pga golf vr-gobal

[simonw]

Hi
I still have a problem with my Championship 2 arcade machine.
Since my last post I've installed the correct Nvidia Ti4200 and installed the recovery disc but after the reboot I receive a blue Windows error screen (attached).

Solutions I've tried:
I installed XP to check the hardware: everything works fine.
Tried another hard drive with the recovery disc: same blue screen
Booted without any PCI cards installed, only the AGP: still the same problem.

Could my recovery disc be the problem? Could you give me access to try another?

I've run out of ideas to fix the machine but I'm reluctant to convert it into a mame cabinet!

Please could someone advise to what the problem maybe and save my machine!

[stpcore]

Well that screen is commonly referred to as the "Blue Screen of Death" among Windows users and can mean a bunch of different things.  Since we are working with a stripped down version of Windows XP you really aren't going to be able to install updated service packs to see if it helps your issue.  If it were me I would probably start with checking to make certain that the bios are correctly set.

You can do this by hitting the DEL key while the computer is attempting to boot.  Once in the bios screen make sure that these values are matching your machine.  The below information was pulled from page 5 of this thread and was originally posted by Ed12.

....main screen...
on power boot >>delete key<<
this will take u to the bios screen

std setting's as follow's
current date must be current
current time must be current

ide primary >> wdc wd200bb >20meg< this is the hard drive def for your unit..could veri
ide slave  >> none
ide secondary >> master >cdrom<
ide secondary >> slave none

drive a 3.5"
drive b none

video >> ega/vga
halt on >>  no error's
base mem >>640k
extened mem >> 52364
total >> 524288

....advanced....
bios flash protect >> disabled
virus warring >> disabled
cpu l1 & l2 cache >> enabled
quick power on self test >> fast
first boot device >> cdrom
second boot device >> hdd-0
third boot device >> floppy :we can turn this off:
boot other device >> disabled
swap floppy drive >> disabled
boot up floppy seek >> enabled :we can turn this off:
boot up numblock status >> on

that is the first 2 settings page
we skip the third and go to the 4th

......integerated peripherals......
on-chip primary  pci ide >> enabled
ide primary master pio >> auto
ide primary slave pio >> auto
ide primary master udma >> auto
ide primary slave udma >> auto
on-chip secondary pci ide >> enabled
ide secondary master pio >> auto
ide secondary slave pio >> auto
ide secondary master udma >> auto
ide secondary slave udma >> auto
usb controller >> enabled <<< important >> usb will not work if disabled
usb keyboard support >> disabled
ac97 audio >> auto
ac97 modem >> auto
init display first >> agp : this is 1 of the setting's we change when using a dif video card
onboard ac97 codec >> enabled
onboard lan control >> enabled :we need this for turenne
onboard lan boot rom >> disabled :we enable it to use the lan
ide hdd block mode >> enabled : this is beacuase u may have a cable select mode,and or master/slave setting on your hd setup

that is part 4 of the bios setup

Once your values are complete try restarting the computer and see if it gets you anywhere.  At that point even if it's not booting at least you are starting your diagnosis with the correct settings.

[ed12]

hi
thk-u stp core i did skip that
but the moment i read the op used windows xp to test i knew were in for a few problem's,i guess most missed the point we are working with windows xp>e<
yes that is called the blue screen of death,and the op should refer to the bios guide to start with,as a rule u find it with crappy ram >most common< and or other hardware has gone south,but the op SHOULD NEVER USE FULL XP TO TEST IT ON A KNOWN XPE SYSTEM,that take's time to strip out part's u just do not want,ie7/ie8
and all of it dependince's >value's<,plus i guess they missed a few point's about hercules and gvrplus,which must have the new video card value's placed in them
for there call's..i could go on and on

ed

[simonw]

Thank you for the quick reply.
My Bios is set correctly as per your instructions.
I'm not trying to install the game in the full XP environment. I installed XP to see if it would install (which it did and everything works)

The problem is that I want the machine to work with the recovery disc XPE but after a successful install from booting with the CD the system reboots to the blue screen attached.

[stpcore]

Replacing the RAM or placing it in another socket has cleared this error for me in the past as well.  I've also had success getting these up and running by replacing the battery on the mother board.  Just a couple thoughts.

[simonw]

Thank you. I'll try that now.

I'm concerned that my recovery CD is incorrect. I've explored the CD and the current files are present in the PQ_DEBUG.TXT:
FileFind: Getting Files from \Gvr\Games\HP2\NFSHP2
FileFind: Push directory \Gvr\Games\HP2\NFSHP2

Is this correct? It looks like need for speed.

[stpcore]

I think Global VR places a lot of the same files on all of their Rescue CDs as I have Need for Speed files on my PGA Rescue as well.  I have to step out for a few hours so if you don't get additional help I will be back on a little later.

[simonw]

Thank you. I'm in the UK so I'll try and check later.

[simonw]

Unfortunately I've tried your suggestions but I still have the same problem.

Is there anything else I can try?

Cheers

[lilshawn]

did this machine operate correctly with the original card installed?

even though the card may be the same chipset as the original, it's vendor ID will not be the same. It may be throwing windows for a loop.

Have you tried repairing the original videocard? what's happened with it?

[simonw]

Yes but the card failed to work and started to beep 3 times on startup. I don't know how to fix them (any ideas?)
I still have the original card. The motherboard isn't the original but it was working before the video card failed.

[lilshawn]

it may be too far gone to repair... but, sometimes the capacitors on it are all swelled up or dried out, sometime replacing them can get it working again.

you can tell if they are bad by looking at the top. if it's nice and flat, it's good, if it's bubbled up, it's bad. sometimes the stuff inside will leak out. do a google search for "bad caps" for photos of about a bajillion bad capacitors.

your processor might be burned out. Does (did) the fan still turn? overheating them is bad.

[simonw]

There is no visual damage. The fan did work.
I don't understand why the computer works fine if I install windows XP but when I install the recovery disc from boot it installs successfully then BSOD on the reboot instead of asking for CD1.

Could my boot CD be incorrect? Is there more than one version for championship edition 2?

Thanks for the help!

[ed12]

hi
your firt problem is u put ntfs on that hard drive
u must re-format it back to fat32 >16 if u can reach it<
next u will change the cdrom,it is crappy..
then u will try a fresh reload of the game on the now clean drive
from the rescue disk it should say please wait and tel u to install cd1,cd2 etc
at that point once loaded it will tell u to remove all disk's,and reboot
thats when the hardrive will become  first boot divice
next it will take about 5mins durning which time u will c window's chooped
then hercules will kick out >kill-it's-self< and gvr will take over,game should load
if at any time u get blue screen of death,u still have some old window's componet's on the harddrive,at which point it will need a deeper cleaning
now with all that not with standing u could test everything sepreatley
ie video card into a running system,a xp harddrive with the setup u have
to see if u get blue screen of death
in short these machine's are very robust
so if u follow what i just said u may have it fixed tonight

ed

[simonw]

Hi Ed

Thank you for the reply. Unfortunately I've tried your suggestions but I still reboot to the BLOD

Do you have any other suggestions I can try?

Cheers
Simon

[ed12]

hi
ok this is going to be a long reply
i do need to step out,but will come back to it
with pointed info

ed

[ed12]

hi
simonw
this is going to be a long post with a load of question's in it
i need a simple yes or no answer

1=did u do the first item i requested ?
this would have been put the hardrive >the 1 with the pga off it to the side<
and use a replacement hardrive with window's on it to fire the unit up ?
if so did u get blue screen of death ?
2=did u reformat the harddrive in question to fat 32 >16< is best but most do not know how to get there,we can deal with 32
3=if u did replace the drive in question but still get the blue screen ?,did u replace the video card again ?
4=did u remove the ram and clean it,and replace it?
5=have u chked the mobo for any bad cap's as a op here asked ?
6=did u remove the interface card's ?
now with these q's just answer 1=yes or no etc etc there is olny 6 question's
i can better guide u with them answer's

ed

[simonw]

Hi

1.Yes the computer worked with another drive and XP
2.Yes FAT32
3.Yes
4.Yes
5.Yes
6.Yes

Thank you for the help.

[ed12]

hi
thk-u
your harddrive has a fubar mbr >master-boot-record<
which u cannot fix with a window's/os reload
do u have all the disk's for this game ?
if not tell me what is missing..the recover disk is perty generic
disk 1 carry's the main info
what the recovery disk should do with a fat 32/16 drive is prep it to take the game
if the mbr is bad it will not even catch it
olny the bios of the mobo will and or window's of any flavor
this was proven in my #1 question when i asked u to put the drive in question to the side and place in a normal xp drive..and will the board fire all the way up
your answer was >yes<
it point's u straight to the harddrive
now all is not lost here
u can use any drive >ide< over 20meg to get to where u want to go
i would start there
have seen it before and it drove me crazy,until i took stock of some used drive's and did exactley as i pointed out,format to fat16/32
then laid the s/w on it,when in real question i do a parition chk,that will show any bad mbr stuff
sorry this is so long but u will be chasing your tail unless u do these first step's

ed

[lilshawn]

the recovery disk just dumps the info on the drive...it doesn't verify it. if some info gets dumped into a bad sector, it keeps going. that's the problem with images. all the bits go into the same places on the drive regardless if the sector is bad or good..

[simonw]

I have all 3 CDs. I reformatted another 40gb drive to FAT32 and installed the recovery disc but I still receive the same blue screen on the reboot.

How do I run a partition and MBR check?

Also if I expand the reboot window details after the recovery CD install it states: The partition on disk 2 at sector 1 is unsafe until reboot. Is this normal?

Could my recovery CD be at fault?

[ed12]

hi
i am now trying my hardest here
as if u reformated a harddrive
and still recieve blue screen,but u have done all the other chk's
and everything worked
then 1 can only ask a few more question's
and make 1 statment
is this a :copy: of the rescue disk ?
if not and it's orignal.? then chance's are it is toast
if u rem back a few post's i said ditch the cdrom
u should have replaced it with a dvd rom
if it is a copy it was not done propley

to chk the parition and mbr u need 2 proggies
easudos
and easudos parition restore
if it cannot see the parition it mean's the mbr is fubar
if it can see it,it will repair it

also when u did the format i trust u did not use quick ?
as it will not remove old trace stuff

but i would look for a rescue disk
and we start there
now i think @stpcore put the proper size rescue disk on his ftp
maybe u can pm him for it
the rescuse disk is perty much a 1 size fit's all thingy

ed

[Slimonce]

Ed et al,  I've spent a few days reading this post and am amazed by you all. Thank you so much for sharing!  Two weeks ago, at the encouragement of a buddy I bought a champ III machine. My first arcade game ever!  After playing an hour or so the tower shut off. I cleaned the holy crap out of everything and same thing. Before reading your posts I took it to DIT for a diagnostic. Did I make a huge mistake by doing this?  I don't know jack besides how to wire a house. Feel like I'm over my head and got ripped off. I would love to be at the intelligence of you all when it comes to this. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Cheers and fore!!!

Btw. The game came w no discs. It does make 3 quick beeps when u turn it on but plays fine for an hour and will play again if u let it sit for a bit. I haven't heard jack from DIT so I'm a bit scared now.

[ed12]

hi
Slimonce
3 beeb's is normal post
ie the mobo comming up
if it run's for about an hour and shut's off..
i truly wish u had brought to our attenion first here
because there could be 2 reason for this
1= would be the monitor failing
2=the power supply in the unit falling
either are rather easy to diagnois
no in deep stuff there
u see as it is a vga out
when the unit shut's off ? u could hook a lcd to it to see if it is the tower or the monitor,now if it is the tower.? then all u need do is chk to make sure your power-supply is not going south,beside's using a meter and monitioring the +5 or +12v line's,is to look at the fan's in the unit,if they appear to verie in speed over an hour?
then your power supply is on it's marry way south,if the voltage's stay up
then u look for crappy cap's on the mombo..they will def pull the mobo board down
to see if the cap's are bad look for a buldge on there top's
mean's the fan's at 1 time craped out,and the mobo over-heated
90% of the time the micro will live through this,but will need to be resteated with fresh heat sink compond >$19.00< at your local electonics reatiler
the 15 cap's should olny cost u a total of about $15.00 .
a good 400 watt atx style power supply brand new
should olny run u about $30.00
so as u can see the repair is easy and fast
can u solder ? if so u can fix it yourself
just do yourself a favour and DO NOT buy it from EBAY..get fresh stuff
as to whom is reapiring it ? they should have been able to tell u within a few day's

ed

[Slimonce]

Thank you!  The monitor stays on and the tower completely shuts off. All fans seemed to work until that point. I believe the monitor said no video signal. It has a great picture which I figured was food since my buddy said be prepared to buy an LCD. It's weird because I let it run idle for four hours and all was good. It's only when's play for a while that the tower goes dead. I "inspected" what I know and things looked okay. I'll be sure to provide DIT Computers findings if they get back to me!  Appreciate your time very much!

[ed12]

hi
ok so we have it nailed to the tower
this is easy to repair..>DO NOT LET THEM SWITCH THE HARD DRIVE OR DO ANYTHING WITH IT< as it will make for a full brand new headache,u just do not want
now with that said..the video card on them is known to go south..and u just CANNOT
PLACE IN ANY WILLY NILLY CARD,there is a range of card's u can use
or wiat for my late realse as it carry's 90% of the card's hard coded into hercules and gvr,now a sub test here
is to have them remove the video card >board will default to on board video chip<
place a xp drive in the unit,and test mobo,if it passe's an hour test then u perty much know u need a video card
and it is extremely comon for the 4200 to crap out as the fan fail's and the chip goes south,if it dose not pass the hour test then your p/s is south
to be honest i have never truly seen a mirco go south on these unit's
there perty robust

ed

[Slimonce]

Will do. Just being honest, I paid 450 for the machine. All else seems to be fine except for the absence of the tournament stuff, can see it but cant highlight it. Did I do okay?  It has a card reader and the beta brite generic led. No cards tho!  Love what u guys r talking about w the tournament edition.  Wish I was there!

[ed12]

hi
unitl my realse goe's out
u will need a player's card to un-lock all course's
but once u get the tower back
follow some of my post's as to what u can and cannot do with an off the shelf unit
$450.00 is fair game as long as the monitor is strong and good
a willy nilly lcd is just a very bad idea
as the white's will tear and there is crap u can do about it
i have into length about it
i do believe if u take the time to re read my post's u will see >code posteded<
this would have been done,so if u can edit .ini's and or .cfg's
u can bypass card reader totaly,my realse walk's right around it and save's it to a file on the hardrive under c:\pga/gvr+/card/player_input <<that's the basic tree>>
now as i have said u can remove the dial up modem
also u can remove the usb2 port card
if u run into problem's with the :i/o: card for the game control's >which can be a problem child<
i did hard code in opti controller
it should auto detect it,slow's down the load up a byte but hey u know..
so u can ditch it also
so all is not lost

ed

[simonw]

Hi Ed

My recovery disc is a copy and the only one I have.
I've reformatted the hard drive to FAT16 and 32 but regardless of the format, after the recovery CD installs it reformatted it back to NTFS. Is this correct?

Easeus finds no problems and the BLOD still happens with the same error code.
I've sent stpcore a PM for a different recovery CD.

My image file is: PGA0002.PQI

This is driving me crazy
Is there anything else I could try?

The last thing I can think of is the motherboard isn't original. Could this cause a problem with the recovery CD drivers casing BLOD?

Also I read earlier in the post that Paulstevens had a Dell GX260 working. Would it be easier to make this work?

I'm determined to save the machine with your help!

Cheers.

[Spitfire]

Hi Simonw,
Mate of mine at a similar prob with his machine and nothing would fix it until he changed the ram in the machine not just the slots new ram same type. Then all fixes Ed n everyone else have mentioned hopefully will work.

I also have had the prob on my machine where game stops working after a while and it definatlely is a graphics card problem. You need to find another card of the same type or one that ur version of PGA excepts. I think this thread lists the excepted cards somewhere.

I hope this helps.

Thx Spitfire

[simonw]

Hi Spitfire

Unfortunately I have already replaced the ram which made no difference.
The graphics card is fine.

Cheers
Simon

[ed12]

hi
please hold until stpcore get's back to u with a good recovery disk
as i said 1 size fit's just about all
it should have formated back to ntfs..but this is not the ntfs u are uset to seeing in full window's,olny 1 part is truly ntfs the rest will come back as either usuable and or fat.
now if your parition is reporting back good
as u stated,then we are looking at a crappy copy of the recover disk
u see when they are copyed they have to be done in a ceritan way so as to get all the file's,as some are hidden,i will also add now that i will find it hard to believe u have bad hardware,as u have done all of the hardware test's i would have done
and it seem's to pointing to the rescue disk,let's just wait until we can u a full and complete copy

ed

[stpcore]

I've been in contact with simonw and he should have what he needs at this point.

How is the progress with your release coming, Ed?  Any updates?

One last question my friend...  Any chance if you have some free time in the next few days you may be able to post the drivers for my card reader and give me a simple tutorial on how to install them on my hard drive correctly?  I hate not having my custom golfer available!  If not...no worries as your release is much more important than my card reader at this point and I certainly don't want to delay that at all.

I was thinking of picking up another TI4200 and throwing it in that Dell Optiplex and see if it will fire up.  I know I will have to do something in order for the sound to work per paulstevens original posts awhile back.  Something to keep me busy until we are playing Ed's masterpiece PGA update.

[stpcore]

Hi Spitfire

Unfortunately I have already replaced the ram which made no difference.
The graphics card is fine.

Cheers
Simon

Simon...once you get your machine running consider checking in at our PGA Owner's Thread.  The link is below.  Thanks!

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,129168.0.html

[simonw]

stpcore
Thank you for the link!

Ed
What is the best way to burn the CD and make it bootable? I'm going to try Imgburn and allbootdiscs.com?

Cheers

[ed12]

hi
bootale-iso
is best
thk-u stp core for helping the op

ed

[simonw]

The recovery CD worked!  No more blue screen

Once XPE starts it asks for some missing drivers: SISAGP.SYS, PCI Simple communications controller and Multimedia controller.
The motherboard is a Gigabyte 8ST800 Rev 1.1

When I start the game CD it displays that the dongle is not valid. I have a championship 2 dongle and a 2.1.3.0 CD.
Is this because of the drivers?

Thank you so much for the support!

[ed12]

hi
simonw
yes it is
u need to find a disk from your rev
the reason i pointed to that rescue disk is to prove
a=u are not nut's
b=your disk is fubar
now let me see what i can dig up for u
but the short is there is no more blue screen >congrad's<
1 hurdel down 1 to go

ed

[simonw]

Thank you.
If you can't find a disc with my revision is there anyway I can use the newer version without a dongle?
My cabinet has the tournament upgrade(not sure if it makes a difference)

Cheers
Simon

[ed12]

hi
ok there is another op here that chime's in
let's see if that op will step up to the plate?
as most of mine are newer build's
this will save u alot of edit work
as in my build's i do remove the dongle call,as i have posted the code
and what to >kill<
this is done in .ini and .cfg file's
and if u not good at EDITING i would walk away
let's see what we can do
hang tight u are better then half way there

ed