Cash-In-Hand Find, Part II - Megatouch XL 5000 - Need Some Help

[yotsuya]

Hey guys-

Last weekend I was able to pick up a used MegatouchXL 5000 for half of what the seller was asking (Thank you, Cash-In-Hand/Inner PBJ  ). The unit was a bit beatup on the outside, but nothing I couldn't clean up. Internally, it looked like the inside of a coal miner's lung. The monitor isn't working, but I'm not worried about that, as I think a cap kit will fix it. I plugged it into a regular VGA monitor. The game board booted up, but when I put a quarter in, the game would crash.

I pulled all the boards and cleaned them up. I replaced the tar-encrusted fans on the motherboard and on the housing with some newer, high-flow/low noise fans. I also picked up an AT power supply to swap with the one already inside. Once all that was done, I put the boards back in and fired it up. It gave me a warning about the BIOS/CMOS, so I restored the defaults. I then had some issues booting, but the main issue was that it said my key was invalid. I used some of Merit's documents to get the motherboard settings the way they need to be and everything seems to boot fine, but I just can't get past this invalid key thing. Anyone have any suggestions? I have a couple of emails out and some items on the way, but I'd like to make sure this works out, as I think I might give it to my parents as a gift when it's all refurbished.

Thanks!

[Mario]

Internally, it looked like the inside of a coal miner's lung.

 

[yotsuya]

Seriously. I think someone stood behind it and just blew their cig smoke directly into the machine! 

[paigeoliver]

It must have a fan in it. Games with fans in them are always filthy.

quote author=yotsuya link=topic=118165.msg1252791#msg1252791 date=1329969006]
Seriously. I think someone stood behind it and just blew their cig smoke directly into the machine! 
[/quote]

[yotsuya]

Two in the back, in fact. Swapped those suckers out first thing.

Still no luck with the  key, though.

[Nephasth]

I've got an XL 6000 disc and key I'm not using. But I think you would have to upgrade your ram to use them though, not 100% on that though.

[yotsuya]

I have 64 MB of RAM on the way for it. However, I'm getting the same error even when I pull the key from the I/O board, so I'm not sure the key is the problem.

[Nephasth]

I think you would get that error when the key isn't present or when you have the wrong key installed. Does yours have a hard drive or cd rom drive?

[yotsuya]

It has a CD Rom. I've done the whole "clean and reseat the riser and I/O boards to no avail". The key is one of the square shaped ones.

I'll trade you some Molex and heat shrink wrap for those items, and I'll throw in a case of beer for shipping.

[HaRuMaN]

Seems like it would be yotsuya....

[Nephasth]

It has a CD Rom. I've done the whole "clean and reseat the riser and I/O boards to no avail". The key is one of the square shaped ones.

I'll trade you some Molex and heat shrink wrap for those items, and I'll throw in a case of beer for shipping.

Hmm... Wonder what it would cost to ship a case of beer...

[yotsuya]

Cash-in-hand is AWESOME. For this item, I sent the seller an e-mail because I had seen this item listed for a few months. She wanted $60, I told her if it didn't sell and she wanted to get rid of it, I had $30 cash ready whenever she wanted to get rid of it. Two days later, she said if still I wanted it, it was mine. At worst, it's a great learning project because I'm going to recap the CRT (I've only done LCDs).

The PBJ method has saved me $105 so far!  

[BadMouth]

Get anywhere with this?  

I'd think it would have to be the connection to the I/O board or the key itself.
Might want to check that all the little dip switches are off.  
I've acidentally flipped some of them while grabbing the edge of the I/O board before.
I remember it making it not boot, but don't remember exactly what it did.

[yotsuya]

Someone on KLOV mentioned cold solder joints on the key connector being an issue. I flipped it over and did a little soldering and reheating, but no luck.  Part of me thinks it might be CMOS/Time-Date related, but I have no way to check what the time/date was when I picked it up. Like I said, it fired up when I first got it, before I cleaned up the black tar lung boards. 

I'm going to play with it some more tomorrow. It's not super critical, but I'd love to get it figured out for experience sake. I want to one day be able to fix arcade PCBs, so I figure this is a good start. I can always recycle the cab into something else (bartop jukebox, anybody?).

[leapinlew]

(bartop jukebox, anybody?).

Thats the one I converted. It's in my signature. It's my backup jukebox. It's not bad, a tight fit if you put speakers insider of it. I'm sure you'll fix it though. Try blowing smoke into it for about 5 years. Maybe it needed all the tar to work. 

[yotsuya]

Lew-

I saw your build. That's my backup plan if I can't get this thing going!

[yotsuya]

OK, did a little work last night on the monitor. Still having an issue, so I posted a topic in the Monitor/Video forum. If any of you have any insight, I would appreciate it! 

[HaRuMaN]

Don't lick the big suction cup.

[yotsuya]

Too late! No shock, though, so I don't think it's getting power. Stuck to my forehead nicely, though.

[HaRuMaN]

When I got my first arcade game, a Mortal Kombat, it didn't have a monitor chassis.  So I got a new one, hooked it up, but the picture was upside-down.  No biggie, just have to swap a couple of the yoke wires around.  Easy fix...

Except...  I did it with the thing powered on.  Man, did that hurt.   

[yotsuya]

Yow! I bought Bob Robert's Patented "Big Red Suction Cup Remover" in order to work on these things. So far, in 2 years time, I've yet to hear a pop when using it.

[yotsuya]

Lew-

If you're reading this, what size t-molding did you buy as a replacement? It's not 3/4, is it?

[leapinlew]

Lew-

If you're reading this, what size t-molding did you buy as a replacement? It's not 3/4, is it?

doh! I recut new sides.

[yotsuya]

That's right! *SMH*   

I assume the sides you recut were 3/4?

[leapinlew]

That's right! *SMH*   

I assume the sides you recut were 3/4?

Yeah... I thought the old sides were 3/4", they aren't I presume?

[yotsuya]

They might be, but the t-molding looks narrower to me than that. Maybe it's just too flat and dirty!

[yotsuya]

Quick update on this- I think I may have a bad motherboard. Found a working one cheap on eBay. I'll try this out- if it doesn't work, bartop jukebox here I come!!! 

[yotsuya]

Just an update, since some of you have been very helpful-

I got the new motherboard in. I hooked it up, added my RAM, attached the hard drive kit I bought off of someone on KLOV, plugged in the serial ELO touchscreen I have, crossed my fingers, and switched it on. It booted up just fine, so I must have had a bad motherboard, IO card, or riser card. However, I have two more issues I need to resolve:

1. The hard drive boots up just fine, but the serial touchscreen doesn't seem to be recognized. Now, I hadn't tested the serial functionality yet (got the touchscreen late last week), but I have no reason to think it shouldn't work. I brought it with me to work and will test it out soon.

2. Like I said, it does boot, but once I am in, I get these weird graphical glitches sporatically on the screen. It looks like lines/shifting across the screen. Should I pull chips on the board and clean them? The board is very, very clean compared to my original mobo, but I've read that some of you have fixed glitches on arcade PCBs by pulling and cleaning chips.

I feel like I made progress so far, but there's still more to go!

[yotsuya]

Well, it looks like the serial controller on this touchscreen doesn't work. 

I've hooked it up to two different computers, used two different cables, tried different drivers- no dice.

[yotsuya]

Your Megatouch was the deal of the century, man.

---smurfing--- cash-in-hand.

It's all a learning process.

[HaRuMaN]

Your Megatouch was the deal of the century, man.

 

[yotsuya]

PinballJim PinballJimming aside, the issue with the touchscreen was the serial cable. I picked up a $3 replacement at Fry's on the way home, hooked it up to a PC here, and the touchscreen works just fine. I'm going to swap the CPU fan on the motherboard and reseat the RAM chips before I hook everything all up again.

[yotsuya]

I picked up a $3 replacement at Fry's on the way home

I  hate you.

XOXO, James

[yotsuya]

Well, what do you know? That $3 cable allowed the touchscreen to talk with the motherboard, and everything fired right up. I'm still getting the video glitching, but I'm sure I can fix that. Just got finished playing Hoop Jones and a bunch of other games!

Funny thing is, I read on this board someone who had the same issue. He tried three different serial cords with no luck before finding one that worked. That's why I decided to buy a new one- I wasn't sure if the ones I were using were modem cables or not. I guess I got the right one!

[yotsuya]

This baby is now working! More details to follow!