I got my parts in from GPE and worked on the power board tonight. I had the option of dropping the display voltage by use of a different zener diodes from -100/+100 to +90/-90 to give longevity to displays so I made the change. After swapping virtually every axial cap, transistor, the LM723 voltage regulator IC, a whack of diodes, some resistors (including the one some a** put in that was completely the wrong value) Hey it's a resistor of some sort... it will work... NOT!... and almost all components on the HV side it is pumping out the right voltages steady as a rock. A little molex replacement on the G.I. circuit and I plunked her in.

Now I ran out of time but the game is booting into Audit mode (04 00) on the lower display, nice and brightly . I haven't had any chance to do anything beyond this but it would appear superficially that the adjust buttons aren't doing a thing. Like I say I had only a few minutes to play with it and decided to cut it short so I wouldn't be up to 3 am. looking at it.

Never worked with a System 7 before but there were no batteries in it and it has two switches on the coin door to register it's open or closed. When I opened the door the power dropped so I am thinking you pull the lower one on to play with the programming.

Question on a system 7 that has lost memory to the CMOS chip.

I have tested virtually every component associated with the 5101 and replaced most even though they checked out just on spec. As for 5101's I have a stack of them and Tom's Callahan's Simtek 5101 replacement. I have yet to get Leon's chip to not return an error on the 5101 check but with original roms the board continually comes up error free. I am starting to suspect that Leon's ram check test is faulty but I am still booting in "audit mode" when installed in the game.

Now here is my dilemma. I do not get the display on the upper displays that would be associated with the game number in audit mode. Audit mode is quite clear on the bottom score display but I am questioning now if on system 7 with loss of memory you have to run through and reset factory settings to get out of audit mode. Without the upper displays lit I don't know if I am able to make setting changes or if this would be required just to get into attract mode from a memory loss situation. This information would greatly help as I will shift my efforts from trying to figure out whether I am in audit mode is still as a result of the MPU or if I need to focus on the displays so I can do a reset of the system to get it in attract mode.

Here are two paras I am questioning and whether or not it should just restore some basic settings by itself on start up and enter attract mode. I did the double on/off with the door open already with no change.

Update. I found one issue that didn't help my cause. The coin door connector (both ends) were tucked away neatly and not connected when I put the head on. Perfect scenario that the two matching ends were both buried otherwise I would have figured it out right away. I was testing the switch at the memory protect circuit input and it wouldn't close. Traced it back and here are the two ends nicely tucked away in the gap under the head. Duh!

Ok I can advance settings and get the memory protect circuit to activate with the door closed which generates the correct error code of "9".

What would really help is if someone could explain what it takes to get a System 7 to run again after a battery change. Do you need to just turn it on, or do the double on/off thing with the door open or actually put some settings in?

If we could tear ourselves away from talking about Karmatose for 5 minutes and talk about pinball instead it would be appreciated.

Just shooting in the dark as I have NO Sys7 experience, but wouldn't you just have to set the date / time to fix that issue?

D

If you can get into the audit mode did you try to change any settings? The Coin door does have to be open(with the advance pulled out?)when the batteries are dead to boot up.

What ROMs are you running? L6? You should try L4 or earlier non hacked roms if you have them. Did you see this on Level 7?

http://level7.askey.org/Default.aspx?tabid=109&g=topics&f=13


http://level7.askey.org/Default.aspx?tabid=109&g=posts&t=50


When you can save the setting these are recommended:

IF memory serves me correctly, once you have good batteries in the holder, if you scroll through all the audits and drop it back to attract mode, you should be good to go after that.

James

Quoted from Grauwulf

IF memory serves me correctly, once you have good batteries in the holder, if you scroll through all the audits and drop it back to attract mode, you should be good to go after that.

James

Sounds like it's similar to System 11 then. You have to run through the audits to the end and then it will boot.

I am thinking it may be an IRQ interrupt problem where it won't address the other ROM's right now or it is still problems with the read/write to the CMOS.

It runs through all 50 audits. Goes blank and then comes back on in audits again. So to me it looks the same as what Sys 11 does but at the end of it all it either can't start the code in the other ROM's or read/write to the CMOS to save the initial audit settings.

I am going to check the interrupt circuitry next.

I don't see any issues with the interrupt.

Since it goes through the audits and then resets and goes back to audits, I am still suspecting the CMOS 5101 circuitry.

I will be checking the R/W, CS,~CS and Data Output pins in circuit. I am thinking it may be one of the TTL IC's that connect to the 5101 that is giving me grief. I would like to rule this out from Leon's test and the internal test passing but I don't know how extensive those test are to rule out this problem.

From the information I found out there I re-wrote this about the 5101 to help me out testing. I thought I would post it if anyone was interested for future reference.

The chip gets powered through pins 22 and 8, not the corners - 22 and 11, as most digital ICs. The address lines are pins 1 through 7 and 21. For the chip to function pin 17 must be high, and pin 19 must be low. These are the chip select pins, CS and ~CS. Chip select is normally used when many memory chips are wired in parallel. Pin 18 is the output data enable pin. If it is low, then the data stored at the location determined by address lines will be placed on the output - pins 10,12,14, and 16. Pin 20 is the read/write select line. When this line is high the memory chip is reading the internal store and placing it onto the output lines. When this line is low, the control inputs - pins 9, 11, 13, and 15 - are stored in the currently addressed memory location. The rest of the pins are memory inputs and outputs as shown.

Ok I pulled my hair out on this one.

First off I took for granted that the code on the ROM's was good. Big mistake!

Thank goodness a guy on RGP knew there was a glitchy rom version and pointed me in the right direction. Everything I checked on the board seemed to make perfect working sense but still the game would not go out of audit mode. Anyway Level 7 L-5 ROM's are faulty and the fault works 100% as advertised.

http://level7.askey.org/Home/tabid/92/Default.aspx

L-6 ROM's boot no problem at all. Love those Williams sounds.

Not out of the woods yet on this one. The displays are barfed up and I have no illumination on the pf other than G.I. but I am at least in a position again to start troubleshooting again.

Good to see that the end is a little closer for ya. I'm still running L4 code in my machine I believe. Do you have any other displays to try out in your machine? I believe Sys9 and early Sys11 use the same displays (I know my High Speed did). I ran in to a problem with the displays on my Hyperball not working correctly because the MC14069 hex inverters at IC 9, 10 and 11 on my display board were messed up because of the over-voltage from the power supply, same as what you had. You can always briefly plug you P1 and P2 displays in to the credit/match display cable and see if you get anything at all. If you do, I'd look at those chips first.

I don't have extras. Switching left to right yields nothing. I didn't try the credit/player one but it's new so it should be a good indicator. As for the one in the pf it has some missing segments but I can read it so I know it is partially working.

Just trying to appreciate now (haven't dug into the schematics on this yet) the PIA I versus IC 12 "Alpha Numeric PIA" distinction for displays. I am thinking by virtue of description alone PIA IC 12 was added to the driver board to do the pf display alone and PIA I on the MPU handles the backboard ones.

I am going through the driver board again but I will start where you suggested. Thanks for the input.

Quoted from Grauwulf

the MC14069 hex inverters at IC 9, 10 and 11 on my display board were messed up because of the over-voltage from the power supply, same as what you had.

Bingo. Thanks much for the tip. I went to check them and all three had one two bad gates on them.

Anyone for some slightly used hex inverters?

Edit. Well the power supply put up a harsh protest after the master display repair and blew 2 zener diodes in rebellion. I had the displays plugged in and had checked the 6118's and 7180's prior to plugging it back in and those IC's were good. So I suspect I have one or two shorted displays. Apparently the 6118's and 7180's have a pretty good sense of humor. They appear to have survived. It looks like the one display has a short due to oxidization on two adjacent solder points. Should have removed and cleaned them first.