Nintendo Arcade

[channelmaniac]

Model: Mario Bros
Symptom: No sprite graphics

Board would play blind, show text, and floors but had no moving graphics, characters, pipes, or title graphics. The Video EPROMs had no activity on the address or data lines, except A0-A3. Traced it back to the input edge of the Video PC Board. Data was coming into the 74LS245 but not out from it. The enable and direction lines were stuck high. Problem was on the CPU board.

Tracked the signals back to the CPU board: "OBJ WR*", "OBJ RD*", and "OBJ RQ*" were all stuck high. Replaced the 74SL138 at 3B to no effect. Tested the PROM at 5B by substitution even though the signals looked good. All the signals to the 3A, 3B, and 4A chips looked good except for the MREQ* signal. It was pulsing, but not the same as a known working board. This signal came from the Z80A DMA controller at 5D. The "BUS REQ*" and DAI* signals lines between it and the CPU were stuck high. Replaced the DMA Controller IC to repair the board.

[channelmaniac]

Model: Popeye
Symptom: Dead

Replaced bad CPU and cleaned corroded pins on 2 chips on the CPU board. Tested.

[channelmaniac]

Model: Popeye
Symptom: Dead

Swapped out the Rev 1 EPROMs with Rev 2 EPROMs from a parts board. The EPROMs read good but at least 1 would not work at speed. Replaced a bad AY-3-8910 IC at 7L to fix an audio and I/O problem.

[channelmaniac]

Model: Donkey Kong 3
Symptom: Bad colors, garbage on screen, and screen scrolled.

Repaired broken legs on the horizontal adjustment pot and replaced a cracked vertical adjustment pot to fix the scrolling screen problem.

The video board had a corrosion problem on it. Replaced and socketed the 74LS373 at 3k, the 74LS157 at 3L, the 74LS157 at 3M, the EPROM at 3M, the EPROM at 3P, 74LS174 at 2N, 74S163 at 1N, and the 74LS267 at 1P. Cleaned the corroded pins on the PROM at 2N and replaced the bad socket. Now the video garbage problem was solved.

The bad colors would come and go when the board was tapped or flexed. Replaced a bad socket on the PROM at 1D on the CPU board then tested the game.

[channelmaniac]

Model: Donkey Kong 3
Symptom: Dead. Garbage on screen

The lower 8 address lines and the 8 data lines were garbled. Replaced a bad 74LS374 at 5F, 74LS244 at 7A, and 74LS240 at 2M to fix the problem.

Game would play but was missing some sounds. The RP2A03 at 5J showed no activity. The RP2A03 at 5J, and the EPROM for it at 6H tested good by substitution into another board. Replaced a bad SRAM IC at location 6F to fix the sound.

[channelmaniac]

Model: Donkey Kong
Symptom: Dead, garbage on screen

Replaced the EPROMs at 2A and 2E. Board worked but was missing audio.

Reseated the EPROMS at 3H and 3F to fix most of the audio. The walking sounds were missing. Replace broken capacitor C22 and missing capacitor C26 to fix the walking sounds.

Reseated the EPROMs on the video board to fix a horizontal line issue and played a few games to test.

[channelmaniac]

Model: Eight Ball Action
Symptom: Dead

Board is a conversion for Donkey Kong Jr by Seatongrove Ltd.

1MHz clock is missing. Clock circuit is working fine. Replaced bad board interconnect ribbon cable. Board now had video but no sync. Fixed broken legs on the horizontal and vertical adjustment pots. Tracked sync problem to card edge connector. Cleaned edge connector to repair.

Board now had sync but had garbage on the screen. Reseated the program EPROMs and it booted. Replaced 3 program EPROM sockets and 2 other EPROM sockets on the CPU board to finish the repair.

[channelmaniac]

Model: Donkey Kong Jr.
Symptom: Dead, Garbage on screen.

Replaced an 8035 CPU with the proper Z80A CPU. Game would boot but had garbage on the screen and no sync. Repaired the broken horizontal and vertical adjustment pots to fix the sync issues. Replaced a bad board interconnect cable to fix the garbage problem and tested the game.

[channelmaniac]

Model: Donkey Kong Jr.
Symptom: Low audio

Replaced C13 and C161. Tested.

[channelmaniac]

Model: Donkey Kong, Jr.
Symptom: Plays the game start sound in a constant loop

Replaced bad 74LS174 at location 3D. Tested.

[channelmaniac]

Model: Mario Bros
Symptom: Graphic corruption

Replaced bad 74LS283, 74LS244, and 74LS273. The 283 was causing problems with position on the screen and 74LS244 and 273 were causing a data line to be stuck on one of the 2148 RAM chips, causing problems with graphic corruption and position on the screen. Tested.

[channelmaniac]

Model: Mario Bros
Symptom: Dead. Garbage on screen.

Board was dead. No activity on the Z80 address or data lines. Reset worked and clock was correct. When CPU would come out of reset there were NO pulses on the address or data lines. CPU chip tested fine. Replaced bad Z80A-DMA chip and tested.

[channelmaniac]

Model: vs. Excitebike
Symptom: Dead

Every EPROM was blank on the board! Reprogrammed 6A through 6D and 8B. Replaced bad EPROM at 8A. Board was dead and D1 was stuck. Replaced bad RAM at 6E and as a precaution, the same Fujitsu RAM at 1E. Tested.

[channelmaniac]

Model: vs. Super Mario Bros
Symptom: Dead.

Board had a solid greenish brown screen on startup. The RP2A04 IC on the unpopulated side of the board died. Replaced the IC with a simple jumper between pins 30 to 38 in the socket and tested.

[channelmaniac]

Model: vs. Super Mario Bros
Symptom: Partial garbled graphics and will not recognize any inputs

Repaired bad traces to the enable pins on 7P, 8P, 8M and 8N to fix inputs. Patched bad trace on data line D1 between the ROMs at 8A and 8B. Tested.