WMS 550 X Mark The Spot did ram clear

[Slots8168]

I just did a ram clear on WMS 550, made the dong but the monitor is blue with a little black and white.
I try reset with no luck, I even did another ram clear. The machine has been find up to this point ,unless I would unplug it for a few days, which I would get critical ram must be clear alarm. Does anyone no what I
Need to try?


Thanks Slots8168

[rokgpsman]

If the monitor was working ok before you did the ram clear what was the purpose of doing the ram clear? Need to hear any other actions you have taken. Have you tried removing and reseating the cpu board? Is your battery on the cpu board good and not showing leakage? If the battery is bad you can try replacing it and then do a ram clear.

[Slots8168]

I got a fatal memory corruption game must be Ram Cleared/ Critical system error 13. So purchase a ram ram clear chip / WMS 550/360!XU-3  clear multidenom. I followed the instruction , put the X mark the spot chip back in and the screen is scamble. I check voltage it was 4 V and reseated both boards. I tried redoing the procedure many time ,still no luck . I have tried resetting with key and the the button on board and the reset button located above hopper , which I don't have. I even removed battery for a few hours. Could I had fried the game chip or somthing else? Any help would be great.
Thanks Kerry

[rokgpsman]

Can you post a photo of your cpu board? Is this the version board that has a piggy-back memory board attached to it near the video monitor connector?

4 volts for a battery voltage is an odd value, are you rounding it off? Usually it is 3.6 volts or somewhat lower.

When you put the game chip back in you got the notch on the end of the chip in the right position and didn't bend any legs of the chip where they go into the socket?

Was the machine working fine up until you got the corrupted memory error, or had anything else happened? What about any recent electrical thunderstorms in your area?

[Slots8168]

I have picture to send you !just not sure how to upload. Still trying

[Slots8168]

That why I have the issue ,I unplug it before a storm. if I unplug it for more than  a day or so I get the critical system error 13.
I just. Double check voltage it show 4 volts. Both board do not have stackup , I have pictures with ram clear
And with game chip in. Two differs color on monitor, it look like it just scamble to me. If you know how to upload pictures please let me know, I will send them your way.
Thank Kerry

[Slots8168]

The other picture is with ram clear this is with game chip

[Slots8168]

The blue picture is with game chip
Thanks Kerry

[Slots8168]

 V

[Slots8168]

Game

[Slots8168]

Picture with door close , any idea on what going on?

[rokgpsman]

I am not able to stayed logged in continuously, have some Saturday things going on.

No idea on what is happening, sorry. There will be more folks logging in later this evening, so stand by for possibly other ideas from them.

If the monitor was working ok before you did the ram clear then I'd think the scrambled monitor display was due to something that happened when you removed the game chip and reinserted it, or due to removing the cpu board and reinstalling it. The first time you did the ram clear was the screen working then, and the scrambled image happened when you put the game chip back in after the first ram clear?

The board with all the socketed chips is the cpu board. That other board that has the 5 LED's in a group on the edge of the board is the I/O board. When the machine is powered up with the door open all 5 LED's should be ON and the other LED off by itself should be OFF. They represent the various voltages of the power supply.

[rickhunter]

Looks like a monitor issue to me.  Connect the monitor's cable to a laptop or something and see if a picture comes up. If it is all scrambled, then you have a monitor issue.  If the eprom is bad, you would get some sort of error code on the mpu LED segment.  That is why I don't suspect software.  If you have another mpu, I would try that as well.  If the video ram is bad, you would also get a scrambled screen while not necessarily getting a game error, but that is kind of rare.

[Slots8168]

I hookup a laptop video was clear but showed the home page 4x. The cable housing wouldn't allow to plug in very far those. But  monitor was clear. How do I repair video ram? If needed where can I purchase or send board to?


Thanks for all your help
Kerry

[Slots8168]

I just plug in a computer monitor  in to the Cpu board and I get the same to what is displayed in above picture
So it sound like I video ram issues correct? What is needed to fix this issue?


Thanks Kerry

[rokgpsman]

If the video ram chips are not in sockets it can be difficult to unsolder and replace them. If they are in sockets it isn't hard at all to replace them, just carefully pry out the old ones and insert the new chips.

I didn't see answers to earlier questions. Tell us if this is exactly what happened:

The monitor was working fine before all of this, you just had that error message that led you to do the Clear process. During the first time you did the Clear process the monitor was still working fine. The chip at XU3 was the only chip you removed from the cpu board. When you reinstalled the game chip at XU3 after the first time you did the Clear process that was when the monitor problem happened.

If this is what happened I'd try replacing the game chip XU3, it may have gotten zapped somehow. Or you can try replacing the cpu board. If you have an eprom burner you can check the XU3 eprom, see if it gives an error about not able to access the chip contents. If the monitor was fine before you ordered the Clear chip then it seems likely to me that something that happened during the chip changing for the Clear procedure caused the screen problem you now have.

[Slots8168]

Yes that is correct I was trying to do the ram clear procedure and some how scamble the video. I had someone tell me to plug a laptop into video cable, which the machine showed the same as computior monitor.
I did plug a computior monitor in to the game which showed scamble screen, just like the game monitor did.
The guy last night said it may be video ram issue, do you know how to repair that? Do you know the video chip number and how many there our. I have no burner ,is there somebody I can buy Xu3 or what else is needed to repair?


Thanks so much for your help
Kerry

[rokgpsman]

All of the advice and suggestions you have received are good ones, it seems to me that you have proven the slot machine monitor is ok since it works when plugged into the laptop (even though the resolution or image may be much smaller or larger than it should be when connected to the laptop. That is due to the laptop video driver not being correct for the machine monitor). As long as you haven't moved any jumpers on the board to different positions, installed some ic's into the socket backwards, bent a leg on an ic, damaged the board by dropping it and breaking a part on the board, or some other action that is unknown to us then the advice you are getting is good.

Your photo of your cpu board is too fuzzy for me to see any detail. Take a look at the chips I've circled in your photo below, see if they are marked on the board as U3, U4, U5 and U6. If they are then I believe those are the video ram chips. As you can see they are not in sockets, each chip has many ic legs that are quite small. My guess is that if you attempt to replace them you will damage the board traces and be unable to do a repair.

I'd replace the game chip XU3 and cross my fingers that will fix it. There are probably people here that can help you find a replacement XU3 game chip. If replacing XU3 doesn't fix it then you are likely going to need a new cpu board, but that's just a guess, others here may have other suggestions. If the game chip XU3 is bad you'd think that the Clear chip would give a good display since it installs on the board in place of XU3 game chip, so I'm not confident replacing XU3 will fix your machine. I'm also wondering if the original error you got (critical memory error) has something to do with the video problem.

I think when the machine powers up one of the first things it does after initialization steps is to run the game software in the eproms on the cpu board. Early on that game software would clear the video ram in preparation for whatever display image would be coming along later. I think the scrambled screen image you see is due to the video ram not getting cleared, the game software doesn't make it that far in its code execution. Hopefully this is because the XU3 game chip is bad and replacing it will get your machine working. A new XU3 chip won't cost a lot and is worth a try.

[rickhunter]

He is getting the same issue with the ram clear, he also gets a messed up screen.  That is why I'm thinking he has issues with video memory.

We have concluded that your monitor is not the issue, then the only thing left is the MPU board.  First make sure all the chips have the notch facing the correct way.  When you cleared the machine, was the notch facing the same way as the other chips?  If you plug the chip backwards, you can fry it needing to erase and re-burn at the very least.  Sometimes you get lucky and it doesn't happen.  The fact that you are getting the bong sound, means XU3 is working correctly, otherwise you wouldn't get that at all.  Look at the LED digit display on the MPU, what number does it show?   I would explore the possbility of getting a known working mpu board.  If you don't want to go through the expense and just want to make sure it is indeed your mpu, find someone who can test the board for you, hopefully someone who lives close by.

[rokgpsman]

Another idea that just occurred to me, check the two long connectors on the edge of the cpu board, look for any bent or broken pins. These are the pins that mate with the connector on the backplane that is mounted behind the card cage.