that way, otherwise you need a way to boost the other lines a tad. I never noticed missing pixels in text though, perhaps an issue from flattening the board?
EDIT: Maybe swapping the U5 U6 U7 and maybe even RAM7 (LH5116D-10 I believe) chips will help, they're the palette and inverse controllers. Also worth a shot to get to the color bars and measure the voltages on the JAMMA edge to see if one or more are out of spec
 
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Finch

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You might want to swap out the resistor DAC as that was what I was planning on doing in the future.

I am actually quite an electronics noob and more of an engineering/design person, so I have no idea what this is. Those long strip resistor array/ladders by the Jamma edge? Looks like I can source new chips for U5, U6, U7 and RAM7 if I wanted to, but I'm going to check the levels and add the pot first and see if it seems ok after that. U7 does have a bit of the corner chipped off, but it doesn't look like enough to expose or damage anything.

I'll test it with a legit cart tomorrow if I remember. I have the board at work where we have some top notch soldering/electronics stuff in the workshop, but I keep forgetting to bring a cart with me to test on. I don't really deem a 161-in-1 to be a good test cart, especially since I'm running the board on USB power right now.
 

DaisyAge

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Yes the resistor ladder is the DAC. Big Bear sent me the correct values before and I can dig up that list later when I'm home.
 

Finch

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Well I did test the levels on the RGB lines on the color test screen, green and blue were ~1mv, red was 3.....I think I see the problem. Will probably test with a pot on the line and see if everything looks ok simply turning the red level down, then if that seems ok try to track down which resistor has crapped out. I tested some of the SMB resistors that are on the red line and there seem to be some inconsistencies, but I also can't read what's written on them so I can't tell if they are all the same. going to have to get it back under the microscope again.

EDIT: ok none of the resistors I checked seemed different from what was written on them, just hard to read them without the microscope, so it wasn't any of those. Going to try adding a pot later and test with a real game.
 
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DaisyAge

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From BB: R61- 225 OHMS
R60- 459 OHMS
R59- 1.016 KILO OHMS
R58- 2.16 KILO OHMS
R65- 2.12 KILO OHMS
R66- 1.003 KILO OHMS
R67- 456 OHMS
R68- 227 OHMS
R75- 228 OHMS
R74- 456 OHMS
R73- 1.019 KILO OHMS
R72- 2.14 KILO OHMS
I figured as much with the red line, I even ordered the resistors but then the flattening happened lol
 

Finch

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Thanks. I'll check those and see what I can find.

EDIT: Checked them all, and damn near every other SMD resistor on the board and nothing was unexpected, so they are all find as far as I can see. Might try replacing some of the ICs you mentioned.

I did test with puzzle bobble and the gfx was all messed up. I think that might be a bad solder joing somewhere when I flattened it. So time to bust out the meter and check all 200 of those :(. No amount of wiggling would make a difference.
 
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DaisyAge

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I'd clean the cart slot with some Deoxit D5 and the Puzzle Bobble contacts too. Strange that PB gave you screwy GFX when the 161 only had a few bits wrong. Maybe an issue with the cart? The thing with those resistors is that Xian Xi has told me a hundred times that I have to take them out of circuit to test them properly but I never did. I do have all the resistors needed to replace the RGB lines of DAC if you want them.
 

Finch

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I can't find my deoxit at the moment, but I'm gonna give the whole thing a major cleaning as soon as I do.

I did realize today, after thing that the only GFX problems were the overbrigh red, that it's actually missing every other vertical line. This isn't just with a game, this is all the time. You can actually see in the pics above how it almost looks like there are vertical scanlines. I didn't really think anything of this at first since I haven't used a NeoGeo board on my PVM in a long time, and the PVM is very sharp, but I plugged in a working MV-1Fz today and it doesn't have those vertical bars. So yeah, guess there is that too, and that's with or without a game inserted. The messed up gfx in PB aren't a huge concern right now, I'm sure it's just a broken trace or bad solder joint when I flattened it, or just dirty.

If the resistors you mean are the ones from the list from BB, I'm set on SMD resistors, we have rolls of every possible value in my office. If you mean the black resistor arrays on the top of the board, I would gladly take those, saves trying to find where to get them. I might look into ordering some of those ICs you mentioned too and replace those. One of those might be the culprit in the vertical scanlines stuff going on.
 

DaisyAge

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Oh I have the SMD resistors but not the arrays. I think getting a hold of Xian Xi or turfmasta would be your best bet for figuring out those vertical lines but I will say that I never had those when hooked up to my LCD TV.
 

DaisyAge

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Found this on an otaku repair log: "Symptom: Vertical bars through graphics

This 2 slot had some bad battery damage and vertical bars through the Neo Geo logo and certain sprites.

Checked the ROM Data Lines on the cart slot pins A19/B19 through A26/B26 with the logic probe. Cart was working fine. Followed the traces to the NEO-257 IC at J2 with the logic probe. Traces were good. Followed the outputs of the NEO-257 IC to the NEO-ZMC2 IC. Two of the data lines (D0 and D1) were missing from the NEO-257.

Replaced the surface mount NEO-257 IC at J2 with one pulled from a parts board to fix.

Cleaned the board & replaced the battery as well." Worth a check
 

Xian Xi

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Does an MV1B boot without the riserboard aka top half?
 

Finch

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Does an MV1B boot without the riserboard aka top half?

Nope, goes through some scattered small colored squares, then a dark blue screen, then a light blue screen, then goes black.

I've been all over this board checking for lifted pins, or shorted stuff from stray solder from removing the connectors and stuff. Still has funky graphics. The red levels, while I don't know which official component is causing the problem, seem fixable by simply adding a resistor to the red line. The garbled graphics, and the missing every other vertical line seem an entirely different issue. Crosshatch looks fine, and Bios text looks fine, but the color boxes and SNK logo on the color test screen are like this, so is the NeoGeo logo on boot, and most graphics in Puzzle Bobble.

Attached some example pics below. Ignore the bit of horizontal wavyness in the PB pics, my sing line plug is acting up and it was having some issues here, it's not normally like that.

IMG_7758.JPGIMG_7753.JPGIMG_7757.JPGIMG_7756.JPGIMG_7755.JPGIMG_7754.JPG
 

DaisyAge

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Might be time to grab a Uni or Diag BIOS and see what it brings. Otherwise I'm pretty convinced that it's something that went awry when you made the board flat. I used a JROK component encoder but I never had the vertical line issues which I would think would translate through the encoder as well.
 

Xian Xi

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Did you already confirm all the connections on the board inter-connects?
 

Finch

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Did you already confirm all the connections on the board inter-connects?

Yeah, I verified every single pin between the two connectors is connected. I have not traced every single pin on the connectors I replaced back to their origin. Mostly, because some of them are hidden under the plugs and I honestly have no idea where they go or which pin they even connect to, but there was no damage to the board or any traces when I removed them, so it was assumed that as long as every pin was soldered back in well (with a heatgun again, to make sure it flows all the way through the hole properly) that everything should be ok. While it's possible some of the PB graphical glitches are from the flattening, there is still the matter of the missing vertical lines even with no game inserted. I guess it's possible that could also be caused by the flattening process, as there are some actual ICs on the B board unlike the 1Fz. I'm at least hoping to narrow down what might be causing this, and see if the flattening process is faulty, or if something else decided to fail during the process.
 

mgj

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Hei Finch, sorry for the OT. Here's Matteo from Italy. I know it's been a while but I recently see the pics of your Neo Geo custom made controls and I found them the best looking CP ever. I found a post where you wrote a OneDrive link to download the PS files of them but unfortunately it's not available anymore. Can you please give me an opportunity to download those piece of art again? .ai/vector would be the best. Alternatively, PS should be good too. Thanks a lot in advance!
 
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