Return to Q&A Database
Area 51 Problem
Question from Ben: I’m really hoping you can help with an issue I’m having with my Area 51 cabinet because I’m not sure where else to turn. I live in Wichita, Kansas and apparently there are only a few guys in town who work on arcades and they’re booked up for months. I just purchased the game (my first one) from a seller in Texas. Prior to selling it, he had just upgraded it to run both Area 51 and Maximum Force by replacing the HDD, etc. Before I bought it, he sent me a video of the game and everything appeared to be working perfectly but I guess two weeks in a semi truck is the equivalent of putting it in a paint mixer. Everything was shaken loose in transit. Once I got it downstairs, I plugged it in and switched it on. The board lit up and the hard drive was spinning but the monitor wouldn’t come on. Several screws, bolts, nuts etc. had completely come off some parts and were just laying inside. I hired a local TV repairman to come out and fix the monitor. He said one of it’s parts touched another that it shouldn’t have and shorted out. A few days later he had the part and replaced it but now I’m getting about four or five unclear images on the screen. I tried tweaking the various monitor controls but it’s not working. I listened to one of your podcasts that said it may be a board issue and to clean the main connector with a pencil eraser. I tried that and removed and reseated the game chips but there’s been no improvement. I’m obviously no expert at this and not sure what else I should be trying. Below is a link to a Dropbox folder with videos and of what I’m seeing. Could you please take a look and tell me what I might try? I’m desperate for the help. Thanks in advance, Ben
Dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/iatntjacwzsd3vq/GrxT3DZ8yl
1 answer
Response from Jonathan: Ben,
Looking at your videos and photos, it seems like your board is working fine. The monitor, however, looks like it is having some sort of sync issue.
One thing to check is the frequency of the monitor. While most monitors use only one frequency, some are switchable and it could be you have a switchable one that’s on the wrong setting. If this is the case, you should see a connector or a switch on your monitor chassis (board) that allows you to switch the monitor between standard res (15 kHz) and medium res (25 kHz). You might take some pictures of your monitor chassis and send them to us if you need some help identifying where the connector/switch is (or if you even have one).
You might also check the wiring and connectors between your main board and your monitor chassis. Make sure that all of these wires are making a good connection on both ends. Of course, the sync wire would be the most important wire for your particular issue so double check the connections on that wire. Check out our JAMMA wiring harness pinouts if you’re not familiar with which wires are the monitor wires coming from the harness connected to your board.
If the frequency is set correctly and all of the wiring from the board to the monitor is making a good connection then you’re probably looking at some sort of monitor chassis electronics issue. At this point, you might try calling the TV repair man back out and see what he thinks. Sync issues like this can be caused by a number of bad parts. It could be one or a combination of bad IC chips, transistors, capacitors, etc. Of course, you could always pull the monitor chassis out and send it off to an arcade monitor technician if your TV repair man isn’t familiar with the issue. We have a list of arcade monitor technicians on our resources page under the heading Monitor Repair Services & Information.
At this point, I would contact the guy I bought the game from and make sure that he’s going to pay for the repairs. You bought the game with the expectation that it would work once you received it and it is pretty far from working at this point.
Hope that helps. Thank you for your question and good luck with your repair.
This question has been closed
