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Asteroids Repair Advice? Beeping
Question from Chris: Hello,
I’ve written in previously for advice, and you guys have been extremely helpful! Hoping you can come to the rescue again regarding a new repair/restore I’m working on. I picked up a vintage Asteroids cabinet. It’s not working, and I’m having trouble diagnosing the problem as it doesn’t match anything I’ve seen or heard of before. Any help/advice is appreciated! I posted over on the KLOV/VAPS forum (link below) so there’s lots of detail there including images and a short video.
The short version is that the previous owner said the game worked fine until recently. I plug it in and turn it on, and within a couple of seconds I hear a constant series of high pitched beeps/tones. They do not change pitch, and are not in a pattern. They simply beep quickly and constantly. Upon pressing the test switch, the beep/tone changes to low pitch, but it is again repetitive without a change in pattern or pitch change. The Player 1 and Player 2 button lights are on and steady (not blinking). There is neckglow on the monitor, and the LED on the PCB is lit. No image on the screen. The buttons and coin reject do not emit beeps when pressed in either play or test mode, and the game does not appear to be playing blind.
More details, including the video demonstrating the beeping sounds, can be found at:
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=316962
Thanks in advance for your help/advice!
Chris
1 answer
Response from Jonathan: Chris,
Looks like you got it working according to your KLOV thread. I’ll second what WindDrake said that you should replace and repin the edge connector as this is a common point of failure on Asteroids arcade games. You can also try the eraser trick that he mentioned which we discuss in our post on Inspecting An Arcade Board.
Yes, it would be best to pull all the chips, check them, clean what you can, re-insert, etc. but as long as the game is working I would be hesitant to do this. Instead of actually pulling the chips, I would probably look for broken or loose chip legs and solder joints on the board and just touch those up.
Hope that helps. Thank you for your question and good luck with your future repairs.
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