Please review the following checklist before installing your JAMMA board.

This guide is written to help understand some common problems with old arcade game boards.  Do not attempt any suggestions in here if you don't know what you are doing...I cannot be held responsible for damages or injuries, this includes the board, your equipment, and yourself.

Depending on your knowledge of electronics this may sound remedial, but I have picked up these tips through personal experience, and reading instruction manuals.  Do not let yourself fall into the "There's no way that's the problem...I'll skip that one" trap....I've done that myself and its the simple things that actually work sometimes.

Even static-electricity can damage a board!  Please handle carefully and preferably with an anti-static wrist-strap and mat.

1)Verify your cabinet is working with another JAMMA compatible board first.  This includes video, sound, AND controls.  You may have existing problems that could damage your new board.

2)Make sure your power supply / JAMMA harness is capable of supplying ALL of the voltages required for this board.  Again, incorrect wiring may damage your cabinet and/or board.  Test each voltage output to make sure it is at the proper level....even being off by just +/- half a volt may cause all sorts of random problems, where other boards work fine.  Test the voltages AT THE BOARD with the game powered on AND at the actual JAMMA connector.  If you just check with no board connected or close to the powersupply, you do not take into account the draw of current (load) from the board or the current lost in the length of the wiring

3)Make sure your monitor configuration is compatible with this new game.  You must have a monitor that supports the correct resolution, video format, AND orientation.

4)DO NOT CONNECT OR DISCONNECT ANYTHING WHILE POWER IS ON!!

5)DO NOT CONNECT THIS BOARD TO A NEO-GEO MVS CABINET WITHOUT THE PROPER ADAPTER; YOU WILL DAMAGE YOUR SOUND SYSTEM.

6)If you did not follow #4 and now your whole cabinet appears dead, don’t panic yet, most power supplies have a time delay circuit breaker that will reset if you unplug the main power for a few minutes and try again.  If not, you may have a fuse inside the power supply housing to replace.  However, you may have damaged the PCB.  Read #4 several times before proceeding.

After Installation, If you have any problems such as not booting, no video, blocky or missing some graphics (including "jail bars"), no sound, distorted sound, incorrect sounds, or random resetting …try the following one at a time.

1)Power game off, disconnect and reconnect the JAMMA harness, power on.  (See #6 above)  Make sure you don't have loose connections inside your JAMMA harness.

2)[Even if your problem is not audio related....]Is the volume set too loud?  Sometimes the speakers (or audio amp) are drawing too much power from the board and can cause it not to function properly or at all, due to reduced power to the rest of the board.

3)Run a self-test within the game and see if any ROMs come up with errors. Some games have an initial powerup test, but you have to go into test mode to run a more in-depth check.  If any chips are bad....physically locate that chip and see if it looks to be seated properly, or has bent/broken/missing pins.

4)Power game off, disconnect JAMMA harness.  Make sure all rom chips that are in sockets (or found bad in a ROM test) are seated firmly by pushing them into the socket.  Also, inspect for (and do not cause any) bent/broken/missing pins  ***Do not do this on carpet because you can build up static electricity which can damage the board.  Also not directly on a hard surface like a table, because you can damage the soldered pins on the bottom of the board.  I recommend either while mounted in the cabinet, or the best way is on a table with a piece of anti static foam, or cardboard, under the CPU board and using an anti-static wrist strap.  If this still doesn’t help try CAREFULLY removing them completely and reinstalling them (preferably one by one so you dont mix them up).  Be careful not to bend the CPU board which can crack, or loosen other soldered items, including roms you have already "fixed".