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Neo geo repair
Question from Steve: Hey guys. Love the podcast. It is awesome. My name is Steve from Redding, CA. I have bought three cabs in the last four months. Of course, my wife thinks I am an idiot. Two of the cabs are Neo Geo and all my games have problems. One of the Neo Geo boards has no sound. I have noticed there are a lot of Neo Geo boards on eBay with problems especially sound problems. I would love to hear some information on problems associated with the Neo Geo format and especially the sound problem. I have been told my particular sound problem might be a z80 chip but would love to try and repair some of these broken boards found on eBay. I’m also looking for more information about Neo Geo in general. I have more questions but will only ask one at this time. Thanks for all the help. I have been listening to your podcast for a week. I have downloaded all of them and I am working my way through them backwards of course. Thanks for reminding me of how lucky I am to have awesome job, nice house, and a great family.
1 answer
Response from Jonathan: Steve,
First off, glad to hear you are enjoying the podcast. It’s always great to hear from listeners like you. It really encourages us to continue with our efforts. As for your question, Neo Geo sound issues are very common as you’ve found out from your research. I have not heard of the z80 causing this issue but I’m definitely not an expert when it comes to board repair. In our experience, board audio issues are usually caused by either a bad sound chip or a bad sound amp. You might hear us say on the podcast to replace the caps on your board if you’re having sound issues. This is because many times the capacitors on an arcade board are related to the sound amp. You could also try replacing the sound chip on these boards to see if that fixes the issue.
If you’re still experiencing problems after replacing those parts, you could have something else wrong with your sound subsystem. Our friend Raymond over at ArcadeComponents.com has worked on several Neo Geo boards and has some great repair logs that might help you out. He actually recommends replacing a certain IC chip on one of the repair logs on his website. Here’s a link: http://www.arcadecomponents.com/repairlogs.html#96971. You can also try posting on his forum at NewLifeGames.net for additional help.
Hope that helps. Thank you for your question and good luck with your repair.
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