IGT S2000 Vision rebooting issues (Munster Match)

[capper96]

Hello all!

Hopefully I can get some help on my Munster Match IGT Vision machine,  currently it is down and will not complete its boot sequence.

ISSUE: Upon turning on the machine, it will power and start boot sequence, the vision display will turn on and the dots for the DIG tests will start, on the front of the coin door it will say MSVERIFY and then after around 30-45 seconds the machine will seem to reboot and start the process all over again.

THINGS I HAVE TRIED:

a) Tried a new power source in case of a bad wall outlet.
b) reseated the PSU Square (the one behind the reels)
c) replaced the PSU Square from another machine
d) reseated the Motherboard on the lower left, (the one with the candle lights)

Nothing seems to help, and the times that it takes to reboot is totally random, but it never gets far enough to be playable.  Sometimes an error of NETPLEX is seen but other boots its not. 

I am a rookie on troubleshooting these things, but I have taken apart and repaired some pinball machines in the past.  Any ideas on where to start ?

[capper96]

Hello all!

Hopefully I can get some help on my Munster Match IGT Vision machine,  currently it is down and will not complete its boot sequence.

ISSUE: Upon turning on the machine, it will power and start boot sequence, the vision display will turn on and the dots for the DIG tests will start, on the front of the coin door it will say MSVERIFY and then after around 30-45 seconds the machine will seem to reboot and start the process all over again.

THINGS I HAVE TRIED:

a) Tried a new power source in case of a bad wall outlet.
b) reseated the PSU Square (the one behind the reels)
c) replaced the PSU Square from another machine
d) reseated the Motherboard on the lower left, (the one with the candle lights)

Nothing seems to help, and the times that it takes to reboot is totally random, but it never gets far enough to be playable.  Sometimes an error of NETPLEX is seen but other boots its not. 

I am a rookie on troubleshooting these things, but I have taken apart and repaired some pinball machines in the past.  Any ideas on where to start ?

[therockinelvis]

Check all the connections on the video monitor. Remove and reseat the Top ATA card. If you have a card in the side slot remove it completely, it is not needed. Has this machine worked before now? Is this a game change you just did? If yes, I would say it is the version chip is not compatible with the others.

[stayouttadabunker]

Your machine might have a short somewhere or incompatiable chip sets.
Go look at the audio circuit board on the back wall of the topbox and make sure everything is plugged in correctly.

Here's a link to a video clip I made about 3 years ago of the boot up sequence of a vision machine.
Game was different than yours (Lil Green Men) but basically the same setup...>>>

http://youtu.be/tKW_BrAZghU

[capper96]

Thanks guys for the replies!  When this game was purchased, it worked for around two months, without any errors.  I have not changed any settings or chips since that time so unless perhaps a chip could go bad or get wiped, i dont think thats it. 

Is there an online diagram of the instructions to this machine? 

I will check the connections on the audio board and the monitor, but concerning the "top ATA" board and the "card slot on the side", where would these items be located at?

thanks again for all the assistance

[stayouttadabunker]

The card therockinelvis is talking about looks like them old ancient digital camera cards.
They're about 3 inches long and about a couple of inches wide.
They're usually kinda flat and made of a combo of silvery metal and black plastic.

It will be located on the right hand side of the top box LCD computer screen.
Basically you just push the card in slightly and it will "pop out" enough for you to grip with fingertips and pull out.
It contains the operating system for the lcd computer.
It's not needed for regular gameplay as the data contents on it should have been loaded into the computer before since the game WAS working well at one time.

Also, it does happen sometimes in which that chips become corrupted.
But I'm suspecting it's more of physical problem more than anything now because the game was just recently working correctly -
more like a loose connection or wire.

Here's what the PCMCIA card looks like...yours may have different stickers...>>>

[capper96]

Thank you Bunker, I'll look for it.

BTW I checked out your youtube video and my machine acts differently than yours.   Whenever I fire up my machine, the first thing I see is "Initializing....." on my monitor and then it starts going through some type of "DIG........" tests.  I never see any type of BIOS post screen like you would on a normal legacy PC bootup.  Unfortunately I cannot remember what the bootup looked like when it was working.

I'll video what the machine does if reseating the connections on the cards does not solve the problem.

[capper96]

An update to this issue...

It turns out that if I disconnect power to the Audio Board in the top Right corner, that the machine boots up correctly.   Any other T/S steps I can do aside from just replacing the audio board?

[stayouttadabunker]

I find it strange that the audio board caused the problem but things happen.
There are basic and advanced machine sounds stored on the both the MPU and PCMCIA card with the commands coming from the game chips in order to play certain sound bites depending on the game state.
I can't remember off-hand if your game also uses the sounds stored on a specific sound SIMM card that would be needed to be installed on the MPU board?
Maybe someone can chime in on that as I haven't had my Munster Vision kit installed in my personal machine for over a few years now.

The audio card on the back wall of the topbox is just a channeling card and acts like sort of a primitive sound amplifier.
There is no sound bites stored on it really.
I'm thinking that the amplifier audio card may have some board components on the circuit board starting to go out of specs and causing internal board component shorts...there's a lot of heat in the topboxes!
These audio board are fairly cheap to replace...I'd go that route! 
Place a WTB ad in the Classifieds Section of NLG and I'm sure a fellow member may have one to sell or give to ya!