Machine crashed twice/ Coil Buzz

Kenbo
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Re: Machine crashed twice/ Coil Buzz

Post by Kenbo »

Sometimes memory can "usually" work fine, but when accessed in certain patterns it flakes out.

That's why thorough memory tests run a whole bunch of different patterns.

It could be that the tank mode code runs a pattern that exposes a memory problem.

Then again it could be about a billion other things.
Revo76
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Re: Machine crashed twice/ Coil Buzz

Post by Revo76 »

That is an issue these days, we have made things so complicated that it takes a lot of time and effort to really find the problem.
Sometimes one thing shows up as defective and can also have caused other items to go corrupt which only pop up when you have replaced the first defective component.
Then you keep replacing one part after the other and in the end it might have been cheaper to just buy a new one.
Sadly enough this mainly counts for new items produced by the day of today since a lot of components were pretty expensive in their beginning days.
Just look at a normal computer, if one breaks down, do not get it repaired, just buy a new one which mainly is even more powerful then the one that just broke down.
There are luckily many tools on the internet which can help you find the problem, but with a pinball 2000 computer, you do need a little bit of knowledge about computers and also need extra tools like a cd rom player and cable to be able to do the tests you need.
But i even wonder if the mainboard used also send out vga signals when using dos/linux programs......

In this case i doubt that it is memory and my gut tells me more to look towards the roms on the prism card, but indeed, without proper testing you never know.
Just thinking about the what where and how, it might be defective ram memory that the previous owner might have swapped with some memory he had laying around at home to fix something else that used the same or similar ram and then put the defective one in the pinball machine.

With both machines here that i have here with version 1.6 there are no problems so far.
Both have not shown any error, reset, hung up system or what so ever.
(i can write down whats in the two units if you want to know, just let me know, (send me a PM)
Jazman
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Re: Machine crashed twice/ Coil Buzz

Post by Jazman »

Well, I had never seen the crash myself until this past weekend. Martian Bowling, 2 frames were spares. 3rd frame had a couple during first "roll" and was probably going to be a spare. As soon as the ball hit the upper switches - BAM - total machine reset.

It will be interesting to see if this is magically "fixed" with NuCore. We already know that the software runs better due to much more processing power (ie: no freezes of screen during jet bumper activity). If the crash is due to the software getting bogged down and not keeping up with the watchdog, then there is a chance that NuCore would fix it (even though it's running the same code).

Jaz
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Chuck
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Re: Machine crashed twice/ Coil Buzz

Post by Chuck »

This is a weird issue. We've never had this show up on a bug report for nucore. But I've also never experienced a crash like this on the original system.

You guys are running 1.5 or 1.6 right?
Jazman
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Re: Machine crashed twice/ Coil Buzz

Post by Jazman »

Chuck wrote:This is a weird issue. We've never had this show up on a bug report for nucore. But I've also never experienced a crash like this on the original system.

You guys are running 1.5 or 1.6 right?
1.5. I've heard about 1.6 but never seen it available.

I also never had this with the original system - until NOW of course. Basically, it's there in the ROM code so it is what it is. NuCore will either help it or it won't. Not much you can do about it really...

Jaz
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TAF, IJ(93), RFM, SWE1(kit), BSD, Monopoly, LOTR
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