Question from Jeff: I have a Street Fighter II arcade cabinet with a Street Fighter 3 3rd Strike CPS3 board hooked to it. When I brought it, it was working perfectly. One year later (present day), I’ve JUST brought more 2 CPS3 PCB JAMMA units (1 with SF3 3rd Strike the other with New Generation). I wanted to test them out on the arcade cab so:

1- I switched out the original SF3 3rd strike CPS3 board with the other 3rd strike CPS3 board. It just said, needs memory to function game. I knew there wasn’t a RAM chip installed but as long as I knew that it reads the board, I was ok. Before I continue from here: the same day I switched out the units, I wanted to refine the cabinet’s control panel and change the buttons; therefore, I removed all the buttons and the panel itself. Moving along…

2- A few days later, I swapped the CPS3 (with no RAM chip) with the New Generation CPS3 unit (I was told that it might not work from the seller but it was a very cheap price so I brought it). When I installed that unit…fuzz/static. I suppose it didn’t work so I switched it back to the the CPS3 unit with no memory prior to hooking the New Generation board. When I plugged that CPS3 unit in…fuzz/static. I didn’t even get the message with the insufficient memory.

3- I swapped that CPS3 unit with the one that came with the cab…fuzz/static.

I have NO clue as to what the issue is. All 3 CPS3 units are giving me fuzz/static. I’m more concerned with the CPS3 that came with the cab and the CPS3 that I brought without the ram chips (I just ordered new ones). They both were functioning before. Please do not tell me that both my 3rd Strike CPS3 boards are malfunctioning. I hope it’s just a harness issue. Take every detail I’ve explained into consideration. Please get back to me with a possible solution. Thank You very much. Jeff