Mortal Kombat cabinet restoring.. help needed problems keep showing up!

[Yamaha_ERG121]

Hi all,

I am new on this forum (well for the posting part, i always read a lot here).

A couple of months ago i bought a mortal kombat 1 cabinet (not in working order). Really nice cabinet... great one to restore.

The monitor was broken.. when powering on you could hear the game booting and the sounds of the menu.
Well after some time i fixed the monitor problem, (cap kit etc.) but all the sudden i got another problem.
A couple of roms on the main board could not be readed anymore. (well bad luck.. this can happen).

I got someone to program them for me and now the main board is fine again, no errors anymore.
But the game keeps rebooting, really anoying. The 5v should be fine because it have always worked when the monitor was still broken. (right?)
In the diagnostics menu i found out today that there is one rom and ram error on the sound board.. which was fine before!

U2 Ram error
U3 Rom error

"Sound IRQ not detected" it also says in the same menu.

One of these roms cannot easy be replaced because it has no socket but is soldered onto the board. (or could the error on the rom also be generated by the faulty other rom?
Does anyone have any idea how to fix this. How can it be that these roms keep failing one after another...? (or is this still bad luck!?)
Is there a way to make the board stop rebooting and start the game (possible without sound?).

I replaced the battery of the board today, because the one on it was empty. Ofcourse this didn't make the board boot.

edit:

added 2 pictures of my unlucky cabinet

[Malenko]

wow, thats a great looking cab!  I would message Qbert and see if he has a replacement board for you:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?action=profile;u=7583

I got a TUnit MK1 for $60 shipped.

[Yamaha_ERG121]

Thx ! The cab sure does look better in pictures i think so. But the sideart is still looking good for a 20 year old cabinet.

It has some problems, backplate is bad due to mosture it won't fit in anymore. So need to make up a new one.
Powercable is almost in two (or more) pieces.
The marqee lighting was broken, it couldn't even hold a tl-bar anymore but this is fixed already.
Some kid drawed something on the sideart of the control panel (the other side on the photo). (Thank god no mustache on mr. Johnny Cage , but still...).
One joystick (ofcourse player1) is really really bad and will be replaced.

The plan is to replace all the t-molding and the art of the control panel because the top layer of the vinyl is coming off.
And redo/fix the damaged black paint on front and back.


Thank you for the link but:
Unfortunatly i can't view any profiles yet. ( I guess it is because i only have opened this topic yet).
I looked around on ebay already for a sound board, but i can't find a sound board only.
 
 

[Malenko]

Id take qbert over a random ebay seller anyday

[Malenko]

ok so, mamemarquees or game on graphix can do the control panel artwork for you and in the mean time you can swap the player 1 and 2 sticks so you can play on the left side of the machine.

Any luck with your boards?

[Yamaha_ERG121]

Yeah the first thing I want to fix is the control panel. It looks horrible now the metal bar on front is off that covered up the bad vinyl layer under it. I am building a custom bartop from scratch so want to wait with ordering anything till the bartop is further in progress. Shipping costs are skyhigh for  me because I am from the Netherlands.

But first of all it would be great if the cabinet would boot. But ofcourse the soundboard is still broken, it won't boot it's still stuck in the damn loop. It is normal right that it won't boot with a working soundboard?
I did send Qbert a message and he probably has a soundboard. I hope it will work soon again can't wait to hear the mortal kombat tune coming out of the cabinet.

Today i took out the control panel and looked on the web for replacement joysticks. (I want to replace both joysticks, so they both work equally again).  
I am wondering which joysticks sold today has the same look and feel as the original ones? Or at least come close to it?

[Malenko]

I think they were happs supers.


You can just unplug the sound board completely, it should run just without any sound.

[Yamaha_ERG121]

I think they were happs supers.


You can just unplug the sound board completely, it should run just without any sound.

Hmmm .. that is strange! because it doesn't (i tried this before).

I had one broken rom on the mainboard which i replaced with a newly programmed eprom.
Now on startup it says all roms are fine, but it won't boot it keeps resetting. Can it be it has a problem with the new rom or.... suddenly  with the power (too low 5v)?

That would be really strange right, because it worked when the monitor was dead.

Either way i will try to change the voltage a bit, and see if that work!

[Yamaha_ERG121]

an update:

After being covered up the whole winter a couple of weeks ago i uncovered the cabinet. (It was too cold to work on it during the winter).
It's stored in the garage which doesn't have a heating. So i covered it up really really good. I have the cabinet so far now that it will boot... everything works now except the first player joystick and the soundboard.
(I already knew that i had to change that joystick so.. that's not the problem).

I hope someone here maybe can point me in the right direction considering the soundboard?

The soundboard still as the same errors:

U2 Ram error
U3 Rom error
"Sound IRQ not detected"

Can this errors occur because of problems with the power supply or is it  better for me to look for another soundboard?
I had to adjust the 5v first to make the motherboard boot..

I hear the usual buzzing sound when turning up the volume but no sounds.  That makes sense of because of the errors in the menu.
I want to make the whole thing work before i start on the looks of the cabinet.

[MK3FAN]

an update:

After being covered up the whole winter a couple of weeks ago i uncovered the cabinet. (It was too cold to work on it during the winter).
It's stored in the garage which doesn't have a heating. So i covered it up really really good. I have the cabinet so far now that it will boot... everything works now except the first player joystick and the soundboard.
(I already knew that i had to change that joystick so.. that's not the problem).

I hope someone here maybe can point me in the right direction considering the soundboard?

The soundboard still as the same errors:

U2 Ram error
U3 Rom error
"Sound IRQ not detected"

Can this errors occur because of problems with the power supply or is it  better for me to look for another soundboard?
I had to adjust the 5v first to make the motherboard boot..

I hear the usual buzzing sound when turning up the volume but no sounds.  That makes sense of because of the errors in the menu.
I want to make the whole thing work before i start on the looks of the cabinet.

99.9% of the time, when you get those errors, the ribbon cable is on backwards. Make sure The cable is hooked up where Pin 1 of the main board corresponds to Pin 1 of the Sound Board. Bet that's your issue. Of not, you may need a new sound board.

[Yamaha_ERG121]

Thx for your reply

This is my first cabinet so all the help is really appriciated thx :-)
I already checked it, the ribbon is connected fine. These rules also apply on desktop computers where i am familiar with.

Now i suddenly discovered a disconnected cable in the cabinet. coming/going to J4... Mostly gray collor coded..

The cabinet is stored in my dad's garage which is very dark.
I cannot really see now where it should be going.. or where it was connected. When i got the cabinet a lot of the cables where disconnected...
I had the manual digital somewhere will try to find out where the cable belongs.. But i'm affraid this really couldn't affect the soundboard this way could it?


 

[MK3FAN]

Thx for your reply

This is my first cabinet so all the help is really appriciated thx :-)
I already checked it, the ribbon is connected fine. These rules also apply on desktop computers where i am familiar with.

Now i suddenly discovered a disconnected cable in the cabinet. coming/going to J4... Mostly gray collor coded..

The cabinet is stored in my dad's garage which is very dark.
I cannot really see now where it should be going.. or where it was connected. When i got the cabinet a lot of the cables where disconnected...
I had the manual digital somewhere will try to find out where the cable belongs.. But i'm affraid this really couldn't affect the soundboard this way could it?


 

That's the power connection. There's your problem. See attached picture for connection reference...

[Yamaha_ERG121]

Thx for your picture but this wasn't the lose connection.

The connection that is lose is all the way in front of the cabinet near the connections to the control panel.
Every connection on the soundboard is connected. Checked the pin1 again today... reconnected everything again... nothing.
A while ago i was just playing "blind" because the sound was the only thing working, now the monitor works like a charm but the sound doesn't.

I installed a new potmeter just before fixing the monitor because the pot was very bad, but the soundboard was working. Could it be that a (still) faulty pot cause this kind of errors? Because that is one thing that has changed. (replaced the pot with one with the exact same specifications).

Still haven't found where the lose connection should belong.... I will upload a picture later when i can use my own pc.

[Yamaha_ERG121]

Well this week i installed two new joysticks in the control panel.. (Changed both of them because the ones in the cabinet where in such a bad shape).

The cab works great now (too bad still the lack of sound). I found a soundboard on the net which i ordered. I hope this will solve my problem. If not... well i have some spare parts...!

I still didn't figure out where the connection should belong...

Made some pictures yesterday...:


inside the cabinet, still a mess will tie the cables up later.


the non-working soundboard.


Inside cash door, and the lose cable.

lose cable(zoomed):




edit:

And installed a new powercable. The old one really excisted more out of tape then anything else:

[Yamaha_ERG121]

 The cabinet is fully working now.. !

[flashiv]

Nice Restore!! 

[Yamaha_ERG121]

Thx

I hope no-one cares i bump this thread right now. (else sorry)

I am going to start with the looks of the cabinet right now but i am not sure yet what to do with it.

Things i want to change for sure:

The vinyl of the control panel and 2 sides of control panel
Need to do something about the not fitting back-door.

Where i am not sure of:

I want to re-paint al the black and fill up the holes in the front where a bar was installed first.
I want to change the t-molding because it's really looking bad at some places

I am not quite sure yet about those 2 last parts because:

Which black paint should i take to make it look exactly as it looked before the damages.
Does anyone know a (online) t-molding seller that sells something that is similair to the t-molding on my cabinet?

I ordered some samples before from a seller but nothing really seems to be the right color.