Megatouch Force Boot problems

[TalkingHeadsFan]

Hi all,

I just received a Megatouch Force eVo I bought online which was working before shipped. Now, I can't get it to boot. I tried reseating all connectors and chips, but with no progress.

Sometimes it will hang on the opening Force screen, other times it will progress to a PXE boot using 18h screen. This morning it went to a "booting Linux" screen before hanging.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get this thing running? Heres a couple videos I sent to the seller...





Thanks in advance!

[orizzle]

I would start by blaming the hard drive. Try connecting another hard drive and install the software. You can get the ISOs from Merits website

What is the Mario Kart thing in the background?

[TalkingHeadsFan]

A Mario kart poster. I haven't hung it up yet; the basement is kind of a game room in progress.

[obcd]

See if you can find a keyboard connector on it's pc board and plug a keyboard in.
If that works out, hit the del button to enter it's bios setup.
Check if the harddisk is still recognised in the bios and if it's set to boot from it.
If you see "booting linux" the disk is recognised. So indeed very likely that it's corrupted.
Having the iso's to restore the disk is one thing, but you will need a good disk as well.
You could check the brand and type of disk and run a diagnostic tool to check it.
Most manufactures have one that can be burned on a cd, and boots from it.

[TalkingHeadsFan]

I've successfully made it into the bios setup menu, but as soon as I'm in it, it freezes and I can't select anything...

Maybe the hard drive was busted in shipping?

Also, it seems the software links on the Merit website are no longer functional, so even if I could figure out how to get the software onto a drive, I couldn't download it.

[Rcadefan]

Hi, i am the one that sold you this unit. I thought it was the HD too, I'm not an expert with these machines though. If it's trying to boot can we rule out the bios?

Happy thanksgiving to all.

[obcd]

http://legacy.megatouch.com/support/downloads/download_manager.php

You will need the bios setup if you want the system to boot from dvd or cdrom, unless it checks to boot from there first.
Basically, the system is simply a pc. Sometimes they buildin protections. For instance, the bios can check the harddisk serial or type and can refuse to boot if they don't match. I have no idea if such protection is present in the Force. (Just saying it exists) As the bios splash screen is customised, it can contain such snakes.

[orizzle]

I've successfully made it into the bios setup menu, but as soon as I'm in it, it freezes and I can't select anything...

You mean you can't even hit escape to get out of the BIOS or select anything?  I would also consider trying a PS/2 keyboard and checking to see if the machine is getting too hot.

Another option is trying to run a memory test from a USB drive to rule that out: http://www.memtest.org/download/5.01/memtest86+-5.01.usb.installer.zip

Also, it seems the software links on the Merit website are no longer functional, so even if I could figure out how to get the software onto a drive, I couldn't download it.

I just tried their links and they seem to be working for me.

[mahkeymike]

Remove the hard drive and go into the bios and see if it still freezes. If it still freezes then its something with the motherboard. Could be bad caps, or the cpu or memory.

[TalkingHeadsFan]

Oops! I didn't get the download manager first, duhhh...That would explain it.

Ok, so I hooked up a PS2 keyboard and access the setup menu; doesn't respond to keypresses after a few seconds.
Disconnected the drive and repeated the process: same thing.





I really appreciate everybodys input on this, thank you.

[obcd]

It's a long shot, but any chanche you could try it with another ps2 keyboard?
I remember some years ago we suddenly had pc's that refused to work together with cherry keyboards.
Those keyboards worked perfectly with other pc mobo's.
If that's not the problem, it could indeed be the pc mobo that is freezing. This is usually due to the capacitors surrounding the cpu that become bad. Sometimes you can notice that the normally flat end of the capacitors is slightly bended outside, like it's going to burst open.
They are difficult to replace as they are connected to some of the inner power planes of the motherboard. Those dissipate the heat you add with your solder iron so that the solder temperature stays below or around the melting point.
You could try to boot into something different from usb or dvd and see if it stays responsive in that. (like a freedos usb boot stick)

[mahkeymike]

Take the motherboard out of the system and see if the cpu fan is even spinning. If the caps are not bulging it could be your cpu overheating. But its most likely the caps.

[Rcadefan]

This machine NEVER over heated while I owned it. It always booted up with no issues.

Is there a simple way to detect if it's the HD to blame?

[mahkeymike]

This machine NEVER over heated while I owned it. It always booted up with no issues.

Is there a simple way to detect if it's the HD to blame?

Yeah, I told him to disconnect the HD and see if the motherboard still locks up in the bios. He said it still locks up, hense, its the motherboard, not the HD.

[lilshawn]

the computer is being random (as it seems) but freezing in the bios means board issue, CPU, RAM, or power supply. you can safely ignore every other component like monitor harddrive io board.

double check the CPU fan is spinning

reseating the RAM....take the stick out...maybe blow out the contacts and reinsert.

next i would try another power supply. it's a plain old ATX connection. just plug in and test it and see if it boots to the bios and works okay. the stock "ITX" power supplies inside the machines are junk and really need to be replaced with something better.

failing those things, you can remove and reinsert the CPU...switch it with another if you have one that will work in there. it's a pretty paltry celeron nothing special. if they've been overheated they can get flaky random things happening. you should be removing the CPU cooler and removing the stupid thermal interface material they come with and replacing it with some good heatsink grease anyway. the stuff it comes with is junk.

barring those items, or replacing them with known good parts, the board is at fault. check the capacitors for any with bulging tops. any of the green capacitors around the CPU should be replaced. they are getting pretty old if they haven't started leaking already.

[obcd]

While basically, everything written here is correct, it would be a strange coincidence that the supply becomes bad or the capacitors become bad enough to make the mobo fail just after the system changed owner and got transported. I assume the system was seen in working condition before it was sold, which means we might need to search for something that is caused by the transportation of the system. In such a case, the harddisk is the major suspect, but the freezes in bios make us believe something different. Maybe the mobo isn't freezing but the keyboard is simply becoming unresponsive? Could the bios clock being displayed give an indication if the mobo is still running? Isn't that displaying the actual time, updated every second? The mobo might be to old to be able to boot from usb, and maybe there is no dvd drive in the system? In such a case, you might need another ide harddisk to see how it boots from that or you need an ide optical drive you can connect so that you have another possible boot device. Reseating the ram and even the cpu is something that can be done without much problem. Switching the power supply shouldn't be very hard either, if you have a spare lying around. If those don't help,I would nevertheless check the harddrive in another pc for errors to at least role that out as a problem.   

[Rcadefan]

Something happened to the machine is transit, it worked just fine before shipping. I even played a game of photo hunt just before taking it to the ups store.

I have been in contact with the buyer and I am trying to help him get his new machine up and running. I have offered to buy a new HD and have it shipped directly to him.

I'm not sure if that would fix it though. I don't have another IDE drive sitting here otherwise I would just ship it to him and let him try it out.

What should I do on my end? Buy another drive and see what that does? Preloaded with 2011 will run $50-60 shipped.

Can anyone help please???

[mahkeymike]

Its not the hard drive. If the hard drive was causing the freezing inside the bios, it would not freeze when he unplugged the hard drive. If it was a keyboard issue, the chances that it freezes without a keyboard attached and with is very slim. Whatever the problem is, its related to the motherboard. It could be the motherboard itself (caps) or it could be something simple like reseating the ram or cpu. Or it could be bad ram or cpu.

[obcd]

Just out of curiousity.
How was the system transported to the buyer?
If another harddrive doesqn't fix the issue, you will be unhappy (for the extra loss of income) and your buyer will be unhappy as well (as his megatouch still isn't working.)
So, it's important to figure out what is going wrong first.
You can burn recovery dvd's, but it looks like you need to connect a dvd drive to the system? For ion, they speak about a centronics connector. It looks like they bring out an ide cable on a non standard connector. No idea if they did the same on a force.
Even if they did, it still might be easier to simply connect an extra dvd drive with a 40 or 80 conductor ide cable.
It all depends what is available, something we don't know. (yet?) It also depends upon the will to try some things out and spent some time trying to get things fixed.
I am just trying to help. From experience I know that things that look obviously aren't always so.
 

[obcd]

Just to answer previous, what if it's both?
So, maybe the harddrive is bad, and the keyboard is behaving bad in bios setup?
Just going into standard bios showing the clock could prove something. (Mobo really freezing or not?)
Maybe it's hard to get there and it becomes unresponsive 2 fast?
It's worth a try.

[lilshawn]

this is not a harddrive issue at all.

this is a board level issue.

computers only need 3 things to boot at all. power, memory, and a CPU.

take a board out of it's packaging, slap a CPU in it and power it up?...won't work. the BIOS needs RAM to load the boot routine into.
slap some ram in a board and power it up? ...won't work. the CPU needs to do the commands of the BIOS to actually boot.

but all 3? sure it complains there is no boot device. sure all you can do is press a button to retry or go into the bios and look around...but fundamentally, it works.

freezing or becoming non-resposive IN the bios is a dead giveaway. a computer can hang before getting to the bios because it is having trouble detecting a harddrive but 9 times out of 10 computers just give up and assume there is no drive and eventually go to the bios even after a 30 second timeout wait for the drive to become available. the computer will still work properly.

while i wouldn't completely rule out a sketchy keyboard connection causing what appears to be a freeze up, it's highly unlikely. like, very highly unlikely.

machine was shipped...something came loose....power, CPU, or RAM.

besides, these machines use a laptop harddrive that park the heads OFF the surface of the platter when shut off. damage caused by moving it while powered off is nearly impossible...if y'all don't believe me i happen to have a dead sample megatouch harddrive right here...



as you can see, the heads are actually "sledded" off the platters when parked. the heads are sledded back on the surface when powered back on.

besides...did you even watch the videos OP posted???

[TalkingHeadsFan]

So I took everyone's advice and reseated the RAM again (tried it once before, but it can't hurt). Nothing.
There are 2 spots on the boards for batteries, but one is missing (on the smaller board). There are no loose batteries inside the box/machine. What does this battery do?

The Fan right on top of the celeron processor does NOT spin.

I have one other ps2 keyboard I can try just to rule out the keyboard thing

New vid

[lilshawn]

The CPU has probably been overheated if the fan is not turning. i believe this is your issue.

the battery holder you see is where the software security key goes. (well can go) you can change some jumpers on the IO board and take the key off the remote board for the monitor and move it to the IO board. it's just a convenience thing for to use the IO board with several different machines.

those caps look replaced so they should be okay. the original ones are green.

the original CPU is an Intel Celeron (commonly called a celeron II) i belive 600 mhz? and i believe socket 370. (going from memory here i don't have one in front of me) but basically any socket 370 celeron or even a PIII would work. (albeit run pretty hot)

EDIT: is the fan plugged into the board at all? or is it siezed up? can you turn it by hand?

[orizzle]

Almost guaranteed it's heat. I had to replace the CPU fan on an old maxx cabinet. It had so much crud in it, the fan physically would not turn (even when I pushed it with my finger). Make sure it's plugged in.  Otherwise, you can get a replacement fan pretty cheaply on eBay or a parts store.

[mahkeymike]

As i suspected, fan is not spinning, hense why i said its probably locking up from overheating cpu. At this point you need to remove the board from the system and replace the fan first and hope that new thermal paste and new fan solves the over heating problem. While the motherboard is out, go over every cap and see if any are bulging. If you cant tackle a cap replacement, myself and other members are more then  capable of replacing them for you. Just stay away from that rip off D-bag Dave. I wont mention his real name but others here know who he is.

[TalkingHeadsFan]

So, I took a fan from a garbage PC in my basement and plugged it into the motherboard; worked. So the fan busted in shipping. I held the fan against the processor to see if it would help cool it and boot further. It did. It went right to the main menu without a hitch. The touchscreen is acting funny but it probably needs calibration.

So now, I need a new fan and thermal paste. So why would the fan separate from the processor in the first place? Would the heat from an overheating processor liquefy the paste and snap it off?

[obcd]

Usually, when a fan block it's due to build up dust.
To remove that from the heatsink, often the heatsink is removed from the cpu.
An air compressor is the ideal device to blew everything back to a nearly new condition. A vacuum cleaner doesn't work.
Usually, between the heatsink and the cpu there is a thermal pad as such is faster to assemble. If you remove the heatsink
afterwards, that pad usually splits, leaving parts on the cpu and others on the heatsink. Due to that, thermal coductivity of the
pad decreases. That's why it's better to remove the old stuff and add some new thermal paste to the heatsink and processor.
If you never removed the heatsink, you can try just changing the fan. Let the machine run for a period with the new fan. Restart it, go into bios and check the cpu temperature. If it's reasonable, you don't need to replace the thermal pad with thermal paste.
If the original fan is a three wire (with speed sensor) make sure the new one has a speed sensor as well. Some mobo's check their fan speed and some even feed it a pwm signal to change it's speed. In times of celeron cpu's, speed control usually didn't happen. 

[lilshawn]

 

Yet another good one obcd. I've worked on literally 100's of these machines. Not only that we own but what other game vendors have brought to me to fix. I've seen it all. While you info in general is sound, it doesn't apply here... in this case...specifically. and I'll explain why.

The fan failure is one issue, the thermal interface is the other.

These coolers originally used a solid waxy plastic thermal interface material ( TIM) that used the clamping pressure of the cooler and an initial heating of the CPU to melt the TIM and seal the 2 together. This is fine if it's never disturbed. But it's only ment for 1 use. This interface is hard...meaning if it gets knocked or banged it will break. And If the interface between the CPU and the cooler is broken, it no longer conducts heat. There is no fixing this contact or hoping it gets better. Or waiting and seeing. One use only. Its stupid and I haven't a clue why the used it.

The other TIM they used was a graphite coated aluminum strip. This was stupid as all hell too. You have a sandwich of CPU die, graphite, aluminum, graphite, aluminium cooler. See a problem here?

Bottom line:

Your issue is 2 fold here. A CPU with a still good TIM connection but a bad fan can run for hours before heat takes over and seizes up the system. Same with failed TIM and a working fan. But both? The CPU may as well be running bare without a cooler. This is why it runs for a bit then seizes up. This is also why way back in my initial post I mentioned removing the TIM and replacing it.

Final word:

You may get lucky and the CPU may be stable if you remove all that crusty yellow TIM from the CPU and cooler and replace it with some good paste and replace the fan. I recommend contact cleaner and some scrubbing to get it off.  The stuff is pretty tough, iso alcohol won't even touch it.

Once the TIM is good and the fan fixed, you should be in working order. If you find the machine is failing after a few hours the CPU was too overheated and will need to be replaced.

[obcd]

Yes, I looked at the videos.
I didn't realise the thermal pad they used was that bad. I did find it strange that the system froze that fast, even in bios.
The cpu fan seemed so obvious to check, I thought it had been done, specially since the rams had been reseated.
Besides that, it's unclear how the fan became defective due to transportation.
My megatouch is the XL version, a bit older hardware still running under dos.

Isn't the parking feature something all harddisks are doing?
As the heads are moved using voice coils, isn't it normal they return to their start position if the coil isn't energised anymore?
Once upon a time (when the animals were still talking), they used steppers to move the drive heads.
You had to run the park program to move them to a safe location.

[lilshawn]

Yes and no. Most desktop drives park the heads on a sacrificial section closest to the hub. Some new drives like the WD reds unload the heads like the drive I pictured.

If a standard drive is knocked hard enough, the heads can skid across the platters into the data area. On a drive where the heads are skidded off, they are effectively locked in place in the ramp area. Some magnetically others with a latch. While it's not impossible to knock these drives hard enough to dislodge the heads and have them knocked onto the platter, I'd be concerned of it being physically damaged.

As for how the TIM got broke...I've seen the crap the postal service does to packages...especially if they are marked fragile.

[TalkingHeadsFan]

Thanks for your help and insight, everyone.

[TalkingHeadsFan]

So, I've tried calibrating the screen a few times with limited success. Many times, it would register phantom touches and would register touches when I was only touching the cabinet frame. After doing a little research, it seemed like a grounding issue so I simply moved the machine to another outlet and onto a different table and that was fixed.

However, it still is not calibrating properly. At the "move cursor" test portion of calibration, if I slide my finger up and down the left size of the screen, the cursor slides diagonally instead of up and down with my finger, it's quite strange. Would this be a problem with the touchscreen itself, the touchscreen overlay or with the Microtouch controller? The green LED on the controller is turning solid when touching, so it's registering fine.

Thanks!

[mahkeymike]

You might have a broken solder joint on one of the wires soldered onto the glass overlay coating. That is one of the tell tale symptoms of reverse direction.

See if you have colored wires going to the glass or a flat ribbon cable going to the glass. If you have the flat ribbon cable its more likely a controller issue, or in some cases a bad lcd power inverter can cause leaking interference and cause wacky touchscreen issues. In that case you need to either shield the lcd power inverter (cheap but not reliable) or replace the lcd power inverter.

[lilshawn]

i've found diagonal movement on one side is usually indicative of a faulty connection to the controller or damaged cable to the overlay itself. basically somewhere between the glass and the controller.

double check the green grounding wire on the controller is secured.

it's only a couple screws holding the unit in place. you can remove the bracket and the monitor and overlay can tilt up out of the front without removing any of the cables from the monitor.

clean the perimeter of the overlay as often junk gets mashed in there and can throw off the calibration.

if the cable connection is faulty, it's usually right where it meets the glass. you can test this by pressing the connection down in this area (it's only a couple pads) and seeing if the calibration is successful.

[TalkingHeadsFan]

I took your advice and removed the panel/overlay assembly and I pushed down on the overlay connection pad; no change.
Grounding wire is snug.
I reinserted the controller cable into the motherboard; no change.
Cleaned perimeter of panel, no change.

I do have the flat ribbon cable, do these controllers go bad often?

Specifically, the cursor moves diagonally on the top and left side of the screen, I took a video...







I owe you guys a beer once I get this thing and my home bar running 😉

[mahkeymike]

After watching your calibration videos, i really think you have #1 a short in the overlay wiring, ot a broken connection in one of the ribbon cable connections to the overlay coating. If not, then it must be your controller. If its neither, then the only other idea i can think of is your cal.dat files are not being saved/replaced. In that case a reinstall will be required.

[lilshawn]

i'll have to agree. something might be wrong with the cable.

for shits and giggles... when you do the calibration... place your finger on each cross and hold it there for 2 full seconds before release.

press one onethousand two onethousand release.

it's not mentioned in the manuals anywhere but it must be done this way otherwise all kinds of weird things happen.

the overlay is somewhat repairable. I have re soldered wires back onto the transducers before when they've broken off and even superglued the prism of glass used as the transducer director back onto the glass after one had been knocked off. They are pretty tough and the software is pretty resilient about compensating for errors.

it's going to require some careful slow movements but if you need to inspect the overlay transducers remove the monitor and all the cables. you will keep the pigtail of wire attached to the overlay it doesnot come off.

carefully peel the tape off the edges of the monitor. being extra careful at the corners. if you have a broken wire you should be able to see it pretty clearly. if things look good, give everything thing under the tape a good clean with iso alcohol so that it is squeaky clean. you are going to want to reapply tape to the edges again. I use black fabric hockey tape with good success. but if you have kapton tape or whatever they use under there, give 'er. make sure the wires run along the edge of the panel...not on the front of the glass.

[TalkingHeadsFan]

So I sent pics of the controller to Dave to see if he had any insight on what could be causing my problem. He noted that my green wire coming off the controller "Needs to be grounded to the earth ground prong on the power cord plug.". So my green wire is attached to the wrong spot? I'm not sure where it needs to be relocated...

[lilshawn]

usually it's screwed down to a spot near the bottom left side of the motherboard where the power comes in on the back side of the IDC connector.

you can easily see if this is the issue by lifting one of the screws on the back of the motherboard and putting it there, since it's ground plane of the motherboard is connected to earth ground as well.

just make sure you don't go crazy tightening it down and shorting something else out on the board. the bottoms of the motherboards are pokey under that fishpaper and a smashed down crimp connector can easily push hard enough to poke through the fish paper onto something it shouldn't.

you just need to make electrical contact with the screw for a quick test. you can sort out the original installation location later if it works.

[TalkingHeadsFan]

I relocated the wire, no luck, same crap. Looks like it's the touchscreen, then.

I also noticed a brown wire coming from a connector on the motherboard, to a connector on the IO board, and then ending in a loose connector. What is this for and where is is supposed to be plugged in?

It's the two-holed white connector in this picture...