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Arcade Monitor
Question from Brian: Greetings. First off, thank you for providing such a detailed and informative website. It is generous people such as yourselves that allows us classic gamers to preserve and enjoy these machines! I have a Daytona USA 2 that I just acquired that I knew had some minor monitor issues when I bought it (hey, I got a good deal). I was just wondering if you could provide some insight on what to research, such as “it’s probably the board”, “it’s the chassis”, etc. The seller described it as having a “dark” monitor which is true, the colors were all subdued and dark when I did a test play. Occasionally it looks like there is a slight green hue. Problem is, which makes me think it is not related to a simple adjustment—after moving it to my home it is intermittent. In other words, sometimes it looks fantastic (normal), and other times it blinks back to being dark/slight green. It may go back and forth during game play, staying normal for 2-3 minutes, then turning dark for 2-3 minutes. Occasionally it stays normal for the entire game play. Occasionally it is dark for the entire game play. I would love to get it to stay normal with the beautiful graphics it should have. Can you give me a starting point on what to research/try? I am a novice for sure, but can certainly read and get my hands dirty! I see the degaussing procedure, but not sure that applies since it sometimes looks great??? Would appreciate any advice. Thank you and happy gaming. Brian
Update: Hi there. I want to add that I did a CRT test from the machine and there is no blue bar! Bad picture but the area where blue should be is just black the red, green, and white appear fine. Hope this helps you point me in the right direction. I don’t think it’s the tube as sometimes it looks pretty good. Thanks. Brian
1 answer
Response from Jonathan: Brian,
Thank you for your kind words. We’re glad that you find our website content helpful. Make sure you check out some of our other content including our podcasts and DVDs for even more great information on arcade repair.
As for your question, it sounds like it’s either a short on your monitor chassis or a problem with the wiring between your harness and your monitor chassis. We would definitely start with the wiring first. Make sure that the wires that run from the harness (where your main board is plugged in) to the monitor chassis connector are in tact and making a good connection on both ends. Sometimes the solder on the pins where the connector attaches to your monitor chassis will crack and become cold. It’s a good idea to inspect the solder on these pins and touch it up if needed. This goes especially for the pin that corresponds with the color blue as you are having problems with that color.
If all of the wiring and connections between your board and monitor chassis check out, then you are probably having an issue with the monitor chassis. At this point, we recommend checking out our post on Checking A Monitor Tube as it gives some great information on how to troubleshoot monitors that are missing a color. Also, cold and cracked solder joints can happen on the other parts of your monitor chassis as well. You might try inspecting your monitor chassis to see if you find any solder joints that look suspicious and touch them up as needed.
Hope that helps. Thank you for your question and good luck with your repair.
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