Stuck on bootup screen. What causes it?

[Magnet_Eye]

Ok, what does it mean when an arcade game powers on, and is stuck on the screen with all the scrambled graphics...like its getting ready to boot up but it never does?

thx.

[SirPeale]

It means there's a problem with the game.

It could be anything.  You didn't post what the game was, or the error you were getting, so it's really hard to help here.

[Stingray]

It means there's a smurf inside chewing on the PCB. A few D-con Smurf Motels

[missioncontrol]

It means there's a smurf inside chewing on the PCB. A few D-con Smurf Motels

[Flinkly]

a history lesson?  and i thought this board was useless for anything but building arcade controls...

[Magnet_Eye]

A couple of games. One is a robotron. It just stays on that jumbled screen.

Another is a Dig Dug that was doing this, then eventually stopped powering up at all. So it is worse.

Gremlins? We don't need no stinking Gremlins!

[Rocky]

My Digdug shows very briefly what looks like a background scene (like 1/4 second of time), then goes to the ram test.

[APFelon]

Have you checked the power supply voltages on them yet? If the Dig Dug got "worse", that'd be the first thing I would check.

APf

[SirPeale]

Jeeze, I'm sorry.  That Robotron is irreversably damaged.  I'll get it out of your house, so you don't have to deal with it anymore.