Is my Mini Pac dying or is it my PC

[mrclean]

My MAME cab is from 2006, not sure if the encoders go bad, but it currently has a Mini Pac encoder installed using PS/2 for the mouse / Keyboard with an IDE cable attached to all of my buttons... My problem is that sometimes now when I restart my PC / Turn my MAME cabinet on the keyboard and or controls don't work. I found that If I open up the cabinet and case to my PC that by taking the RAM out and placing it back in aparently sometimes fixes the encoder? Which doesn't make any sense to me.

Also if I unplug and then replug the ps/2 cable that goes into the mini pac the light on the mini pac goes on sometimes and sometimes doesn't light up at all. It's working but intermittently. Is my PC on the way out, or my encoder ? Should I rewire everything and upgrade to a USB encoder ? I understand not everything lasts forever but trying to figure out if it's my encoder or PC.

[BobA]

Sounds like your PC has issues but you could plug your minipac into another PC to verify it still works.

[mrclean]

I don't think it's the PC now I think it's the mini pac, because If I plug my keyboard directly into my PC it works.. it's the Mini Pac that's the problem

[BobA]

OK that makes sense.  I was thrown off by all the unplugging of memory etc that you were doing with your PC. You could still plug your mini pac into another PC to verify that the problem goes with it.