arcade wiring question (jpac) please help...

[lostinarcade]

hi guys

i need some help and info.
i installed the jpac into my cabinet, unhooked the gameboard power and only left the monitor transfomer in to power the monitor ofcoarse.
i have a intel motherboard with onboard intel graphics, i installed soft 15 kz. shut down my computer. plugged the jpac into the computer.
i start the computer, i see nothing on the monitor, i restart a few times still nothing. so i plug my pc back into my lcd and its dead. so i guess my motherboard blew, tested the ram it works, put a graphics card into it and still wont boot.
another thing of note just a few hours before i plugged the pc into the arcade to see if i can get the split screen at boot, i saw it but it was not very clear picture, could hardly make out something, but i plugged it out and it worked fine cause i still had not installed soft kz onto it. the second time i plugged it in , probably fried the motherboard , either that or its coincidence. so obviously im going to buy a new board in the week, but now i need to play safe and i dont want to fry another board.

i already emailed andy, but i dont want to bother him all the time with questions. hes responce to pretty much the same message as above. hope he does not mind me posting it here.
"Its not possible for the J-PAC itself to damage the PC but it is possible for a cabinet wiring problem to do this.  Also, connecting anything up with power on the cabinet might cause damage.
The first thing to check is that the frame of the monitor is connected to the power cord ground and also the PC case to ground, and the daisy chain of all the controls to ground.
It might be that unhooking the game board power supply might have disconnected some ground.
Also any short between the tracking on the J-PAC and any ground or other metal part can cause damage as it would ground out the 5 volts sent through USB."

im still very new to this whole arcade thing and learning little bit at a time. the gameboard is a king of fighters 98 and it works great, i hooked up the new joysticks and buttons tonight and they work without a problem. but now obviously there is a ground problem with this cabinet and i need to sort it out before im going to plug in the jpac again. if u guys need pictures ill take some and upload them in a few hours.
but ill try to best explain how the cabinet is wired up from my memory.
first things first, the power chord there are only 2 wires on it, no ground, so obviously there is the problem. it goes into the cabinet, then into this black plastic fitting that has screws on the top u put ur wires in there and screw them down (dont know what this is called). 2 wires goes to the gameboard powersupply. powersupply looks like this http://www.allproducts.com/manufacture97/victorwd/Product-200797134218.jpg . directly from the wall power it also goes to the monitor transfomer, what i can see on the transfomer there are 2 wires connected but a 3rd one is cut off , probably ground?
ill give a more clear explanation with pictures in a couple of hours, that will explain and show every single wire just to be safe.

so what do i do now. how do i go about grounding this cabinet and not messing up the monitor or transfomer etc and to be safe that i dont fry another motherboard?

also a simple question forgot to ask andy. the latest version of jpac. how robust is it against static discharge and things like that? reason for asking is im in south africa so finding a new computer motherboard easy, jpac not so much. also i hope that i did not damage the jpac like i did with my computer motherboard that would be a very very sad story.

i hope someone can help me out. i waited so long to get this project going and just play some games. 

[lostinarcade]

okay here we go pictures as promised. (zoom in if u cant read it...)

http://i54.tinypic.com/2qs9e6o.jpg

http://i53.tinypic.com/2mo5vuo.jpg

http://i54.tinypic.com/2ch965s.jpg

http://i53.tinypic.com/104q5c4.jpg

[BobA]

It might be the angle but I do not see a wire on AC Line.

[mgb]

yeah it looks like the ac in is wired wrong. I can't quite see the most bottom terminal but I see AC /L and AC /N. You have a wire going to AC /N (AC Neutral) but it doesn't appear that you have anything going to AC /L (ac live, or hot). I'm assuming that maybe the other ac wire is terminated to whatever terminal is below AC /N and that may be a ground or something.

Edit- now that I'm looking again, it appears that it just may look that way due to the angle. I know most power supplies have the ac on the bottom two terminals.

Have you metered for proper voltages?

[dr.detroit20]

I am not familiar with the J-Pac and using it with a Pc and a computer monitor. But I would recommend cleaning up and organizing the wiring a bit. It will make installing, future troubleshooting and repair much easier.

I have built a couple 60-in-1 Icades with JAMMA harnesses that I custom made, labeled for easy troubleshooting. Cable ties and cable clamps are a good friend indeed. Used some of the help on Bob Roberts' website to help properly wire a cabinet for both A/C and D/C.

http://therealbobroberts.net/acwiring.html
http://therealbobroberts.net/inthecab.html
http://therealbobroberts.net/dcwiring.html
http://therealbobroberts.net/jh.html

And if you are new to the arcade games, it has been said millions of times. Always properly discharge the CRT monitor at the anode cap!, if you need to work on the monitor. There are many sources online that have step-by-step how to do a monitor discharge.

[lostinarcade]

yeah it looks like the ac in is wired wrong. I can't quite see the most bottom terminal but I see AC /L and AC /N. You have a wire going to AC /N (AC Neutral) but it doesn't appear that you have anything going to AC /L (ac live, or hot). I'm assuming that maybe the other ac wire is terminated to whatever terminal is below AC /N and that may be a ground or something.

Edit- now that I'm looking again, it appears that it just may look that way due to the angle. I know most power supplies have the ac on the bottom two terminals.

Have you metered for proper voltages?

no i have no checked the voltages. since everything works fine with the gameboard.
problem is the cabinet is not earthed there is no earth wire coming in from the wall, hence i need to know how to get the monitor on the cabinet to be earthed.
as u can see on the one pic there is a wire thats cut on the transfomer of the monitor, is that earth?
another thing is i will remove the gameboard powersupply, i just included it in the pics but it will be disconnected before the jpac will be plugged in.

also the problem with bob roberts stuff is hes using a diff transfomer for the monitor, also he has a ac line filter and a fuse on hes setup i dont have those in my cabinet, so looking at hes pictures is not the same as my cabinet.. only thing that is the same is  .5 Switching Power Supply AKA Switcher.
another thing hes transfomer only has 2 wires going in and i dont see place for a 3rd. mine also has 2 going in, but there is a 3rd wire thats cut, so my question is whats that wire? is it ground?

[mgb]

The only purpose of that transformer is to isolate the power to your monitor. the transformer doesn't typically have ground but the metal casing should be grounded.
I'm a little confused about whats not working because the power from that transformer goes to your monitor and you said your monitor works.
Also what monitor is in this cabinet. any arcade monitor that requires an isolation transformer, does not have ground. it just has neutral and hot and the metal casing gets grounded.

I may have missed it but what is definitely not working as of now.

[lostinarcade]

The only purpose of that transformer is to isolate the power to your monitor. the transformer doesn't typically have ground but the metal casing should be grounded.
I'm a little confused about whats not working because the power from that transformer goes to your monitor and you said your monitor works.
Also what monitor is in this cabinet. any arcade monitor that requires an isolation transformer, does not have ground. it just has neutral and hot and the metal casing gets grounded.

I may have missed it but what is definitely not working as of now.

the problem is that i plugged in my computer into the jpac and it fried my motherboard (aka pc wont boot, just black when u turn on the power).
i just dont want to go and buy a new motherboard tom and have it do the same. i cant be 100% sure it was the jpac that caused this could have just been a coincidence.
here is what i did. installed soft 15 khz, power down my computer. carried it into the garage where the arcade machine is, plugged in the jpac. turn on the power and there was nothing on the arcade screen, then i plugged in my lcd and it did not boot. 
so am i safe to asume that i wont blow another board and it was just coincidence?

[lostinarcade]

this is pretty good line andy gave me.

"The first thing to check is that the frame of the monitor is connected to the power cord ground and also the PC case to ground, and the daisy chain of all the controls to ground."

guess thats how u ground this thing.

guess im also wondering whats that wire thats cut on the transfomer...?

[mgb]

from the photos its hard to tell exactly where the wire goes to.
does it go into the windings of the transformer like the red cables? it may just be a seperate tap. for instance, one transformer may be able to take in multiple voltage inputs (and also there can be multiple output taps as well) so like one transformer may be able to take in either 120v or 240v.
if that cut wire is a ground, then it would just be going to the metal frame of the transformer. this can be verified with a continuity meter.

like Andy said, make sure you have good grounding from anything metal like the monitor frame, metal control panel parts, etc. because from what I hear, the jpac is sensitive to these issues

[ed12]

hi
no its right for 120vac
top 2 wire's go monitor
thus making the power supply hot
but monitor is cold to ground
refer to pic #3
u can clearly see the green >earth-path<
and the top of the transformer >out-put<

ed

[lostinarcade]

okay i just checked the cab inside again and noticed something.
this wire right here has a plug at the end, it goes around the monitor... its 2 wires, as u can see with a black plug at the end. whats this?
http://i54.tinypic.com/2qs9e6o.jpg

i wish someone could just explain to me 100% how to get this right. like for instance, from the wall it goes here, and u have to put a wire there and also do this and that. just kind of a step by step how to thing.

okay some questions from what i understand i should do. in this picture. http://i53.tinypic.com/104q5c4.jpg
hookup the transfomer as is from the wall, but the 3rd wire from wall thats ground, should be connected with a wire to everything thats metal?
around the screen there are metal bolts that hold it in place, should i have a ground wire to that? ground wire to transfomer and also the adjustment box of the monitor?
control panel is made from wood and everything is wired to the jamma harness. should i have a loop going from the jamma harness ground that the buttons are connected to going to the jpac ground also?
how about my computer should that have the ground wire attached to the case? lol stupid question but i have to ask.
is this safe todo? as in i wont blow the monitor or something like that , or cause a fire etc?

surely it cant be this complicated. i just need a step by step thing and its done and dusted.

[lostinarcade]

hi
no its right for 120vac
top 2 wire's go monitor
thus making the power supply hot
but monitor is cold to ground
refer to pic #3
u can clearly see the green >earth-path<
and the top of the transformer >out-put<

ed

ed the pic 3 u talking about, thats the ground going to the jamma harness. but there cant be no ground/earth cause there is not a ground/earth wire that comes from the wall...
also that powersupply will be removed, i just included the pics, since its not needed when u run the jpac and could only cause some problems or even burn out from what i was reading.
im a lil bit confused about ur reply sorry man.

[ed12]

hi
if u are using this on a mame
>http://www.ultimarc.com/jpac.html<
then yes u no longer need the power supply
from what i can see of the pic of
the transformer pic #2
that black wire is a tap
what may i ask is your :main's: voltage
120 or 220 ?

where u see the fuse holder's on the right of the transformer
that should hook straight to your monitor :ac: in

ed

[mgb]

okay i just checked the cab inside again and noticed something.
this wire right here has a plug at the end, it goes around the monitor... its 2 wires, as u can see with a black plug at the end. whats this?
http://i54.tinypic.com/2qs9e6o.jpg

i wish someone could just explain to me 100% how to get this right. like for instance, from the wall it goes here, and u have to put a wire there and also do this and that. just kind of a step by step how to thing.

okay some questions from what i understand i should do. in this picture. http://i53.tinypic.com/104q5c4.jpg
hookup the transfomer as is from the wall, but the 3rd wire from wall thats ground, should be connected with a wire to everything thats metal?
around the screen there are metal bolts that hold it in place, should i have a ground wire to that? ground wire to transfomer and also the adjustment box of the monitor?
control panel is made from wood and everything is wired to the jamma harness. should i have a loop going from the jamma harness ground that the buttons are connected to going to the jpac ground also?
how about my computer should that have the ground wire attached to the case? lol stupid question but i have to ask.
is this safe todo? as in i wont blow the monitor or something like that , or cause a fire etc?

surely it cant be this complicated. i just need a step by step thing and its done and dusted.

Unfortunately there is no magic answer here from what your showing. you keep bringing up the monitor. does the monitor work or not? is video not getting to the monitor.
From what your showing, things look to be hooked up correctly.
I'm a little confused because the picture that you reference as showing  2 wires with a black plug going to the monitor.... I don't see the monitor in that picture.
As far as grounding the cabinet to earth ground, the ground starts at the power cord and goes into the cabinet. from there make sure it has a path to the metal frame of the monitors isolation transformer (on the floor of the cab) and make sure there is a path to the metal frame that the monitor is in. there also should be a ground path to metal parts like the coin door.
If you have metal mounting plates on your joysticks, then they should also be in the ground path.
Don't confuse this with the ground loop that goes to your buttons and joystick switches. that is a completely seperate loop.
I wouldn't worry about grounding the computer, that should be done through the computers power cord.

If your motherboard blew after plugging in the jpac, I would look into what directly wire to that such as the switches and video.
It would also help to have better pictures that show all wiring.

You really need to verify how the jpac is wired.

[mgb]

It looks like those red wires that you list as going around the monitor, actually terminates at the bolt on the monitors frame. There is no photo of where the other end of that cable is but I assume it should be going to ground.

Are you positive that the motherboard blew. because you installed soft 15khz in order to run this pc on an arcade monitor and then hooked back up an LCD. maybe the lcd just won't show anything because of the 15khz signal.

[lostinarcade]

It looks like those red wires that you list as going around the monitor, actually terminates at the bolt on the monitors frame. There is no photo of where the other end of that cable is but I assume it should be going to ground.

i cant see the other end of it from what i checked. the monitor works fine , there aint not problem with it whatsoever. the gameboard plays fine, everything works 100% as should.
only problem is grounding issue, not cause there is a problem with gameplay or anything like that with the original board, its all 100%. the problem is since the thing is not grounded i possibly fried my motherboard, hence my question about the monitor all the time since thats the only piece of the puzzle thats plugged in other than my computer...
this http://i54.tinypic.com/2qs9e6o.jpg picture u point to if u look up just a little bit from the right hand side u can see the first bolt of the monitor.
if u look at this picture http://i53.tinypic.com/2mo5vuo.jpg u can see the monitor, i just took 2 pictures since the one here u cant see the end of it.

the wire infact from what i have checked does not go anywhere to a ground or anything like that... ill double check it to make sure.
but those 2 wires with the plug on it, should i remove the plug and connect a ground to that?

[mgb]

Theres no way to see in that pic that the wire goes to the frame bolt but I can see it in one of the other pics. That there is your monitor frame ground, but you need to verify if it goes to ground (ac earth ground) verify it visually and with a meter.
 That is the only ground that arcade monitors get.

[lostinarcade]

It looks like those red wires that you list as going around the monitor, actually terminates at the bolt on the monitors frame. There is no photo of where the other end of that cable is but I assume it should be going to ground.


i cant see the other end of it from what i checked. the monitor works fine , there aint not problem with it whatsoever. the gameboard plays fine, everything works 100% as should.
only problem is grounding issue, not cause there is a problem with gameplay or anything like that with the original board, its all 100%. the problem is since the thing is not grounded i possibly fried my motherboard, hence my question about the monitor all the time since thats the only piece of the puzzle thats plugged in other than my computer...
this http://i54.tinypic.com/2qs9e6o.jpg picture u point to if u look up just a little bit from the right hand side u can see the first bolt of the monitor.
if u look at this picture http://i53.tinypic.com/2mo5vuo.jpg u can see the monitor, i just took 2 pictures since the one here u cant see the end of it.

the wire infact from what i have checked does not go anywhere to a ground or anything like that... ill double check it to make sure.
but those 2 wires with the plug on it, should i remove the plug and connect a ground to that? ill fix this thing if its the last thing i do.

[lostinarcade]

i cant see the other end of it from what i checked. the monitor works fine , there aint not problem with it whatsoever. the gameboard plays fine, everything works 100% as should.
only problem is grounding issue, not cause there is a problem with gameplay or anything like that with the original board, its all 100%. the problem is since the thing is not grounded i possibly fried my motherboard, hence my question about the monitor all the time since thats the only piece of the puzzle thats plugged in other than my computer...
this http://i54.tinypic.com/2qs9e6o.jpg picture u point to if u look up just a little bit from the right hand side u can see the first bolt of the monitor.
if u look at this picture http://i53.tinypic.com/2mo5vuo.jpg u can see the monitor, i just took 2 pictures since the one here u cant see the end of it.

the wire infact from what i have checked does not go anywhere to a ground or anything like that... ill double check it to make sure.
but those 2 wires with the plug on it, should i remove the plug and connect a ground to that? ill fix this thing if its the last thing i do.

[/quote]

[ed12]

that in pic #2 is the degauss coil..
it should not hook to the transformer
but rather through a ptc/relay on the monitor.

the ac main's should go from the transformer to the monitor

as for grounding
 ground to transformer/then monitor/then coin door/then control panel,
now days we tie them all back seperate
to a common binding post..

as a rule
1=hot black for 120vac brown 220vac
2=ground green for 120vac yellos with a green tracer 220vac
3=return white for 120 vac blue 220vac

sec. side of tranformer goes to monitor 120 vac in,tag a chassic ground here
chk to make sur u are tieing the ground of the interface to ac hot,that6 will def give your mobo a headache..

ed

[lostinarcade]

that in pic #2 is the degauss coil..
it should not hook to the transformer
but rather through a ptc/relay on the monitor.

the ac main's should go from the transformer to the monitor

as for grounding
 ground to transformer/then monitor/then coin door/then control panel,
now days we tie them all back seperate
to a common binding post..

as a rule
1=hot black for 120vac brown 220vac
2=ground green for 120vac yellos with a green tracer 220vac
3=return white for 120 vac blue 220vac

sec. side of tranformer goes to monitor 120 vac in,tag a chassic ground here
chk to make sur u are tieing the ground of the interface to ac hot,that6 will def give your mobo a headache..

ed

i think you are right about that being the degauss coil or something, since it goes around the monitor and there is one wire that goes across the back of the screen thats hooked up into the back of the monitor. i have pics of it below , where i wrote "degauss coil?" thats the wire thats connected to go across the back of the monitor.

some more pics.
http://i51.tinypic.com/212vl8h.jpg
http://i56.tinypic.com/4kwvm.jpg
http://i51.tinypic.com/24pib8i.jpg
http://i56.tinypic.com/2cf44ug.jpg

ed. how do i ground all these things? do i solder a wire to it or something and where ? like for instance on the transfomer where would i put a ground wire, on the monitor where should the wire go? on the coin door where should the wire go, on the coin mech itself or on the metal plate its attached to? since im pretty sure there is a ground wire connected to it with the power going to either the jamma harness or the gameboard powersupply, do i attach the ground loop to that ground wire? ahh im so confused.
and on the control panel all wires have a ground going to the jamma harness, do i hook that wire up to the ground of the plug also?
having all those daisy chained to the wall plug ground/earth would do the job?

doing it right and making sure its done correctly is my concern.

thanks for the help sofar guys. sorry im asking so much questions i just dont know anything about this kinda stuff, now if it was computers or somethng like that it would have been easy.

[ed12]

hi
man i gotta slow down when i type

to the ground,it's easy
if u do not have a common ground point ? u make your own ie a binding post >bolt and nut here< or
just bring a ground from the metal chassic of the monitor,and 1 from the coin door,and 1 from control panel down to the transformer,then the ground of your line input >green< will tie to that point..all will be fully earth grounded in your cab..just make sure any where u make ground to remove all paint and varnish.

the metal brad in pic #1 is your picture tube :static: ground
leave it intact do not disturb it..it act's as a high voltage static drain

the black cable wrapping the picture tube in picture #2 is the degauss coil
i will go on a limb here and ask if this is where the 2 red wire's come from ?

pic #3 is the foucs lead,and or your picture tube ground return :leave it alone:.
u olny need to ground to the metal chassic of the monitor

ed

[lostinarcade]

hi
man i gotta slow down when i type

to the ground,it's easy
if u do not have a common ground point ? u make your own ie a binding post >bolt and nut here< or
just bring a ground from the metal chassic of the monitor,and 1 from the coin door,and 1 from control panel down to the transformer,then the ground of your line input >green< will tie to that point..all will be fully earth grounded in your cab..just make sure any where u make ground to remove all paint and varnish.

the metal brad in pic #1 is your picture tube :static: ground
leave it intact do not disturb it..it act's as a high voltage static drain

the black cable wrapping the picture tube in picture #2 is the degauss coil
i will go on a limb here and ask if this is where the 2 red wire's come from ?

pic #3 is the foucs lead,and or your picture tube ground return :leave it alone:.
u olny need to ground to the metal chassic of the monitor

ed

yes ed slow down u have to remember im a total newbie at this.
there is no common ground yet, id have to remove the current power lead, and get one that has 3 wires cause this one just has 2.
hook the same 2 wires up to the transfomer and the 3rd wire that would be ground id have to daisy chain to where i want things grounded?

"the black cable wrapping the picture tube in picture #2 is the degauss coil
i will go on a limb here and ask if this is where the 2 red wire's come from...."
yes thats correct, it goes all around the monitor.

the control panel is made out of wood not metal. so do have to attach a ground wire to the wire of the ground that goes to the jamma harness or not?
also the coin door is not a door. its just a coin mech, with a opening at the bottem that has a box for the coins.
only the front part of the coin mech is made from metal , but there is alot of plastic on it.

can i attach a ground wire to one of the monitors bolts, will that work? to ground. like u see in the right hand corner here is the bolt http://i51.tinypic.com/212vl8h.jpg
or do u mean this on the right, the control board http://i51.tinypic.com/24pib8i.jpg
so what im asking the metal chassis is this the part where the monitor is screwed down into the cabinet with bolts?

if i ground all that stuff. it would be all good to plug in the jpac?

sorry again for all the stupid questions. but i always play things safe rather than messing stuff up and then crying cause i was not patient.

[mgb]

The answer has been given a few times now.
1) Change your power cord to one that has a ground (3rd wire), in order to have a ground path (assuming you outlets are grounded.
2)in the cabinet, put a ground lug on that ground wire
3) run a ground cable (14 gauge) form each of the following locations, to that lug and attach.
      a) The metal frame of the isolation transformer
      b) the coin door
      c) the metal frame that holds the monitor control board (chassis). its mounted on the side wall of the cab
      d) one f the bolts that hold the monitor to the cabinet
      e) any metal controls on the control panel.
4) Verify the wiring of your jpac. You have asked for help but you have refused to verify some of what you've been asked. When helping someone troubleshoot a problem, there are questions that have to be answered in order to figure out what is going on, but you have not been helpful in answering those questions.
You've been given th answers, now you have some work to do to get it going

[lostinarcade]

The answer has been given a few times now.
1) Change your power cord to one that has a ground (3rd wire), in order to have a ground path (assuming you outlets are grounded.
2)in the cabinet, put a ground lug on that ground wire
3) run a ground cable (14 gauge) form each of the following locations, to that lug and attach.
      a) The metal frame of the isolation transformer
      b) the coin door
      c) the metal frame that holds the monitor control board (chassis). its mounted on the side wall of the cab
      d) one f the bolts that hold the monitor to the cabinet
      e) any metal controls on the control panel.
4) Verify the wiring of your jpac. You have asked for help but you have refused to verify some of what you've been asked. When helping someone troubleshoot a problem, there are questions that have to be answered in order to figure out what is going on, but you have not been helpful in answering those questions.
You've been given th answers, now you have some work to do to get it going

mgb im sorry for asking so many stupid questions i know. but i just needed make 100% sure of how todo this.
i ordered a new motherboard for my computer, put in the cpu and it doesnt work, took the cpu out put it on my friends board it also does not work, so motherboard and cpu fried. then i used my motherboard with my friends cpu and my ram it boots the pc, when trying to install windows it keeps on restarting so i took hes ram and put it in and what do u know windows install. that means 3 components gone. im even surprised the hard drives still work. but now im thinking the power supply might be gone too, cause windows restarts randomly now and gives error msg, thats the only things left the powersupply or the hard drive has something going on with it even if it works fine... how unlucky can u get 
im not asking for tech support on the computer, i mainly told this story so u know why i had to make sure so this does not happen again. im not rich and this is a costly lesson. im just amazed that it caused this much damage, i almost cant believe it.
anyways thanks for all the response from everyone and sorry once again for all the questions and if i did not give a straight answer im sorry for that also.

[mgb]

No problem,
 I'm sorry to hear about another motherboard blowing.
Did you take care of all the grounding as explained?
Have you verified your wiring to the jpac.

I'm not sure because I've never used a jpac, but I thought the usual problem it'd cause is to short out the 5v.
it just seems odd that it would take out the cpu and ram.

just as an idea, can you get your hands on some older computers for cheap or free and try out on those first?

[BobA]

It is a the point where a new jamma harness wired and verified would be safer then trying to troubleshoot a problem where the OP does not have the skills.   An even easier solution would be to strip out the existing and put in and ipac with new wiring.  Does the cab have to keep the jamma harness?

[lostinarcade]

No problem,
 I'm sorry to hear about another motherboard blowing.
Did you take care of all the grounding as explained?
Have you verified your wiring to the jpac.

I'm not sure because I've never used a jpac, but I thought the usual problem it'd cause is to short out the 5v.
it just seems odd that it would take out the cpu and ram.

just as an idea, can you get your hands on some older computers for cheap or free and try out on those first?

another board did not blow. its still the same board, its just the cpu was also damaged. so now i have to buy a new cpu this week, wanted to get one today but my friend was busy and can only goto the suppliers on monday for me now.  im yet to take care of the grounding, just took 2 days to troubleshoot this computer and seems i might have got myself a defective new motherboard, so have to return it on monday ill be sure to do the grounding stuff asap and also check to see that the jamma harness is infact wired up correctly to go into the jpac even if its going to be a mission to check every single connection , it wont be so bad since i can trace every wire to see where it goes from the jamma. atleast there is a chart on the website for the jpac so i can check that just to be safe this time after i do the grounding.
wish i had infact had a old pc to play around with ,but i dont. have to use the new computer and just close my eyes hold my breathe and press start and hopefully after i do the grounding and checked the harness and every piece of wire i can things will be good to go.
i could cry about what happened but guess sometimes to learn something u have to fail a few times...
bottem line make sure ur cabinet is grounded and wired correctly...

[lostinarcade]

It is a the point where a new jamma harness wired and verified would be safer then trying to troubleshoot a problem where the OP does not have the skills.   An even easier solution would be to strip out the existing and put in and ipac with new wiring.  Does the cab have to keep the jamma harness?

the jamma harness is working like it should with the current game thats in the machine. king of fighters 98 on a neo geo slot 1 board.
the problem was the arcade machine has no ground on it, and im pretty sure since i plugged the computer into it and via the onboard vga of the motherboard thats the reason it killed the board since thats the only way it could have happened. like andy said "Also any short between the tracking on the J-PAC and any ground or other metal part can cause damage as it would ground out the 5 volts sent through USB."

the reason i went with the jpac was its easy todo for keeping the arcade monitor and i want to keep that, not sure what the other option would be if u dont use one to get picture from the monitor to my computer...
another point if i do at some point decide to sell the cabinet, i could always just insert the old gameboard and sell it like that without any issues.
its not rocket since on how todo this stuff, im not building a space shuttle haha. its just if i dont know how todo something its hard no matter how simple it might be, now that i have the correct info ill surely sort out the problem. skills aint the problem since doing this kinda stuff is pretty easy and straight foward,its the information thats the problem. i mean if u tell me wire here , wire there a kid could do it.

anyways ill get to work and let u guys know about what happens.

thanks guys.

[Nephasth]

Schematics and basic electrical troubleshooting. You're right, it's not rocket science...

[mgb]

Ok, good luck.
 When going through the grounding, make sure you have a multi-meter to check for ground paths.
I know on some of the wires, you said that you can't see where its going. Those times, it really helps to have a meter.

[lostinarcade]

okay status update.
got myself a multimeter just to be sure things are connected.
connected, ground wire to the transfomer, the monitor chassis, the monitor frame and also the powersupply for the gameboard.
also i did disconnect the game powersupply and remove the gameboard from the cabinet to be more safe, but still got the ground attached to the powersupply, anything metal im grounding to be safe.'
also checked the jamma harness to make sure its wired correctly and it looks good to me.
sofar pc did not blow up or anything. switched it on and off about 20 times sofar..
thanks guys for the help. 

but now i cant get it to display at 15 khz.   
maybe its the intel onboard display or some software settings. ill just open a new threat for that,if i cant find any answer with my searches.

[mgb]

  glad to hear that you've made some good progress.
good luck on the 15khz problem, I'm sure someone here has dealt with this issue before and can help.

[ed12]

hi
good to hear ,congrad's

onto your question
what type of monitor is it ?
reason i ask is some will olny do 25khz and other's will olny do 15khz..
question's then are
 is there a switch setting on the monitor ?
and or a jumper to set it to the freq. u want.?
so again what is the monitor type ? ie mfg and it's spec's ?

ed

[mgb]

yeah but his cab originally had a neo geo 1 slot in it, so it should be a 15khz

[lostinarcade]

i got it to work guys 15 khz, i tried it with intel onboard display and it was no go, put a nvidia card in there and bam it did the trick...
loaded soft 15khz. but then i had a image that was split into two so i ran powerstrip also and picked the arcade setting and it worked.

but now im having some monitor adjustment issues... the name of the monitor piece of trash...
but i made another topic about my monitor adjustment issue. ill look for the name of the monitor tonight and reply if i dont forget.
horizontal (left to right is fine).. but vertical is not correct....
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/217/30082011112y.jpg/

here is my post....
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=114163.0