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| Tech help: MAME machine I bought off of e-bay 9 years ago is dead... |
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| DefJam:
Hi BYOAC, It's been awhile since I lurked and posted. (actually since I built my pinball mame machine).... anyhow.... I could use a hand... A long time ago, probably 7-8 years ago I bought a mame machine off of e-bay. And it worked nicely for quite awhile. I moved, and unfortunately it does not appear it made the trip well. I believe it is the PC that is bad..... I'm getting a whole series of beeps.... almost to a tune..... 2, 1, 8, 1 ,2.... or something along those lines.... many many beeps. I tried hooking it up to a pc monitor and get nothing there either... so PC is definitely shot. Trouble shooting so far: I unplugged the hard drive, got same series of beeps, unplugged graphics card and sound cards, same series of beeps. Also important to this is that there is a 3dfX card in the machine that is feeding the arcade monitor. The person who built this machine did a nice job and attached a normal PC monitor plug to the monitor...... so essentially the monitor can simply plug into the graphics card. I have 2 options that I'm open to but need a bit of advice on both: 1. Assuming it is the motherboard that is bad, can I take another old PC and just replace the motherboard/powersupply in the arcade machine ? (basically use the existing hard drive and graphics card that are in the arcade machine now). This is my cheapest option as I have an old PC I could just hack apart for this.(I think this would work). 2. I wouldn't mind putting in more modern PC, adding some lights to the buttons, putting in a nice front-end, etc..... If I bought an arcadeVGA, and put it a new PC, could I simply plug the monitor into it and be back in action ? I'm sure I missed relevant info......let me know if you have any reco's. JIm |
| Havok:
Have you re-seated the memory? That is included in the POST, and would cause the pc to beep on boot if not connected properly. Also, if you carefully count the beeps and pauses between you can determine what the computer error is, assuming you can get the codes for that motherboard. As far as your other questions; (1) most likely not. You can try, but don't be surprised if you get a Blue Screen of Death (assuming windows) (2) Considering the age of the pc, this is really the best option, to start over. If you go the ArcadeVGA route, get the breakout cable to connect to your monitor. If you're lucky and have a Wells Gardner monitor, it will directly connect to it. |
| Hoopz:
If you do have to replace the motherboard, it's not as easy as putting a different one in there. If the machine is running Windows, it may not like a motherboard change as motherboard specific files are included in the Windows installation. I'd suggest replacing the machine with a "newer" PC. Maybe not brand new, but if it's 8+ years old, then it can't be very fast. You may find a used machine for free that's better than what you have now. I'd guess maybe it's a 1.2 Ghz or something around there? |
| kegger:
As Havoc mentioned reseating the memory and then I would go through the whole pc and reseat every card, memory, plug, and connector and see how you make out as you might just get lucky and fix it. |
| Havok:
Good site with beep code troubleshooting: http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm |
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