KMGor
Morden's Lackey
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2003
- Posts
- 359
I've been getting a periodic Color RAM error. What's odd about it is that it doesn't happen everytime.
I'll be playing a game and it'll suddenly reset. The exact error message it gives seems to be random, the numbers and bank (0 or 1) are different everytime. That leads me to believe the error message might be innacurate to possible actual hardware problems. Dunno if that's logical or not, I don't know much about arcade hardware.
The board is an MV-1F.
Also, after a power supply voltage tweak, the frequency of this problem seemed to go up a lot, so I tweaked it again and it seems to get rarer. Also, I have NEVER gotten this error with no cart inserted, going through the grid, color display, etc. This problem also first appeared after trying out some new games, which I didn't think to clean.
The usual pattern of the problem goes: I'll get the error, it'll reset and give the message. Turning it off and on won't fix it, but if I reseat the cart it usually will.
So, what do you guys think? Could it be the cart connection or the somewhat dodgy PSU (I don't trust it, it looks old and sounds a little off)? Or just a true, fairly minor, hardware problem? I should probably clean the carts and connectors anyways, rubbing alcohol and q-tips good for that? I'm gonna check the voltages on the PSU, but my only multimeter is a POS (it literally cost $4). I'm gonna get a somewhat nicer one with a digital display, hopefully for Christmas, then I'll check it out.
Sounds like something the unibios should be able to skip if it is a real hardware problem, so I'll pick up 1.3 when it is released (plus that thing just plain kicks ass anyways)...
Thanks a lot for any help guys!
I'll be playing a game and it'll suddenly reset. The exact error message it gives seems to be random, the numbers and bank (0 or 1) are different everytime. That leads me to believe the error message might be innacurate to possible actual hardware problems. Dunno if that's logical or not, I don't know much about arcade hardware.
The board is an MV-1F.
Also, after a power supply voltage tweak, the frequency of this problem seemed to go up a lot, so I tweaked it again and it seems to get rarer. Also, I have NEVER gotten this error with no cart inserted, going through the grid, color display, etc. This problem also first appeared after trying out some new games, which I didn't think to clean.
The usual pattern of the problem goes: I'll get the error, it'll reset and give the message. Turning it off and on won't fix it, but if I reseat the cart it usually will.
So, what do you guys think? Could it be the cart connection or the somewhat dodgy PSU (I don't trust it, it looks old and sounds a little off)? Or just a true, fairly minor, hardware problem? I should probably clean the carts and connectors anyways, rubbing alcohol and q-tips good for that? I'm gonna check the voltages on the PSU, but my only multimeter is a POS (it literally cost $4). I'm gonna get a somewhat nicer one with a digital display, hopefully for Christmas, then I'll check it out.
Sounds like something the unibios should be able to skip if it is a real hardware problem, so I'll pick up 1.3 when it is released (plus that thing just plain kicks ass anyways)...
Thanks a lot for any help guys!
