Response from Jonathan: Barry,

From your description, it sounds like you are either having a power supply issue or a wiring problem with your game. We have a saying here at Arcade Repair Tips: ASAP (Always Start At Power). Start off this repair by making sure that the power supply is supplying the correct voltage to your board and the other parts of your cabinet. Check out this post on How to test a Space Invaders/SI Deluxe Power Supply from Elektron Forge for some tips on checking the power supply in your Space Invaders cabinet. We also highly recommend checking out the Space Invaders page on brentradio.com for manuals and other tips for working on Space Invaders cabinets. Our post on Checking A Classic Power Supply should also help you with this process.

If the problem continues once you’ve checked that the power supply is putting out the correct voltage, we recommend checking all of the wiring inside your cabinet. Look especially for any frayed or exposed wires. Also, check the wires that go to the connectors inside your game as well as the pins they connect to. A lot of times these connector pins will become loose and will need to be touched up with some solder in order to ensure they are making a good connection. In fact, it’s a good idea to refresh any solder that looks like it could be cracked, cold or broken so you can ensure that the connections are being made. Unfortunately tracking down problems like this can sometimes be frustrating but with a little patience you should be able to find the problem area and correct it.

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