1st rev neo aes will not read prg games

max 330 mega

The Almighty Bunghole
15 Year Member
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Dec 14, 2004
Posts
4,300
As stated, big bear and i have been trying to figure out what has gone wrong with my AES, as it now refuses to read my copy of SVC chaos.
Things that have been done:
-Tested all of my other lower meg games, they all work.
-Sent SVC chaos to big bear to test, game works just fine in his consoles.
-Installed stock US bios- after splash screen ends, system just sits with a blank black screen. No color code, no watch dog clicks.
- resoldered every single through hole component solder point on the board, as bad solder joints have caused this console to watch dog on 2 previous occasions in the past year.
- powered system on repeatedly with the top shell removed applying pressures to all the different chips to see if that would ever allow the game to boot.

Things i have not done:
-Reflowed the solder on the 4 surface mount IC chips (have inspected them up close and the solder points all still look solid)
- purchased and learned to use a logic probe?

If anyone has any idea why the system would work with all games that do not use a prg board, why the system isnt showing an error color or watchdog, or anything else i need to try, please reach out to me. Im rather stumped.
Big bear thinks it could be the work ram, but is still thrown by the fact it doesnt show an error color after the splash screen.

Thanks, and sorry for the long post.
 

Atro

Who?,
20 Year Member
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Jan 30, 2002
Posts
9,209
Had a similar issue with a Fatal Fury 3 cart. Worked fine with any other game.

It turned out to be a broken connection between RAM and BIOS. Wasnt easy to find out.
 

max 330 mega

The Almighty Bunghole
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Im thinking my next step will be continuity checking each leg of the ram chips all the way back to the cart slot to see if i find any broken traces.
 

Xian Xi

JammaNationX,
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Check your 5v level with the game trying to boot, could be PSU related. Anything low like 4.7v won't boot.
 

max 330 mega

The Almighty Bunghole
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I actually forgot to mention i bought a brand new PSU in hopes of that being the issue, but it wasnt :(
Gonna start continuity checking tomorrow night, and just hope i can track down the broken trace before i lose my mind. Haha
 

Xian Xi

JammaNationX,
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Measure your voltage. People don’t realize that the power is internally limited to 3A, it doesn’t matter what PSU you plug in. You need to measure to make sure it’s still getting proper voltage.
 

max 330 mega

The Almighty Bunghole
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Measure your voltage. People don’t realize that the power is internally limited to 3A, it doesn’t matter what PSU you plug in. You need to measure to make sure it’s still getting proper voltage.
I measured and had 5.22 v off the backside of the plug where the uhh.... Wires wrap around the magnet.
 

Xian Xi

JammaNationX,
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That’s pointless since it’s the entry point. You need to check at the controller port when a cart is inserted.
 

max 330 mega

The Almighty Bunghole
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5.08v at the controller port with svc chaos inserted.
Also continuity checked the 2 ram chips and im pretty sure theyre just fine all the way to the cart slot, but here were my results anyway.

43256 located at 6P:
1- CN5 17b
2- 15b
3- 10b
4- 9b
5- 8b
6- 7b
7- 6b
8- 5b
9- 4b
10- 3b
11- 3a
12- 4a
13- 5a
14- ground
15- 6a
16- 7a
17- 8a
18- 9a
19- 10a
20- seems to single beep on every cart pin?
21- 13b
22- none but vcc cart pins
23- 14b
24- 12b
25- 11b
26- 16b
27- none but vcc cart pins
28- ground

43256 located at 6R:
1-CN5 17b
2- 15b
3- 10b
4- 9b
5- 8b
6- 7b
7- 6b
8- 5b
9- 4b
10- 3b
11- 11a
12- 12a
13- 13a
14- ground
15- 14a
16- 15a
17- 16a
18- 17a
19- 18a
20- seems to single beep on every cart pin?
21- 13b
22- none but vcc cart pins
23- 14b
24- 12b
25- 11b
26- 16b
27- none but vcc cart pins
28- ground
 

Xian Xi

JammaNationX,
15 Year Member
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And it only does this with this game? How about another game with a similar size?
 

max 330 mega

The Almighty Bunghole
15 Year Member
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Posts
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Yes, its only with this game in my small collection. Ive had svc since 2016 and it worked in this console up until sometime in the last 6 months.
I dont have any other aes games that use the prg board in them. I can throw kof 98, last blade, world heroes 2 jet, a small title like mutation nation, and even the 161 in 1 works fine.

Also, went ahead and checked from bios to cart slot and those checks came back good also. This is confusing as hell!
 
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