New Life Games Tech Forums

 :99-       I had a new battery put in so I then purchased a Gamemaker Ram Clear P10 chip and followed the instructions.I pulled main board ,set switches 7,8 to on.(on the dips1).installed clear chip in P10 .reinstalled main board and turned machine on .Screen saying Saferam clear enabled.So I turned the key and got the message saying( Saferam has been erased,Please reset dipswitches and remove clear chip,Please restart machine.So I turn off machine ,pulled main board set 7,8 back to off and replaced clear chip with the regular chip in P10.Turned machine on a still getting same old message (Saferam failure,Game disabled,Please restart machine,Main Saferam failure:Backup saferam 1 failure,Backup saferam 2 failure)So i turned machine off then on to restart and got same message.I turn key and nothing changes.I checked battery and its good.Don't know what else to do .I'm assuming that the audit key they are referring to is the key slot that's located on the outer right side of machine also known as the reset key? Is that correct?

Hi William, I just went through the same thing two days ago . I picked up a drop in and the battery was dead,I replaced the battery and was getting the same message as I was before the battery...except the battery passed,but safe ram failed on 1 and 2,but it said the battery was OK. I tried a few more clears and still the same. Only way I was able to get rid of it was put a newer set of mains and graphic chips in. The set that was in there were a really older ver. . Not sure if this is your problem,but it worked for me. Try this also,when you do the clear do not put the game chip back in 10.

 :88-    I'll try it .Thanks for your help

Did whoever changed the battery leave the battery jumper off?
"The Lithium battery may be disabled for shipping or storage by having a nearby three-pin header labeled W17 in the OFF position. It must be enabled by moving the two-pin Burg jumper to ON before the machine will operate"

Hi William,
   I can't help but think that this is a battery issue.  I know you checked the battery, but I would look at the traces that go from it to make sure they didn't get broken in the change.  No matter what, I would upgrade the mains, but that is just my personal opinion.  The 24 mains allow for multi denomination which I love for the Gamemaker.

Thanks,
Wayne

What I discovered about the later GM mains is that there are three "desireable" qualities, IMO, and one can choose any two of them, but not all three.
They are:

Multi-denomination
Tokenization
Internal progressives


The 24 mains support multi-denomination and tokenization.
The 22 mains support multi-denomination and progressives, but the progressives only work correctly if any game that uses them is assigned to only one denomination.
The 20T mains support tokenization and progressives, but not multi-denomination.

I must admit that I haven't tried the 23 mains, but they don't support tokenization, as far as I know.

If there is a single set of mains that supports all three, I hope that someone will post about it.

P.S. I agree with Wayne, and use the 24s myself :89-, but lately I have been pining for progressives, and might put in another set for a while. :79-

...The board that I had the problem on was with 12 mains,his is 14. I talked to him last night and suggested he up-grade his to 23-24.  Said it would be awhile before he could. When my was doing it with 12 mains it said battery was low,after I put a new one it said batt ok,but the mains failed. It was different screens than my 23 or 24 mains

We exchanged PMs as well. Hopefully he'll get the machine set up the way that he wants.

Since I'm new to the G.M's,just thinking if the older mains used a different clear chip :103-

As far as I know, there is only one clear chip for the GM, but I could be wrong.

One thing that I recall is that some people have said that they turn on all of the switches in SW1 instead of only switches 7 & 8 when doing a clear. I am sure that this is not correct for the latest mains, but I wonder if it would be needed for the early mains? I have not tried this; it's only a thought.

I'm not sure either. The manual(that I have) says all of them on SW1 ,however,I've tried all and 7&8.

I don't know why this is coming to mind as I usually forget lots of stuff , but try just dipswitch #8....

Nothing to lose!

CH :95-

try it without the p10 chip.

W

That does a partial clear. It can be used to change game chips without a full reset, but the catch is that one cannot put a game back into the socket used for the clear, so once it is done, you're left with a maximum of nine games until you break down and do the full clear. By the way, it was while trying this that I figured out that you can put the clear chip in ANY socket that you want, not just P10. That makes sense, when you think about it.

So for example, if you have three games that you dislike, pull them from whatever sockets they happen to be in and put the clear and two new games in their place. Then turn on switch 8 and you will get a partial clear that installs the two new games. Remove the clear and you'll have nine good games, even if you never removed the game chip in P10.

 :103-  When I've turned on the switches with no clear chip, all I have ever gotten was a message telling me to install the chip. :103-

14 mains?

Most of the Mains other than 24 also allow game chip changes (except for P10) without a clear. Just have to activate the new games in the setup menu.

 Dan (tacman)

Actually it may rule out ANY Mains that are MD.

No, 22 and 24. I've never used single denomination mains.


Tacman, I'll have to try your trick when I do try them. I wonder how it handles the bookkeeping calculations if a chip is just swapped out? There is a page that tracks the theoretical percentage of the machine based on the expected payout of each game multiplied by the percentage of the total amount wagered played on that game. How would that work, I wonder?

Older mains didn't require a clear chip.

W

Thanks Wayne.  :131-

LOL,told you I was new to them  :72- So,with older ones you can just do the switches?

Hey all,

I notice someone posted an older Gamemaker manual in the submit section(01 Bally Gamemaker.pdf). Page 17 of document goes through clearing saferam. Of note is removing the battery jumper for 5 seconds and that switches on dipsw1 may be located at dipsw2.

Richard

Update:
   William has his machine up and running now.  Root cause:  cold solder joint at the battery.  Corrective action: resolder battery.

Congratulations William!

Thanks,
Wayne