Hey all! It's been a minute. Like over a decade.
This forum once taught me the ways of MAME, resulting in my first completed arcade project (of three now), this 4P turtles cabinet (
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,95439.0.html), which I adored. It moved with me, through several apartments, and then one day stopped working. When I say "not working" I was just getting the awful high pitched whine and no picture from the arcade monitor. The computer spins up and makes some harddrive noises, but... nothing. No frontend noises from the speakers so I know we're not just flying blind. The PC Power button doesn't even trigger the shutdown. But this "breakage" wasn't a result of banging around the cab too much, just like sliding it from one room to another. I just couldn't bring myself to get rid of it
Here are the basic specs:
-Old ass Dell running old ass MAME with Maximus Arcade frontend
-ArcadeVGA 3000 card running to a beautiful Wells Gardner WG 25k7131
-IPAC4 CP
TODAY- I took the PC out of the cab and plugged it into an LCD monitor using the stock video port of the PC and, to my shock, was able to get it running, talking to the CP and everything. Smooth as silk. I thought this thing was dead. The power button I had wired up shuts it down and everything. So I put the ArcadeVGA back in, made sure it was nice and secure. Lo and behold, the monitor comes to life... but with a black screen and the cursor sitting right there in the middle. I can't move it with a mouse, keyboard doesn't do anything, and again the power button doesn't shut it down (weird on that one-- cuz the only difference is the monitor-out)... but now I've confirmed that BOTH THE PC AND THE MONITOR ARE WORKING, they're just not talking to each other. I don't know how to proceed but I can refer to my old posts to answer any questions.
It's been so long since I dug into all this, I've forgotten nearly everything. but this is my last resort trying to resuscitate it before I try and sell it off! Please help!
SIDENOTE: All my beautiful photo documentation is missing from my orig project post. The photos lived at my since-revamped website. Any idea how to restore them? I've been poking around Wayback Machine but no luck yet since their search function seems down