Area 51 / Maximum Force

[ncflagg]

I have a board I thought was Maximum Force and was trying to use CHDMAN to get a hard drive imaged for it. I found a 4GB hard disk that it seemed to like but when I put the Max Force image on it, all that would come up was some garbage intermingled with brief flashes of pics you can make out. I have adjusted the +5V so the High/Low LEDs are happy (actually, they still both flash a little while it is running). Finally, I decided to try the Area 51 / Maximum Force combo CHD and voila! Success. The game would run for a couple minutes through the intro and then come up with a "Watchdog Reset ... Three taps and you're out" error and the game would reset. I took out all the chips one at a time and reseated them.

Now, the game will not come up. The green reset LED and the yellow LED next to it just flash on and off every few seconds. I've tried unplugging the IDE and IDE power cables with the same result.

[red_johnny]

From what I read, Maximum force or area 51 dont like the 4 gigs, they perfer 2 gig drives.  I dont know if that applys to flash drives or not or if applys to the duo card.  I guess I will find out soon as I have a 4 gig flash card.

[ncflagg]

The Area 51/Max force combo CHD image is 1.5 gigs compressed and over 2GB as a raw image. 2GB won't work. I tried a 2GB drive when I thought the board was Maximum Force only. The drive loaded but it took 30sec or so to boot.

[ncflagg]

I took all the chips out and cleaned the legs. - no change
I washed the board in the dishwasher for a couple minutes. - no change

I turn it on and there is no video or sound. The green Power/Reset Light still flashes on and off slowly. The only think that looks odd to me now is the WRam chip. It looks backwards to me. The notches on the chip and the socket match and the chip is seated to the left. But, the text is upside-down compared to the Eproms. You got a close-up pic of your board red_johnny?

[red_johnny]

I can get you one soon.  Give me about 2-3 hours and you shall have it.  I will also take a pic of the max force board.  My two board look the same to me but my eye is untrained to PCBs.

[red_johnny]

Ok, so I got the pics faster than I said...so sue me.  Here they are
MAXIMUM FORCE


AREA 51/Max Force

[ncflagg]

Edit: Oops, wrong thread.