Blue's Journey - no sound

[Asure]

Wondering what can cause this..

1. Looking at the boards, it seems the M1 rom is wired directly to the cart edge with no logic in between, am i right?

2. Am i correct in thinking, a dead mask rom will cause the z80 not to do much.. So it would not play samples, or music or anything?

3. Any issues with the V mask roms, stuck lines etc. should not cause stuff like this, just bad samples when played right?

I guess i will drop in a 27C1001 soon with new M1 program to see what happens

 

[Xian Xi]

If it's wired directly to the cart edge it suggests that some traces/pads may be broken.

 

[Asure]

I might have written it a bit unclear, there is no wires on the board.

From the board we can see the M1 is just routed to the edge, no logic in between.
I need to grab the cart from my basement and check the bottom to be sure, but it seems to go directly to the edge connector, nothing else in between.

Just need to find a moment to desolder/cut out the old rom to check/replace. Too much projects going on right now

 

[smkdan]

1. The older non-banked games go straight to cart edge. The other stuff is only for addressing the graphics ROMs.

2. Yes. Bad M1 usually means Z80 crashes so there's nothing to make the 2610 play sound.

3. As long as Z80 and M1 are good, you should atleast hear the FM and square wave channels clearly since those are generated by the 2610 without the V ROMs. Stuff like most NeoGeo jingles, insert coin sounds, sound test etc. should work fine. Issues with V ROM or NEO-PCM mean you hear static garbage instead of proper sound samples for the PCM channels. The older boards with the split V1x + V2x setup use different banks for different 2610 channels a certain set of channels can work fine and a certain other channel might not.

If there's no cut trace to the M1 then it probably is the ROM itself.

 

[Asure]

Confirmed, it was the M1. Dropped in a fresh 27C010 just now, and everything is back to normal. (The V roms seem fine, samples now play fine too with new M1.)
There was no sound(s) at all, not even the neo jingle.