battle garegga pcb random freezes

[tacoguy64]

i was just playing the game, which is hooked through a super gun, when it froze on me on two different occasions. Both times a reboot of the game let me go along but i have no clue to what happened. the game is fine right now but i have not been able to find the cause of what happened. Everything looks as it should look.

[waiwainl]

Not enough 5v power?

[tacoguy64]

that might be the case. but i dont think it is.
the super gun reads the 5 volts and i doubt that it's inaccurate.
but i dont have any testing equipment to really know.

i dont think the psu is the issue since my neo mvs hasn't done that yet.

[_rm_]

You should probably double check that PSU. I once had a similar problem and it was indeed a bad PSU. MVS is not that power hungry, maybe it just happens with other PCB's.

You have some other hardware to try?

[tacoguy64]

the only other pcb i have is sf2 turbo.
haven't tried that one yet.
it would really suck if the psu ended up being the issue since i bought that new a few months ago.

maybe it could be the wire i cut to use a my makeshift solution to wire the chord from the psu to the wall?

[gray117]

it would really suck if the psu ended up being the issue since i bought that new a few months ago.

Why? It would suck more if you had to fix some odd issue with garegga... what is the power supply?

Increasing voltage to circumvent some board issues can be symptomatic of other issues - aging capacitors etc. Having said that, small adjustments around .1 (i.e. 5->5.1v) are not uncommon, but you want to be very careful doing this. I don't suppose you see any voltage difference between boards or anything like that? (Is your mvs a 6 or 4 slot - these are often a bit more hungry than a single slot and a good test...)

Is your supergun a known type/variant and/or the volt meter? Any idea if it's measuring voltage on the jamma side or from just on the power supply?

Random thread on this topic (I'm sure there's many more):
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=48142

maybe it could be the wire i cut to use a my makeshift solution to wire the chord from the psu to the wall?

Not likely. Presuming there's not some crazy wiring/arcane setup; if there's a problem with the power supply it will likely just be with the unit itself.

[tacoguy64]

Haha yeah youre right. I will get some more details on the psu when i get home.
The supergun that i am using is the HAS v2.

I don't even have a DMM so i can't really try to troubleshoot the issue yet.
Planning on getting one on Saturday to try and do more about this.
My MVS is a 2 slot board and it has been working good with the HAS. Same with the SF2 turbo board, it's working good.
And same with Garegga, hasn't had the issue again.
I know that the volt display reads at 5.04v.

[tacoguy64]

I have bought a cheap DMM but I am not sure about which pins i need to read.
Also this little guy is the PSU im using to power up my supergun
https://na.suzohapp.com/products/power_ ... -00?REF=SN

[rtw]

I have bought a cheap DMM but I am not sure about which pins i need to read.

http://wiki.arcadeotaku.com/w/Measuring_Voltages

If it's too low you can adjust the 5V on your PSU, GIYF.

[tacoguy64]

I measured some of those chips today and they were a bit on the low side.
My question now is how is the super gun led showing a volt reading of 5.04v and the meter reads 3.77v on some of those logic chips?
Also wouldn't a voltage increase potentially damage my board?
One more thing i noticed is that since garegga is the pcb by itself with no support,and since it's heavy it sorta tilts the supergun inwards.
This makes it hard to start something unless i stand up the pcb in the way it does not affect the supergun.

[gray117]

Steady there

Yes entirely normal for voltage drops some points in the board by design. This is more just to give you an idea of how voltage is doing. Particularly if there is a fault. However, it's only an indicator if there's a known value you're looking out for and/or you can be relatively sure the chip in question is near the jamma edge/5v line and unfiltered circuit wise (at which point you know you're looking for around that 5v value). But if that's not clearly available and/or just not something that seems to make sense you're best bet could be the jamma edge of your board.

First warning is to beware bridging pins. But you can measure voltage on pins on jamma edge using +5 and ground. Just be careful.

However, in your case all of this fiddling is probably only worthwhile if i) error persists or ii) you have a number of connectors/looms (I often have an extension loom on expensive games to save on wear/tear on jamma edge etc.) - what you'll typically find is that voltage will drop a little with every connection/jamma edge/converter/button remapper/or whatever gubbins you have between power supply and actual game board edge.

If you're connecting your supergun to the board without a loom it's probably an accurate measurement anyway...

After all, the origin of your issue was never really worked out. It is possible a loose connection/less than perfectly aligned jamma connection (+ possible physical jarring - were your controls on the same surface as the pcb/connector for example) caused a momentary short/increase in resistance/loss of connection that just froze the game.

It's such a borderline error/circumstance that unless it re-occurs I really wouldn't worry too much, and just be diligent about connection firmness and cleanliness of connectors etc. (unless you can see any signs of board/component corrosion/bulging/other failure of course).

[RGB]

This reminds me of the "issue" I had when I owned a Batrider PCB. The game would sometimes reset itself and I found out later that the physical button of the controller I wired for "coin" would sometimes get stuck, which caused the coin shutter error/freeze and restart.

Not sure if this is relevant to your setup or even the Battle Garegga PCB, though.

[tacoguy64]

Thanks gray, that was really helpful and insightful.
after looking around closely, the jamma pins dont look all that great and sometimes i have a more difficult time starting the game.
The pcb is being connected directly without a loom, and having one might help steady the physical connection.

im starting to think that this is a loose connection.
both the mvs and cps two boards have really good support and have no trouble with the supergun.
however the garegga pcb is just a stand alone and sometimes takes a couple more tries to get going.

[rtw]

im starting to think that this is a loose connection.
both the mvs and cps two boards have really good support and have no trouble with the supergun.
however the garegga pcb is just a stand alone and sometimes takes a couple more tries to get going.

Could you share a picture of your setup please ?

[tacoguy64]

Yeah man no problem

http://imgur.com/a/CZKPf

[rtw]

Yeah man no problem

The setup looks exactly like mine, the HAS is a brilliant piece of kit!

I would increase the voltage on your PSU so the HAS reads 5.1V. I would also use an eraser to clean the plated contacts on the JAMMA connector to remove the tarnish.

[tacoguy64]

Yeah thats what im gonna do, the connector seems to need a good cleaning.

Shout out to RGB for his good job on the HAS!

[tacoguy64]

I'm now beginning to think the connector might be the issue here.
Spent a lot of time and effort trying to clean the thing with an eraser but the thing doesn't look that good.
I guess it's better than before but im having more trouble turning on the game than i did before.
Now I have o make sure that it is positioned at a good spot before it turns on.

[system11]

That edge connector looks pretty clean to be honest. Get a meter and check the 5v directly on the JAMMA connector, enough should be exposed. You want to see about 5.03v there. When it fails to boot what do you have on screen, does it look like this:

http://blog.system11.org/?p=1608