Centipede Program Chip Problem

[sk8grrrl]

Greetings!

Stumbled across this forum searching the net on Centipede PCB Boards...my arcade Centipede has been nonworking for a few months and finally got it running after replacing the "big blue cap" but now the program seems screwed up.

When starting the game, the opening screen is devoid of mushrooms except for one vertical row down the left side. Also, the sound does not work, only a soft hum coming from the speakers when the volume is turned up.

Do these symptoms sound familiar to anyone as being the result of a particular chip gone bad? I'm about ready to purchase a whole new board and keep this one for parts, but I thought I'd run this by the experts first.

Thanks!

[RayB]

Usually when the Big Blue is bad, it will have also damaged the AR-II board (that's the small size board that feeds power to the main board and also amplifies sound).

Measuring voltage coming off this board and also measuring voltage off themain game board will help figure out if there's a problem. A "rebuild kit" for the AR-II wouldn't hurt.