I bought an Ion EVO.. and it's a hunk of junk. What are my options?

[game_nerd]

I found a megatouch ion evo for $150. It didn't start but I figured I could get it working. On power up the bill accepter powers up and makes noise, the display gets power but flashes no input for a second then disappears, then repeats.
The mobo had a few bulged caps. So thinking it was not the power supply first replaced the cmos battery, no dice. I then pulled the motherboard and hooked it up to an external monitor and power supply. fan spins on the cpu, but bad bearing, as it is super noisy.
took the heatsink and fan off and the cpu "glass" for lack of a better term has what looks like a crack in it from heat damage, underside of the cpu is a darker brown than the surrounding pcb, it looks burnt. So the mobo and cpu are toast.
Here's my dilemma, for the lousy replacement boards, prices on ebay are ridiculous. the security key has 2011 software according to the code on it, so that's ok.. but I don't want to pay a fortune for used motherboards that are going to take a dump anyway. Can the newer intel motherboards from the aurora be used in the ion? It would be better if they could, because they're newer and easier to find. I searched everywhere and can't find a solid yes it will work, or no it definitely will not work, so I made a account to ask here.

I'm having second thoughts about the whole ion thing. The chassis is heavy as hell, solid steel and weighs a ton. The box with all the crap jammed inside it looks like a really poor design, I'm surprised they run at all. I wish someone could emulate the software on a raspberry pi and just have a little single board in the case instead of ide hard drives and ribbon cables and everything else.

I basically feel like I flushed $150 down the crapper, and will be into this thing for another 300 or so just to get it working. What do you all recommend? dump it and get an older wedge shaped box with the lcd? fix it? scrap the whole thing all together? any thoughts or advice would be welcomed.
Is there a better lower half for these things, that doesn't weigh 6,000 pounds?

[orizzle]

The Intel boards will work with 2009.5 and above. Just have to get clever with the mounting. I've made 3d printed mounts for the evos before that work great

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[game_nerd]

The Intel boards will work with 2009.5 and above. Just have to get clever with the mounting. I've made 3d printed mounts for the evos before that work great

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Well that's good to know, at least I can find a newish board to swap into this thing.
It's there anything that can be done about the base? What was the point of making them weigh 17,000 pounds? They could be secured by other means, I'm sure.
Are there any base alternatives that don't weigh as much as a small car?

Eta, i see the new board has sata. I can use a sata ssd instead of an old ata hard drive, correct?

[orizzle]

They were heavy so they wouldn't topple over on the bar if some drunk person pushed too hard and also so nobody could snatch it and run away with it. The gametime/home bases were much lighter

Yes SATA drives will work

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[game_nerd]

They were heavy so they wouldn't topple over on the bar if some drunk person pushed too hard and also so nobody could snatch it and run away with it. The gametime/home bases were much lighter

Yes SATA drives will work

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good to know about the sata drives, I already ordered a motherboard from china. shipping sucks but the mobo was only $40 shipped. At that rate I'm gonna buy an extra one or two for just in case, prices for the asus and ecs boards are ridiculous, $180-$300.

I had no idea there were gametime/home bases. Have you ever had one? what would you say the weight on those bases are? Do you know of any place to get one? Nothing on ebay, I guess I'll have to look around for some locally.

[orizzle]

Maybe about 10 pounds. Much lighter. I doubt you'll find just the base

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[game_nerd]

I think you're right, just the base would be hard to come by. your post gives me an idea though. One could probably be made of mdf as long as the bottom was wide enough to not tip over.
The back of the ion has a nice flat spot that could attach to a home made stand of some sort. I'll have to look at it some more, but it may be doable.
The one I had came with no keys, and was of course locked.
I pounded the lock out yesterday and was able to remove the unit from the base. I'm thinking about spray painting the whole thing another color, since it's gray and has scratches and scrapes.
The base will just sit in the basement until I can find a use for it, or maybe frankenstein another one together to sell, and whoever takes it on can have that monstrosity lol.

Thank you for all your input, you seem pretty knowledgeable about these things, here's a question for you. I have a 2011 security key and software (SA306-01) and I saw the no security key hack on youtube. Now you need to have a security key for the year of software you want, but lets assume I imaged a new hard drive with my existing key/software and did the no key hack. Wouldn't I just be able to clone that hard drive with the hack on it for future machines? It makes sense to me, but I figured I'd run it by someone who knows better than I do.

[orizzle]

As far as I know, the hack is just for force not ion. It's really pointless right now IMHO, the keys are good for 20+ years so there's nothing to worry about right now

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[game_nerd]

ah I didn't know it was only for the force models, I didn't look into it too closely since I have a non working system anyway.
I guess I'll just wait until my key dies then worry about it down the road.