[The Official NEO-GEO Thread!]

10 hours ago, CZroe said:

 

Yours is an earlier revision than I've ever laid hands on. Steven gives me way too much credit! You mentioned corrupt graphics but do the games appear to be running under the graphical garbage? Is there any audio?

It's definitely worth installing NeoDiagROM to looks for leads. Failing that, I look for little spots of corrosion on the motherboard... but that seems to be more of an issue for later models (something caustic splashed on at the factory). I sometimes socket the RAM and swap with known-good chips to see if there is any difference.

MobiusStripTech has fixed a few of these for customers. He'd be my go-to guy if I couldn't figure it out myself so I definitely recommend him.

 

 

Yes the games seem to run fine with the notable exception of the graphics displaying correctly. The Neo Geo intro screen plays, I hear that familiar jingle, I can watch the demo for the specific game play, it cycles to the title screen, repeats, etc. Audio plays 100% fine. It's just the graphics are messed up. Wish I had a video handy, but I suppose it's probably clear enough now.

 

I don't think there's any noticeable corrosion but I can give it another look. I'll look into your suggestion of NeoDiagROM - this is a diagnostics tool, I take it? Sounds like a good next step...

Thanks for the reply!

[The Official NEO-GEO Thread!]

1 hour ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Of the Neo Geo people here, @CZroe is probably the most knowledgeable dude here for hardware and repairs. If you've cleaned your carts and cart slot already, it's possible that you have a bad PSU... but I'd wait to get advice from someone who knows what they are talking about first (which is not me) before trying a different PSU, especially with the 5V and the 9V thing since you don't want your AES to explode or whatever.

 

Hey, thanks for the reply!

 

I actually bought a new PSU since the original had gone missing. I read up on a couple of sites on how to identify the AES version and the corresponding power specs. This page was the most informative IIRC: http://www.firebrandx.com/aespsuguide.html

 

So long story short I wound up buying this 5V PSU as recommended by that site - https://www.digikey.com/short/pbdmdv - and that's the one I'm attempting to use now.

[The Official NEO-GEO Thread!]

Hi all! I'm Mark. Anthony, who started this thread, gave me a very warm invite to ask the community here for help.

 

Briefly, my story is I lucked into winning a Neo Geo AES unit on a game show in 1991 (yes really!), and I played it a ton for a few years, but then it was stored in my parents' basement for a good ~25 years. I retrieved it last year, along with two controllers and three games (just missing the fourth game, Fatal Fury). Everything was rather dusty, but I cleaned it all up, inside and out. 

 

When giving it a power-on attempt, the video appeared mangled when I tested any of the three games. I searched online a bit and found that a decent first line of attack is to clean the contacts of both the cartridge slot and the carts. So I did that with IPA and/or contact cleaner (I can't quite remember if I used the contact cleaner, but I'm leaning towards I did). Anyway whatever I did, there was no more crap coming off it anymore. I used the credit card technique to clean directly inside the slot, btw.

 

Unfortunately the video problem still remains.

 

In case this is useful info - my board is labeled "NEO-AES" and it is the kind that has the "video cleaner" daughter board.

 

So that's where I'm at! Any suggestions on next steps would be very appreciated. I'd be happy to take photos of the video and/or hardware if it would help any. Also I wish I could say I flipped through more than a few pages in this thread for any existing info, but at 1000+ pages it's quite intimidating!

 

One last thing - I did find a single photo I took of the AES unit after opening the case which I'm attaching now. This was just before I brought out the Q-tips and IPA. (I was surprised it looked so clean off the bat, and took this to show my friend.) 

 

Thanks so much and happy to be joining this thread!

[Gauntlet by Donald R. Lebeau 1984]

It is a great game and a great thread with Don sharing a lot of his insight.

 

Hey, welcome to AA, BTW!

Thanks potatohead!

 

WOW, I just saw your rank is Dragonstomper. Another cool game.

[Gauntlet by Donald R. Lebeau 1984]

I'm very glad I found this thread. I signed up with this site solely for this game...Googling for "Gauntlet" only yielded results for that other Gauntlet, and I never knew about the rename to Gauntletak. I remember it being very fun and difficult and I never finished the game, but my father did. He was treated to a brief little tune and then the game was over. We joked about that for years--"all that for 'doo-doo-doooo. doo-doo-doooo. dodododododo doo-doo-doo'" Great game!