2 sick Neo Geo AES's. Help them get better!

[Diatribal Deity]

I recently acquired two sick Neo Geo AES's. First one, serial #211394 has no sound but picture is fine. Upon opening sound chip seems to get very hot. Second one, serial #002533 has sound but picture is black and white with intermittant lines scrolling down. Any input or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'm not exactly technically savvy with these things so be gentle. :embarrassed:

[anagrama]

Is it possible that the second one is a PAL system?

[Diatribal Deity]

This is where my ignorance will really shine as I would not know how to identify whether it is. The outer case is identical on both as well as label on back. It reads:

MOdel No. NEO-O
Rating 8w
Use Pro-Pow ac adapter only

Ports on back are the same and internally the layouts are different but I thought that was because of the gap in serial numbers.

If anyone knows of any good resources on the web please point me in the right direction. I've checked myself extensively and can only find generic sites which sell and mostly have MVS info and very little technical troubleshooting for the AES cartridge consoles.

[Diatribal Deity]

It seems as if the one with the lower serial number having the display problems is wider. I guess this means it is either pal or mvs but do MVS display regular AES games scrambled and are pal systems wider as well?

Thanks again for any input anyone may have!

[Logicdustbin]

MVS is and arcade machine.

AES is the home system.

The games are the same, but are physically different. (so that arcade owners didn't buy the much cheaper, at the time, home carts to place in the arcade machines)

There is an adapter to play MVS on the AES, but they usually sell for $400 - $500.

[Diatribal Deity]

It turns out one of the systems is PAL and one is NTSC. The ironic thing is the PAL system is diplaying the picture fine and not the sound, where the NTSC is playing the sound fine but has the distorted picture (very odd). O_O

One option I have is to cut the PAL wire and see if that fixes the sound problem thus making it NTSC but this will probably take away from the collectibility.

Thanks again for all the input and putting up with my stupid questions as I've stumbled along my merry way. Next up a defective Neo-Geo CDZ. :frustrated: Good times!

[FABombjoy]

I think I saw that auction that you got all of these systems from. Almost bid on it myself.

On the PAL system, changing the CXA1145 NTSC/PAL jumper shouldn't have any affect on the sound. Several component changes must also be made to convert to NTSC. If it displays fine already it's probably been converted already (unless you have a multisystem TV).

On the NTSC system, check the color burst oscillator for proper frequency/output. If the CXA1145 loses the 3.57MHz clock, the color disappears. There is an adjustment cap near the crystal, but it's only for fine tuning and probably won't help.

[Diatribal Deity]

Thanks for the info! The NTSC system is working fine now (colors look a little washed). Still no sound on the PAL system...might be a lost cause but I'm a glutton for punishment. As for the CDZ I'm in search of an adapter for it. I'm assuming its the drive thats blown which I heard can be replaced with a first generation saturn drive. Interesting stuff...