Mortal Kombat 4 issues, advice greatly appreciated.

[Radford119]

I am having a few issues with my MK4 cab I just picked up off Craigslist, if anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated. The game looks and plays great but when I go into the system test mode it reads that there is a RAM error on Wave Bank 1 "Error F9" (see attached images   video). I am also having an issue with a dotted red line in the center of my screen. I am not sure if this line is due to the faulty ram error or something else.

I have looked high and low for similar issues and all I can find is someone had a similar problem with an NBA Jam cab and just reflowed the solder to fix the problem. If anyone has any experience with this type of error any help at all would be awesome. I might end up trying and resolder the "U63" section to see if that helps.

I noticed that the pcb is always restored to factory settings on power up. It will not hold things like date and time or other things like game audits. Could the on board battery cause this PCB RAM error?

Did I mention I got this awesomeness for $300 bucks, down from $350! Also does anyone know if a UMK3 pcb is a direct swap into this cab? Thanks again.

[eclipso]

Great deal on that! As far as the issue goes, if it were me I would first remove the board and check the solder joints and determine what the issue is if it looks good I would see about getting a replacement chip and have someone solder it for me, I have no solder skills so I wouldnt attempt to do it myself 

hopefully someone with more knowledge will chime in but thats my thoughts anyway.

[MK3FAN]

UMK3 is a direct swap. Just remove the LP/LK (player 3) harness from the MK4 and hook it to the UMK3. P19 I think it is. As far as the board issue, I would definitely change the CMOS battery. You get the "Factory Settings Restored" because the PCB doesn't keep any memory because the CMOS battery is dead. Replacing it will most likely fix your errors, but I am not sure about the red line. I would check the back of the board to make sure none of the U63 socket feet have been bent over and are touching each other. That can happen sometimes and cause graphics issues.

[Radford119]

Thanks guys for the help. I pulled the board out and cleaned around the area of the U63 chip, checked for any burnt or bulging spots, and everything looked fine. I will pull the board again tomorrow and take some macro photos of the area. I am also going out tonight to try and find a battery, maybe that will clear everything up.

[Radford119]

Just dropped a new battery in the pcb. Red line and u63 error are still present.

[Radford119]

Update: Swapped a working 60-in-1 into the MK4 cab and the red dotted line is not present. It is probably the result of of the "Wave RAM 1 error" here is what I could dig up on what the Wave RAM does on Midway's ZEUS hardware:

"The Zeus chip provides access to some local RAM called "Wave RAM" in the diagnostic tests. There are two banks of Wave RAM, 8MB each, for a total of 16MB of 3D graphics RAM. Wave RAM holds the frame buffers, textures, model data, palettes, and other tables used by the Zeus." - MAMEDev Wiki

The U63 chip is surface mounted and I can't see any defects in the pins or traces. I ordered a UMK3 board to put in there, and I will break out the magnifying glass on the defective board during the swap. I did notice however there was a tiny pin hole on the solder side, underneath this particular U63 chip is located. I might try to reflow this solder and see what happens. Thanks again for all your help guys.

[eclipso]

Did you reflow the joint?

[Radford119]

Did you reflow the joint?

Nope, I haven't pulled the board out again. I am expecting a working UMK3 pcb in the mail here in a couple of days and was planning on posting some pictures of the MK4 board when I did the swap.

[Radford119]

Finally got my UMK3 pcb and did the swap. Everything works great, but I still wanted to try and repair this MK4 pcb. Attached are some images of the U63 chip on both the component and the solder side. The only thing I can see are some small pin holes on some solder joints on the opposite side of the chip. I don't have any schematics so I can't tell if this is normal or this could be an issue. Also there is an area that looks like it could have a surface mount resistor missing. If anyone has an MK4 board just laying around and has time to compare I would very much appreciate it. Thanks again guys for all your help.

[MKFan4Life]

I'd at least try reflowing those areas, and any that look suspicious or are easy to reflow without accidentally shorting two close spots.  Couldn't hurt.  The original operations manual doesn't appear to show enough details on the pcb (at least it's not in the PDF's I downloaded!) to determine if anything was in that spot with the open solder points.  But here are a couple of pics from an Ebay auction where you can see that spot and it appears to be empty: (sorry, this was the best MK4 pcb pic I was able to find!)

http://www.flux-interactive.com/auctions/Mortal-Kombat-4-Pcb/0.jpg

http://www.flux-interactive.com/auctions/Mortal-Kombat-4-Pcb/1.jpg

Hope you find the solution.

[RejectedManiac]

Def def. might look like a trace problem. Notices those traces are all scratched up. As for the time and date always resetting I think you figured out that is usually a battery problem. Not sure about the ram problem. Could be caused by the trace scratches as well as the red line. Just my guess. Awesome steal by the way! That is on my list for my next cab to get.