MV1ACH board working properly after replacing orange Neo-Buf

Joined
Jan 20, 2020
Posts
7
Previously:
http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showt...en-trying-to-play-game-Please-shed-some-light

So today, I finally pulled out the PCB and the chips I ordered and put together this DIY Neo-Buf chip.

cHley9J.jpg


Soldering was kinda iffy since it's my first time actually using hot air to solder a chip like this. Not to mention the soldering to the actual motherboard was also weird due to the PCB design.

FVzTJp7.jpg


After a few rounds of back and forth, I managed to solder every connection correctly and now the machine is playing the 161-in-1 correctly. No sign of previous problem AT ALL.

Just wanted to share the story with some of you who might be scratching your head.:lolz:

UcGkA8R.jpg


6SoEDlB.jpg
 
Last edited:

davidmorom

n00b
Joined
Sep 4, 2020
Posts
16
Hi TheJeffChen. I have a MV1ACHX with bypassed NEO-BUF and a 161-in-1 v4 with the same exact problem as you (constant reboot and ocassional graphical glitches). After reading your post I ordered the NEO-BUF replacement, soldered it, and now the board is working flawlessly.

Soldering the chip is a bit tricky due to the castellated holes, but with a hot air station, flux and solder wick, it is no much trouble.

For anyone having any MV1A variant with bypassed NEO-BUF this is almost mandatory to get a stable system if using multicarts. I think the problem relies on the logic level difference between the cart, working at 3.3v, and the board, working at 5v. Adding buffers at the data bus between the cart and the board, avoids errors due to the CPU missunderstanding 3.3v as logic 0 sometimes, causing the crashes.

Thanks TheJeffChen for posting your results here, it was helpful to me.
 
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