Tech: Black Knight issues again :(

[SilverUnicorn]

Well, I have a decent BK machine that I wish worked as decent as it
looks.

Game can play fine for hours, then lockup. Or sometimes it happens
within minutes. If you turn off the machine and power it back on, it
will work fine. For a while. Maybe 2 minutes, maybe 10, maybe 20. It
varies.

Here is a video of what happens (occurs at 1:00 into the video).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5T4h1R8XU4

Any ideas on what may cause this? Boards were reworked by Chris Munson
a while back. I seperated the CPU from the driver board and re-seated
them, and the problem persists.
Anything else I should be looking into?

Please e-mail me any suggestions you may have at wms...@comcast.net

Thank you,
Chris

[Lloyd Olson]

Reseat any socketed chips. check area for cracks in traces. LTG :)

"SilverUnicorn" <wms...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:34cddeec-6cdf-4154...@p28g2000vbi.googlegroups.com...

[c...@provide.net]

> Please e-mail me any suggestions you may have at wmsp...@comcast.net
>
> Thank you,
> Chris

i would suspect chip sockets and cracked male
header pin solder joints on the cpu and/or driver board.

Also when the game dies, leave the game on for
a moment, and check the 5 volts at the CPU
board. Is it 4.90 volts or higher? if not, you have
a power supply issue.

chip sockets:
get the game running and in attract mode. on
any socketed chip, "turn" the chip slightly. If the
game locks up when you do this, that socket
needs to be replaced. (it's a hard thing to describe
in words, but it's a great way to identify bad sockets.)

also inspect all the male connector header pins
on both boards, looking for cracks around the
pins. very common on this series of game.

[Pinhead!]

My Gorgar had a similar problem. I replaced the 40 pin connectors male
& female that join the CPU & Driver boards, problem solved.

Norman

[John Schlarb]

+1

My BK was a basket case until I replaced all of the connectors. I had
a list of about 10 problems, and 8 of them went away when I replaced
the connectors. It takes a long time but it's well worth the effort.

John

[John Schlarb]

Oh, and replace the big blue capacitors! :-)

[ldnayman]

Might be a power board issue. You should replace the caps on it.

Could also be a connector issue - replace any that look burned or
rusty.

Also, reseating your 40 connector won't fix anything, and will make
them worse each time you do it. They need to be replaced if they
haven't already (the male and female).

[Mike MN]

<<<<<<<<<<also inspect all the male connector header pins
on both boards, looking for cracks around the
pins. very common on this series of game<<<<<<<<<<<<<

This worked for me as well. Too many problems to mention with this
large shotty connector.

Mike

[SilverUnicorn]

Ugh.

Thanks everyone. Looks like I have something to do on Saturday :)

Will post any findings or updates as they happen. Never thought about
the capacitors. Will check the socketed chips first, then go from
there.

Thanks again!

Chris