Response from Jonathan: Matt,

First off, we’re glad that we could inspire you guys to refurbish some cabinets. The more working arcade games that are out in the world the better.

As for your question, yes it could absolutely be the RAM/ROM chips but we would try a couple of things before replacing them. You might start off by making sure our power supply is putting out the correct voltage to the board. Instead of checking your voltage at the power supply, you might try turning off the game, unplugging your board from the cabinet, turning the game back on and testing your voltage at the harness. We’re not sure if Wrestle War is JAMMA or not but you should be able to get the pinouts from the manual in order to determine the voltage pins. Make sure you adjust your power supply if your voltage is too high or too low. This should ensure that you are getting the correct voltage to the board.

If you continue to have problems after checking/adjusting the voltage at the harness, you might check out our post on Inspecting An Arcade Board for some helpful tips on troubleshooting board issues. At this point, we would probably try replacing the RAM/ROM chips as you mentioned in your original message. You could also try using a logic probe to check the output of some of the chips on the board. There’s a great beginners guide to using a logic probe on Lawnmowerman’s Pac Man Page in case you are unfamiliar with it.

Other than that, you will probably need some additional equipment (such as an oscilloscope) and a lot of time to get the board working properly. At this point, you would probably be better off contacting one of the people under the Board (PCB) Repair & Component Sales heading on our resources page as these people specialize in board repair.

Hope that helps. Thank you for your question and good luck with your repair.