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Question from Jeff: Hi, first I’d like to thank you for all of the helpful resources you provide. I have a Life Force arcade game and learned how to test and replace my faulty power supply from your videos. The issue I have now is the game turns on shows a screen with a grid on it then what looks like a test mode screen saying ram, rom and multiple other items are all OK. Then it goes to squiggly scree and just cycles continually through those 3 screens never loading the game. Do you have any direction that you can give me on what could be the issue or where to start trouble shooting? I really appreciate any advice you can offer. Thank You. Jeff
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Response from Jonathan: Jeff,
Not a problem. Glad that you have found our content helpful.
As for your question, we would probably start 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. Since Life Force is a JAMMA game, you should be able to use these pinouts 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. Also, make sure that you board is not in test mode as this can sometimes cause this perpetual cycle on some boards.
If you continue to have problems after checking/adjusting the voltage at the harness and disabling the test mode, you might check out our post on Inspecting An Arcade Board for some helpful tips on troubleshooting board issues. Also, you might 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.
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