Category: Repair

Status: Successfully repaired on 1/15/2019 I got a discount on a Konami Aliens arcade PCB because voice samples don’t work. The voice samples are driven by a 007232 custom IC. Schematics for this board are available, so I was able to probe the appropriate lines and confirm that the custom wass receiving proper inputs but…

Status: Repaired successfully on 5/6/2019 I got a discount on a Toaplan FixEight arcade board because the controls weren’t functional. The controls on many second-generation Toaplan arcade boards run through a HK-1000 ceramic custom chip. Unfortunately the ceramic becomes fragile over time and cracks easily – that’s what happened here in the upper-left corner. Fortunately,…

Status: Failed on 1/5/2020. Console is now a parts donor. I owned a launch day 20 GB Sony PlayStation 3 where the cooling fan was starting to run on high speed all the time. Cleaning the heat sink and replacing the heat sink thermal compound didn’t resolve the issue. Research revealed that the thermal compound…

Status: Successfully repaired on March 15, 2020 In for repair was an AV Famicom that showed no life whatsoever when powered on. I confirmed the board was receiving power, so I checked the CPU with my logic analyzer (which is overkill BTW – I could have just used the logic probe). The CPU was receiving…

In for repair was an Irem M72 arcade PCB with Apocalypse’s M72 Multi game solution installed. Sprites were randomly corrupting during gameplay. The fix ended up being simple and straightforward – the plastic spacers seperating the bottom board from the middle board didn’t provide enough clearance. The middle board would sometimes “sag” on the struts…

Status: Successfully repaired on 5/3/2020 My friend owned a previously-modded NEC PC Engine Duo that no longer powered on. I agreed to take a look at it for him. There was one heck of an eyesore waiting inside… Looks like a fine mess of Chong caps, hot glue, leaked electrolytic and a giant physical region…

Status: Successfully repaired on 8/12/2020 I recently installed a Triple Bypass for my Genesis 2 VA3, and I thought it was good to go-it played carts fine. However I soon discovered that 32X, Virtua Racing and the Mega Everdrive Pro wouldn’t boot. It turns out a connecting via for Pin B11 was rotted out. I…

Status: Successfully repaired on 9/28/2020 A Nintendo Donkey Kong board came in for both a capacitor replacement and repair. The board had an issue where everything displayed in blue. Fortunately Donkey Kong is an early board and is well documented. A little Googleing turned up a thorough list of possible culprits.https://www.brasington.org/arcade/tech/dk/ This blog pointed me…

Status: Successfully repaired on 2/21/2022 In for repair was a Capcom CPS3 board with a fussy security cart slot – it was difficult to get the board to boot and even when it did, the game would crash randomly. Fortunately the security card slot is identical to the PCI slot on a PC motherboard, so…

Status: Successfully repaired on 7/16/2022 I purchased this SSV 4-in-1 Multi ROM board for the shmups on it – Change Air Blade, Vasara, Vasara 2 and Ultra X Weapons. They are available from AliExpress (China). Unfortunately the board arrived with poor solder joints which caused glitches in the background tiles. Repairing the board was as…