Help with temperamental Nintendo vs system daughter cards

[Graham Mitchell]

Hey, guys!

I recently acquired a vs unisystem with a dr. Mario daughter card in the pcb. I switched it out for Castlevania, and it doesn't work so hot. It frequently just gives a blue screen, and if it does work, the graphics are scrambled like a dirty Nes cartridge. I've tried cleaning the connectors and the mounting area on the pcb, but no dice. I got it to work once, but after I tried to fasten in the pcb it pooped out again.

Conversely, the dr Mario board loads instantly, without issue, immediately when I insert it.

Do you guys have any advise on getting this to work?

Thanks in advance!


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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=34.125772,-118.158355

[Arcade Antics]

The Castlevania card isn't plugged in all the way. When they're not firmly seated, they throw errors like the ones you mentioned.

[Graham Mitchell]

Ahh, cool. It is kind of loose on the board. Do you think I could switch these EPROMs to another daughter board in case this doesn't work?


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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=34.125715,-118.158522

[Arcade Antics]

The daughter card is fine, if you were wanting to replace anything the sockets on the motherboard are probably the way to go. Those daughter cards have much heavier legs than the kit ROMs, so they put more stress on the sockets.

IMO the best practice for Vs. daughter cards is to plug them in once and leave them plugged in, then just swap out motherboards if you want to play a different game. Empty Vs. motherboards are only about $50, more than worth it.

[Graham Mitchell]

Okay, that's good to know.

The Vs. Castlevania card won't work no matter what I do. Thankfully, just about every game I bid on in the 'bay comes in a PCB, so I can try a new one when some of those arrive.

I better start stockpiling PCB's, then if I want to have a large collection.

Thanks for all your help!!

[Arcade Antics]

The Vs. Castlevania card won't work no matter what I do.

But you previously said you got it to work once. The daughter cards are much more finnicky than the chipsets. It's possible that you have a card that has issues, can't confirm without seeing it. But every one I've ever seen in person where someone claimed it didn't work and had the issues you mention was a case of an improperly seated card. If they're not lined up properly and the contacts aren't clean and snug, those cards act up.

[Graham Mitchell]

But you previously said you got it to work once. The daughter cards are much more finnicky than the chipsets. It's possible that you have a card that has issues, can't confirm without seeing it. But every one I've ever seen in person where someone claimed it didn't work and had the issues you mention was a case of an improperly seated card. If they're not lined up properly and the contacts aren't clean and snug, those cards act up.

Yeah, you've got a point. It did work briefly. The Dr. Mario card has been in there for 20 odd years, so the socket may just conform better to it. Do you think I might have better luck in another PCB?

[Arcade Antics]

Yeah, you've got a point. It did work briefly. The Dr. Mario card has been in there for 20 odd years, so the socket may just conform better to it. Do you think I might have better luck in another PCB?

Anything's possible, the main thing for any of them is to really make sure that it's in there securely and evenly. And then make sure again. If it's off even just a bit you can wind up with those errors.

[Graham Mitchell]

So, my buddy and master modder, Shadowkn55, came over and made an ingenious mod to my VS PCB. He replaced those crappy sockets with pin headers. The whole thing cost about $12 and works amazingly. These pin headers make much better contact with the daughter card, so switch DC games is a breeze. They work instantly, every time. I highly recommend this mod to anyone interested in switching DC's from one board. They only downside is that you board becomes a dedicated daughter card board. I'm not sure you can install ROMS on these things or not.

Anyway, here's some pics!

[shadowkn55]

You can still install a standalone cpu and ppu into those pin headers along with the eproms that go in the other sockets. It's just a pain to swap out the 5-6 eproms that make of the program rom for games that don't use the daughter board. I'd have to look into the addressing modes of daughterboard-less games (e.g vs hogan's alley) and see if it's possible to make a daughterboard that consolidates all the program data into a single eprom. This would make it much easier to swap every type of game.