nesfangirlyes Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 Hello! I decided to post here because I am hoping somebody more knowledgeable than myself will reply. So I acquired the NES game "Chiller" and when I turn the game on in the NES the title screen starts, and then when I press start the screen goes black. I can hear sound in the background but the screen is totally black. I took the cartridge apart and cleaned the lens at least three times and still got the same result every time I tried to start up the game. I don't think the NES itself is the problem since all my other games work fine. Here are a few images. The quality is not the best but if anybody is knowledgeable about this issue I would love for you to post! Thanks! Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/316445-my-nes-chiller-cartridge-not-loading/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
INTVCruise Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 7 hours ago, nesfangirlyes said: Hello! I decided to post here because I am hoping somebody more knowledgeable than myself will reply. So I acquired the NES game "Chiller" and when I turn the game on in the NES the title screen starts, and then when I press start the screen goes black. I can hear sound in the background but the screen is totally black. I took the cartridge apart and cleaned the lens at least three times and still got the same result every time I tried to start up the game. I don't think the NES itself is the problem since all my other games work fine. Here are a few images. The quality is not the best but if anybody is knowledgeable about this issue I would love for you to post! Thanks! I think I've read somewhere on the old nintendoage website that chiller carts like to go bad for some reason, it could be that it just need s a cleaning but I think I specifically remember reading about chiller carts failing, but can't remember why. Hopefully you can get it working though! Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/316445-my-nes-chiller-cartridge-not-loading/#findComment-4738703 Share on other sites More sharing options...
emerson Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 It's possible the lock-out disable circuitry in the cartridge does not work with the revision nes motherboard, but the fact that it initially boots may prove me wrong. The fact that it boots then stops working is interesting... That may imply corrupt ROM chips, or that chip above the PRG ROM went bad. What is the part number on that smaller chip? It is likely serving as a discrete mapper for bank switching the PRG ROM. A simple thing to try would be to reflow all the solder joints. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/316445-my-nes-chiller-cartridge-not-loading/#findComment-4739166 Share on other sites More sharing options...
emerson Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 Now that I'm not at work I can dig a little deeper... I saw a few listings on ebay that had similar issues. One of them looked like it was reading sprite graphics okay but background graphics were all screwed up. Others would load the start screen then go black like your situation. As INTVCruise suggested, it seems rather common for these to fail. That smaller chip is a 74ls377, an octal flip flop. The game has 32KB of both PRG and CHR ROM. The NES can see 32KB of PRG and 8KB of CHR at a time, so the '377 is likely bankswitching the CHR ROM and not the PRG as I assumed before. The fact that you can hear music but get no picture also points to this. My previous guesses still stand. Either the '377 is bad, the CHR ROM is corrupt, or the PRG ROM is corrupt and not performing the bankswitch correctly. Here is some further reading: http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=1159 https://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/Color_Dreams https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/sdls167/sdls167.pdf?ts=1611960678989&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/316445-my-nes-chiller-cartridge-not-loading/#findComment-4739451 Share on other sites More sharing options...
nesfangirlyes Posted January 30, 2021 Author Share Posted January 30, 2021 11 hours ago, emerson said: It's possible the lock-out disable circuitry in the cartridge does not work with the revision nes motherboard, but the fact that it initially boots may prove me wrong. The fact that it boots then stops working is interesting... That may imply corrupt ROM chips, or that chip above the PRG ROM went bad. What is the part number on that smaller chip? It is likely serving as a discrete mapper for bank switching the PRG ROM. A simple thing to try would be to reflow all the solder joints. Did you mean the chip above the larger chip to the far right? Underneath the battery? Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/316445-my-nes-chiller-cartridge-not-loading/#findComment-4739700 Share on other sites More sharing options...
emerson Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 Yes that is the chip I was referring to. The bootgod link I posted above has the part number I was looking for though, the 74ls377. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/316445-my-nes-chiller-cartridge-not-loading/#findComment-4739799 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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