dangun feveron board weirdness - help! :[

[renardqueenston]

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 49#p660349 <--- post with current issue

hey there. just got a feveron off of ebay, and the jamma connector on it is absolutely filthy and wearing, and one of the teeth is actually peeling a little bit. can this be fixed with a little bot of solder, or is it hopeless? i've already contacted the seller telling him the problem, anything that can be done in the mean time? even bumping the thing in the slightest (supergun here) causes a ROM error due to the pins.

[dpful]

Peeled teeth, I'd try super glue if you could keep it off the top of the pin. Dirt, rub it off- pencil eraser, alcohol, elbo grease, just so it's shiny and connecting, I've used emery board before. I wouldn't get on thesellers case too much- if it was in an arcade that could all be very natural. It could have worked fine with his connector (tighter pins, or just scraped off corrosion with use). See if you can clean it up.

[renardqueenston]

Peeled teeth, I'd try super glue if you could keep it off the top of the pin. Dirt, rub it off- pencil eraser, alcohol, elbo grease, just so it's shiny and connecting, I've used emery board before. I wouldn't get on thesellers case too much- if it was in an arcade that could all be very natural. It could have worked fine with his connector (tighter pins, or just scraped off corrosion with use). See if you can clean it up.

sounds good. i'm also picking up a circuitwriter pen for the non-voltage related wear in place of solder - too much of that would be too thick for the connector i have.

[renardqueenston]

okay! so cleaning up the pins helped a bit. current board symptoms:

board will sometimes hang during boot
board will boot normally but not have sound
board will sometimes boot and work perfectly fine - bump it around a tiny bit and you get a ROM error and reboot

considering everything DOES boot sometimes, i'm assuming the ROMs are still in working order and it's something else? they're all seated nicely, and it looks like the beds are all soldered properly. there's this, though:



they look a bit burnt up. do they need replacing? are they easy to replace?

as a follow-up, yeah, this was in an arcade before it got to me, so that's why a couple of the jamma connectors were a bit burnt up

[cools]

Check voltages.

[renardqueenston]

Check voltages.

on the supergun? 5v, can't change it on vega 9000s as far as i know. i don't have a voltometer on hand so i can't really do anything to make sure it's exactly 5v - all of my other games (dogyuun, kingdom grandprix, brave blade) boot and play just fine consistently.

if i think it's still something related to the jamma connectors, is getting a fingerboard and wiring that on a good idea?

EDIT: i found that the seller is selling a much, much nicer condition Fever SOS for the same price. considering the $400 shipped tag (i know it's a bit higher than the $350ish the board usually fetches - it's one i really wanted to pick up) and "original and working" description, i wasn't expecting a board in such poor shape. i figure it's fair to contact him and ask if the board can be swapped.

[robivy64]

Check voltages.

The master of 1-4 word posts has spoken.

[dpful]

For 400$, I'd definitely get it switched. But if you can't-
1. Those are all bad connection symptoms. Just keep cleaning. You could tighten your jamma connector- bend the pins in a little, carefully. Sometimes the best cleaner is the harness going off and on.
2. Voltage causes those probs too. Prob not though if the others work. Feverons not an especially touchy board.
3. The scrapes on the caps are from stacking it under other boards in storage. it's no problem at all.

Every pin has to connect.

4. To test the board for physical probs, (which it could also have), flex it while it's on (gently/carefully). Could be hard because of the touchy harness. Probably not that if sold for big bucks as working. It probably worked for him.
Sometimes I've mounted PCbs on a board at the height of the jamma harness (to imobolize the harness on a touchy board- or to immobilize a board that faults when flexed).
My regular cleaning procedure on a touchy edge is just to push the harness off and on and let's the pins scrape tracks.

[neorichieb1971]

I'd definitely return that board unless it was sold as is. A jamma connector is one of the parts of a board that you cannot miss any degradation. It was likely sold with the intention of dumping it on you. Ebay is probably the worst place to buy PCB's. I've had some shitty luck on ebay.

[renardqueenston]

while waiting for the seller to get back to me for the swap, i penned in some new teeth with conductive ink and it seems to be a hell of a lot less picky now - sound is 100%, and it boots almost all of the time. figure i might as well get this back to the guy in a state where it's at least resellable as "needs repair"

[renardqueenston]

alright, now that the connection issues are out of the way, something else has come up. i decided to plug it in for a quick score attack, but the board wasn't booting. connections were all made perfectly. gave the board a light flex and it booted to the title screen, but had no audio. next time, no boot at all, and then after pressing down on the ROMs, it booted again, but the sound cut out quickly.

is there any way to make sure these things stay seated properly? i checked the pins and they look okay, so i dunno what's up with that. if it were an actual ROM error, it would be more consistent, right?

UPDATE: apparently nevermind, as this seems to have absolutely no affect on whether or not it boots. i cannot find any rhyme or reason behind it at this point. it seems like a total luck of the draw. the seller guaranteed satisfaction, so i'm hoping to get it refunded or swapped or something.

UPDATE UPDATE: does the 16mhz PSC have something to do with the audio? if so, it's just barely holding on by a thread. no clue what to do about this - don't have soldering equipment so i can't just fix it willy-nilly before sending it back. extremely worried that the seller won't honor an exchange despite this being an issue from the get-go.

still waiting on the seller's response - considering they honor exchanges as long as i can ship back insured and were selling it as perfectly working, i'd like to think i'm in the right for the switch-up.

[Dave_K.]

I hope you didn't buy this from GWGAT, because they are known scammers.

The scrapes on the caps are from stacking it under other boards in storage. it's no problem at all.

It looks to me like someone scraped/sanded the residue off the tops where they leaked, trying to make them look cleaner. They need to be replaced.

gave the board a light flex and it booted to the title screen, but had no audio. next time, no boot at all, and then after pressing down on the ROMs, it booted again, but the sound cut out quickly.

Its probably the surface mount chips, not the roms, that have cracked solder joints, or have legs lifted from the PCB and need to be reflowed. Common problem with boards that have flexed from bad storage, shipping, or handling.

[renardqueenston]

I hope you didn't buy this from GWGAT, because they are known scammers.

fuck

they've communicated back and are trying to tell me i'm wrong ("the board is worth $750" apparently, and lo and behold, i mention that is an american board converted, and they denied (at this point i'm providing photo evidence between the two boards), i'll gladly go back and forth forever and file ebay claims until the cows come home.

great.

on the upside, they did say that they're willing to refund $100 and send me a jamma extender as an effort to allow me to help work on the pins on the board to start.

guys, what do you think? worth the trouble?

or better yet: is there anybody i can ship this thing to to have it repaired? i'm no diagnostics guy so i can't be 100% sure of everything, and i'm sure there's gotta be somebody around here that could help out located in ontario, canada, but willing to ship to the US for repair

that is, if i can't get a refund or swap from this guy

[Dave_K.]

I'd say keep pushing for the return per their stated policy on the auction. It will be way too much trouble to find someone to reflow all the chips on the board. You overpaid by $100 as it is (probably more since its a romswap SOS board)...but to be fair they did write SOS in the picture. This is how they get people: misleading title, description, and picture. Whats worse is the board was probably flaky to begin with, but they would blame it on shipping which is "out of their control". Read the return policy on the auction carefully, because they will try to screw you if you don't pack in original packing with original invoice from original address. Make copies and pictures of everything before sending out.

[renardqueenston]

I'd say keep pushing for the return per their stated policy on the auction. It will be way too much trouble to find someone to reflow all the chips on the board. You overpaid by $100 as it is (probably more since its a romswap SOS board)...but to be fair they did write SOS in the picture. This is how they get people: misleading title, description, and picture. Whats worse is the board was probably flaky to begin with, but they would blame it on shipping which is "out of their control". Read the return policy on the auction carefully, because they will try to screw you if you don't pack in original packing with original invoice from original address. Make copies and pictures of everything before sending out.

i've got it packed, i've taken pictures, it's all with the original stuff if they try to pull anything :] i've been careful about it.

i figured they wrote SOS in the picture because they were also selling an SOS board, to demonstrate that it's just a different region of the same game or something like that. he's already told me that "no, it is japanese original, not converted", which is obviously tat, considering the differences in parts on the board itself from region to region.

i'll keep pushing and keep updating here as to hopefully help out others that might have a similar issue in the future.

[renardqueenston]

follow-up!

the guy offered to refund half (holy moly) of the transaction due to all of the issues.

before deciding to take the offer, i poked around the board a bit more just now, and discovered that it may have indeed been working perfectly before it was shipped. the US board appears to have an ANNOYINGLY high-profile 16.9344mhz oscillator that is literally hanging by only one of the solder points of the two. the japanese board uses a very low-profile oscillator.

how important is this oscillator to board operation? boot stability seems to change at random as i move it around a bit, and sometimes when i hold it down on the board firmly in place, i even get audio! these seem easy enough to replace, so tell me what's up, guys.

do i take the refund and fix this oscillator and the caps?

follow-up-follow-up: it's gotta be the oscillator at X3 on the board. moving it out of place causes no boots or effed up boots, keeping it in place either boots or doesn't (what with there being little to no connection to the board).

bonus follow-up: it just booted without the oscillator on the board at all, just without sound. gonna continue investigating, i think.

ONE MORE EXTRA STAGE follow-up:

upon poking and prodding, i find that the game is more likely to boot upon pushing down on these chips:



is there any way to just... permanently seat these guys? i think it might be something up with the beds. this is the part where i'm looking for help because a $200 feveron might be too good to pass up also a learning experience in the process, i think.

[Dave_K.]

Those two chips are not supposed to be socketed. Either this is a repair, or their attempt at swapping the region. Check the underside to see if there was any damage to the traces where they removed and re-soldered those holders in place.

Its more possible to be the large square surface mount chip just below these two roms that is the problem, and you pressing on the roms above is flexing the board enough for that surface mount chip to be affected. Try lightly pressing on that square surface chip, in the different corners to see if the problem occurs/stops. This is the hard part about narrowing down where the problem is, and what chip(s) needs to be reflowed.

[renardqueenston]

Those two chips are not supposed to be socketed. Either this is a repair, or their attempt at swapping the region. Check the underside to see if there was any damage to the traces where they removed and re-soldered those holders in place.

Its more possible to be the large square surface mount chip just below these two roms that is the problem, and you pressing on the roms above is flexing the board enough for that surface mount chip to be affected. Try lightly pressing on that square surface chip, in the different corners to see if the problem occurs/stops. This is the hard part about narrowing down where the problem is, and what chip(s) needs to be reflowed.

thanks for the info, man!

it doesn't look damaged, the traces aren't scraped up or anything like that, not covered in gunk or anything either.

it's hard to say if pressing on the surface mount does anything. only on the very tip corner of it right next to the sockets will it affect booting at all (it will usually boot this way, just as it would if holding down the chips). it's worth noting that i think the sockets used might be a little bit loose as well. still no audio though booting this way, so i almost wanna say it's the sockets not connecting properly.

but then, the audio could have to do with the oscillator (which i'll be replacing shortly)

i'm thinking replacing the sockets is a good start, along with making sure all the legs are absolutely spotless.

[Dave_K.]

Couldn't hurt to just remove those two roms, inspect the legs to make sure they are making proper contact, and then re-seat them. I would avoid replacing the sockets as you may burn the traces doing it on your own. And if it turns out to be the surface mount chip, you'll need to bring it to a professional electronics service to get reflowed.

[renardqueenston]

Couldn't hurt to just remove those two roms, inspect the legs to make sure they are making proper contact, and then re-seat them. I would avoid replacing the sockets as you may burn the traces doing it on your own. And if it turns out to be the surface mount chip, you'll need to bring it to a professional electronics service to get reflowed.

yeah, i've reseated them, but the sockets are definitely a bit loose. i've prodded at them, and the springy bits inside (whatever you wanna call those) are loose towards the area closest to the surface mount.

i'm gonna do some practicing on my crappy bootleg fixeight pcb before i get to this, just desolder and resolder some chips on it. what do you think, should i just drop the chips that are supposed to be on the board right back onto the board?

[Dave_K.]

what do you think, should i just drop the chips that are supposed to be on the board right back onto the board?

Better to use sockets, so you don't cook the rom chips soldering to them directly.

[renardqueenston]

what do you think, should i just drop the chips that are supposed to be on the board right back onto the board?

Better to use sockets, so you don't cook the rom chips soldering to them directly.

alright, thanks for the advice you've been a ton of help so far, this is a learning experience for me for sure.

[dpful]

I'd try to
1. Check the solder joints under the socket- a touch with a iron on each of those pins would seal a crack, whether you could see it or not.
2. Check again how the chip legs go Into the sockets. You can bend the chip legs for better contact. Make sure clean.

I think that removing the a whole chip (or socket) is H A R D!!!!