Final Fight stuck in Test Mode

[cheesystick]

Hello,

Upon visiting my parents in Alaska, I revisited my beloved but unfortunately unused Final Fight cab that was kept in my old room. Considering that I no longer live in the state, I decided to sell it and spare my parents the room. It had worked perfectly for years, the only real problem with it being the the side art was damaged. I wanted to sell it in a short period of time, so I offered a new acquaintance a price of $150 so that he would buy it. Considering the overall good nature of the cab, (working monitor, semi new buttons, working coin mechs, good bezel, marquee and panel art), I thought this was a real steal of a deal. After seeing the machine, he took the deal.

Now this buyer owns a local game store. He arrived at my house to take the machine, but also informed me that I would need to follow him to his shop, (where the arcade was destined), in order to get paid. This perturbed me a little bit, as normally when you buy something, you have the cash at the ready. However, I looked past it because I know where he works, and decided to collect the money later.

I get a call the next day saying that the machine doesn't work. Keep in mind that it has worked perfectly for years. According to the new owner, he set it up in the shop, turned it on, and it all worked perfectly. After investigating his new toy, he decided that he wanted to change the number of coins needed per play. After hitting two dip switches and rebooting, he found himself stuck in test mode. According to him, these two switches were not even the correct ones to trigger the test mode. In any event, the machine is now stuck in test mode.

He said he put the dip switches back to there original positions, (how I had it), and he still cannot get the game out of test mode. It appears that monkeying with the dip switches will not allow him to leave test mode. He didn't use a static slip or anything when he was monkeying with it, which makes me think he could have potentially fried the dip switch box or part of the board. That is just one possibility though.

Any help or advice?


This makes an awkward situation for me, as I haven't even been paid by this fellow yet. That was based on my own kindness, but I am left on a fence. It wouldn't be fair for him to return a broken arcade to me that was once working, yet I would feel bad taking the money from him for selling him "a lemon." It would be better for both of us if we could just get it to work.

That being said, for an owner of a few arcades, I do not know how to work on them or much about the technical specs at all. I'm just a gamer. Therefore, I can't really help him fix it at all myself. Does anyone know what might be wrong? Anyone know what might be wrong with it? Could the dip-switch box itself be fried? I somehow don't see anything being wrong with the board, but I could be wrong. Any help would be much appreciated.
Thank you,
Chris

[XYXZYZ]

Dipswitch C-8 is usually test mode on CPS1 boards, and I take it you're sure it's set to OFF. But there's also the operator's test switch, usually mounted in the coin door, connected to pin 15 on the JAMMA harness. Follow the wire at pin 15 (component side of the board) on the JAMMA harness and see where it goes. Maybe it's on.

[stargate]

I have no idea how to repair it, hopefully the advice above XYXZYZ will help.

In terms of the situation, however, basically you are screwed because he hasn't paid you yet. If he had already paid you, I would suggest telling him that it was working until he messed around with it (by his own admission).

I would try to work together to fix it. Poke around arcade forums like you are doing. Hopefully it is an easy fix. Worst case, offer to split the cost to repair. The guy owns a game store, he must know a tech guy who can fix it.

If he is unwilling to be reasonable just take it back. You can probably get $100 for the game in AS IS condition. You gave it to him for a song, at least you are not out too much.

[skaar]

This sounds like a shady guy to deal with. He tinkered with it and is too embarrassed to admit he likely screwed it up?

Download the manual for the machine/motherboard online and print him a copy. Work on it with him to resolve but really - he's admitted to messing with it, why's the onus on you to resolve it?

[n20vette]

well did you both test it before moving it like you should of ? If so i say its his problem. On other hand he could of tinkered with it enough so he can negotiate the price down. But he shouldnt of opened until he tested it and payed you he did not own it yet. Try flipping the switches why machine is off the turn onn. Just a suggestion

[jammajup]

It sounds like a simple logic fault,need to trace from C-8 and see what logic ic it leads back too.I have a europa-coin kit version of FF but the board became faulty a few years ago and is on my scrap pile so i will take a look.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Don't these machines use a battery backup to save data?

You could move all the dip switches to their default position, remove the battery, and wait for the memory to clear. Or somesuch.

http://pdf.textfiles.com/manuals/ARCADE/A-J/ has a manual for the game, I think.

[XYXZYZ]

This thread was two months ago, I traded a couple troubleshooting PMs with him and never heard from him again.

[MarioMania]

He logged on today, but why is he ignoring you

It must be ok by now

[cheesystick]

Sorry guys, I was moving back from Alaska to Oregon right when this happened and I lost sight of the thread. Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude. The advice was used and well-appreciated. Gosh, I didn't mean to drop the ball.

Just to give you a summation of what happened, here is the story. The guy tells me that after he moved the machine and found it stuck in test mode, he got a friend that knows computers to come by and inspect it. He tells me that he cleaned everything super thoroughly, checked the the board and the connections and spent an hour and a half monkeying with it. This was in addition to the owner's inspection. This is what originally made me uneasy, as how was I supposed to account for what was wrong with the machine when so much uninformed tinkering had been going on?

So I still hadn't been paid and I was 2 days away from leaving the state, getting final errands done and whatnot. I call him and tell him that we have to figure things out and close the deal no matter what. He tells me to come by his new store. I head on over to find that he isn't there, (that's okay, but a bit odd considering that he just called me), but one of his employees tells me that I can look at the machine after I explained who I was. In about 30 seconds I popped open the coin door, looked at the panel attached, (which I TOLD HIM to look at over the phone and he assured me that he looked at everything), depressed a button that had TEST handwritten on it in plain sight and everything worked fine. Now, grant it that I had not seen that "Test" was written on this button when I owned it, but I knew that this panel was there inside the coin door for maintenance type purposes. I never monkeyed with it myself, but I specifically told him over the phone to check this panel out. He assured me that he looked at it.

When he arrived back at the store after getting ice cream he told me that he felt really stupid for it being such an easy fix. I got my money and left. Even though he is a nice enough guy, this all basically happened because he was being dishonest. He told me originally that he hadn't touched anything inside the machine which was a blatant lie. He not only depressed that "test mode" button in between the time I gave it to him, but his buddy took the board off the interior side of the cabinet and just laid it down inside. I don't know how it was affixed before, but he straight up took it off. Secondly, he downright lied in saying that him and a friend inspected every inch of the machine, which can't be true because anyone could have found this panel on the inside of the coin door in about 5 minutes. All of this led me to believe that the problem was much more complicated that it really was.

Thanks for all the help guys. The answer was simple and I actually had to go down there myself to fix it. Had he been more honest, this would be the simplest fix in history and I would have never had to start this thread. I did get some sense of satisfaction when he arrived back in his store; the fist thing he said was, "How did you get that thing to work? How did you do that?" after he saw the machine functioning normally. "You see this button that has 'TEST' written on it? Well, push it down." The dumbfounded look of embarrassment on his face was pretty priceless. I can't believe that I drove all the way across down for that.

To XYXZYZ and MarioMania, sorry for losing sight of the thread. I didn't mean to not return any PMs or seem unappreciative of the advice. I was just moving at the time and I forgot about it amongst the fray. Arcade advice can be hard to come by, so even though the real answer was surprisingly stupid-obvious, I do appreciate the help. I guess it just makes a funny story now. Lesson learned: Even if the dude owns a game store and you trust him, always get paid upfront - bottom line. Thanks again,
-Chris