AES + MagicKey + 161-in-1, no sound at all

[sTo0z]

Well my fine gents, super noob time here as I am brand new to Neo Geo and jumped right in and still trying to swim.

I recently purchased a US AES system, the MVS Magic Key, and a 161-in-1 cart.

I know that setup is not officially supported to work, but before ordering I did see others talking about getting it working, so I figured I'd just go for it.

For the most part it works well, I have to hold down the bypass button thing on the MagicKey both when starting the system and when selecting a game, then the games seem to run just fine (tested 10 or so).

But as my title states, I never get any sound of any kind. It's not garbled or buggy or distorted, just really nothing at all.

I'm not 100% sure what is helpful info about my setup to share, so I'll just try my best based on what I see other folks mention:

* System is AES and is a US unit, serial # on bottom says "000146"
* I have not modified the system in any way, nor do I believe it was modified, stock BIOS, etc.
* Cleaned all the connection points as best I could, no difference in behavior.
* Power supply I have says PRO-POW-UL NEO-O, DC5V 3A
* I do have one original AES cartridge and the video/sound play just fine.

Is there any hope?

 

[Phexe]

1.) MVS Magic Key's are dubious quality (soldering) at best
2.) 161-in-1's are pretty bad also.

You could open the Magic Key and check the soldering, or do the 161-in-1 fix here: http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showt...ticarts-120-in-1-138-in-1-161-in-1-and-others

(Not intending this as dig at you as I had planned to do what you did also, but just started buying homecarts as reports of those two products were not too good, also seems some homecarts are actually getting cheaper than their MVS counterparts. Much to the chargrin of my wallet)

 

[sTo0z]

1.) MVS Magic Key's are dubious quality (soldering) at best
2.) 161-in-1's are pretty bad also.

You could open the Magic Key and check the soldering, or do the 161-in-1 fix here: http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showt...ticarts-120-in-1-138-in-1-161-in-1-and-others

(Not intending this as dig at you as I had planned to do what you did also, but just started buying homecarts as reports of those two products were not too good, also seems some homecarts are actually getting cheaper than their MVS counterparts. Much to the chargrin of my wallet)

Thanks for the reply. Yah I had read that it was a risk with the quality of these things, heh.

As far as opening the Magic Key, I am certainly no master at troubleshooting such devices, or really know fully what I'm looking at.

I don't see anything inside that really jumps out at me as awful as far as the soldering goes. Anything spot in particular I should really be paying extra attention to?

I think this one is part of some "new batch" according to ic2005 where I got it from. Inside the board says "NEO-UNV-02D" and also "NeoFlash 2016"

Guess I can pop open the 161-in-1 next, but same story goes there, not really sure what exactly I'm looking for other than obvious horribleness. Anything in particular I should be paying attention to?

Thank you!

 

[GadgetUK]

Could be bad connection, faulty 161 in 1, faulty convertor, or power related. I do know that the 161 in 1s M bus CPLD is powered by the 5v line, dropped to 4.3v by a diode (not sure why as it's a 5v part I think), so a low 5v level could stop that CPLD working. Eg. If your 5v drops to 4.7v, CPLD would drop to 4v. What rev AES are you using? I was told that never revisions can struggle with the power issue and convertors.

Looking at you serial no and PSU info, sounds like rev 1 AES, so power should be OK. I wonder if your PSU needs recapping? Have you tried AES carts to make sure sound works?


Test headphone socket as well, just to rule out your TV cable.

 

[sTo0z]

Hey! Yah I have one legit AES cart and the sound does work very well.

Just popped open the 161-in-1, didn't really notice anything way out of line in there either. The white ribbon was in great shape and out of the way nicely. No other major thing stood out to me, but in full honestly not really sure what to look for if there's like some tiny bit of the board I should be looking at.

I'll go test the headphone socket!

 

[Phexe]

Thanks for the reply. Yah I had read that it was a risk with the quality of these things, heh.

As far as opening the Magic Key, I am certainly no master at troubleshooting such devices, or really know fully what I'm looking at.

I don't see anything inside that really jumps out at me as awful as far as the soldering goes. Anything spot in particular I should really be paying extra attention to?

If by chance you can open the Magic Key could you post pictures of the insides? Seems the soldering is done by hand rather than machine done(And rather poorly).

Hopefully you get it sorted!

 

[sTo0z]

If by chance you can open the Magic Key could you post pictures of the insides? Seems the soldering is done by hand rather than machine done(And rather poorly).

Hopefully you get it sorted!

Yah of course, should I take a picture of each side of each board, or just 1 particular section?

 

[Phexe]

Each side if its not too much trouble, cheers mate!

 

[aha2940]

I have an AES with magic key converter (blue one) and the banana 161. It works fine, with usual bugs in the cart (Garou beta, AF3 not working, and audio issues). Is your converter blue or green? You can try getting an original MVS cart and test the converter with t, so you can know if the problem is the converter or the 161 cart.

Regards.