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Author Topic: Diagnosing Ultracade  (Read 5145 times)

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oldguy2801

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Diagnosing Ultracade
« on: May 03, 2020, 04:52:25 pm »
Hi.  New to all of this so be gentle.  While quarantined I thought i'd try fixing our ultracade game.  It hasn't worked for years. 
Opened it up and very clean inside.  Im in the process of cleaning the gaming buttons.  First problem, no signal to the monitor.  First took out the monitor and tested it, works fine.  testing the computer, I attached a monitor to the VGA output and got nothing.  Computer fan and harddrive are spinning.  I tried to take out the RAM Board and boot it without ram but its under the CD drive.  Swapped out the 3v battery.  LED on board is lit. 
Question, Do all the micro-switches need to be in place and functioning for there to be an output from the computer?
The game history is It was at a church youth center I worked at.  It functioned fine on free play.  I got it from the youth pastor who was changing things to Play Station.  I wanted it for the Asteroids and other old time games.  Got it home and shortly after it stopped displaying.  Thought it was the monitor.  I've checked all the connectors, Know I have some bad switches.

Any help is appreciated

bobbyb13

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Re: Diagnosing Ultracade
« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2020, 03:09:31 am »
Not entirely familiar with those so not sure I can be of use, but...

Is yours the flavor with just a regular old PC in it?

If it is, is it running off the on board video?

Maybe you can swap in a video card if there is a PCI slot to use and see what you get.

I have read that those units are very intolerant of hardware changes though, and the Global VR guys (who I think are the only ones who can actually help) often want $300 for a $50 motherboard to make you functional.

I got a quote for $1200 (not including shipping!) for a curbside alert level system for my dead V3 machine.

Curious to discover what you learn and good luck (in the sincere sense!)

Bobby
Relax, all right? My old man is a television repairman, he's got this ultimate set of tools! I can fix it.

lilshawn

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Re: Diagnosing Ultracade
« Reply #2 on: November 25, 2020, 11:47:30 pm »
the little mini computer was absolute trash. it is possible to find a replacement motherboard with compatible sound/northbridge to make it work and I have done it.... but the system generates a new machine code you need to use with the installation... at this time, GlobalVR will absolutely not give you a new installation code now (even though I'm an amusement owner/operator, they did for us ONE time...a while later, they would not at all) to install it on "new" hardware due to licencing issues and with the whole "fraud debacle"... so the point is moot now.

at this point in time it's probably just easier to start from scratch with a new computer and some flavor of mame installation. the IO board even outputs keyboard keypresses so it's a ready made interface for your controls.