Does Switching MPUs Back and Forth Cause Loss of Settings?

[DB26]

Hello everyone,

I have an S2000 machine that I use for testing and for playing purposes. When testing, the machine gets an entirely new MPU with completely different chips. I know the ram errors will pop up and just need to be cleared, but was wondering if it is common to lose any settings during this process?

I ask because I pulled the first (My playing MPU) MPU out and tested a second MPU. After I was finished testing the second MPU, I reinstalled the first MPU. I cleared the ram errors, but I had lost all settings for my Tito system. Is that normal?

[lookes]

Hi Robert,

I have noticed that. Seems like TITO settings are lost. My test fixtures always use the same chips. 5 Reel 9 Line Triple Stars. When I swap boards, I never have to do anything but turn the 'key' and push the button a couple times to clear RAM and change the boards serial number in the motherboards EEPROM. I don't use them to play games on tho.  TITO always works.

[DB26]

So, if I use the same game chips to test future boards my settings might stay on there? Where are the Tito settings stored anyway? Does anything else on the machine store data for the machine? Thanks

[lookes]

It's stored in the EEPROM on the motherboard. If I use the same SB, VS, and GME chips on every board I test, I never have to key chip or anything. All that needs to be done is RAM clear for the CRC mismatch, and Let it update the serial number in EEPROM to match the board I'm working on. All boards have a different electronic serial number. 

[DB26]

It's stored in the EEPROM on the motherboard. If I use the same SB, VS, and GME chips on every board I test, I never have to key chip or anything. All that needs to be done is RAM clear for the CRC mismatch, and Let it update the serial number in EEPROM to match the board I'm working on. All boards have a different electronic serial number.

Very good to know! Thank you. If I took those chips and made copies of them after having done the TITO configuration, would that info transfer into the saved copy? Or would it have the be the same physical chips used?

[lookes]

If you mean the SB, VS, and GME's, I have 10 sets. They don't store any information about the machine and are read only anyway. It gets even easier! Once you clear the initial RAM error on a board, the next time you plug it back in (unless you remove the button cell) all you have to do is clear the board serial number error. I guess you could have multiple EEPROM motherboard ICs and change it with the MPU board. You would have to socket it tho.  The EEPROM stores things like accounting, audio volume, TITO, Coin settings etc. I'm pretty sure they transfer to RAM when you clear the "CRC Error" when changing a battery, or putting a different board in. I think if you have different SB, VS, or GMEs is the only time the "mismatch" is bad enough that the board has to be keyed. It does appear that the Credits are stored on the MPU RAM only. It always resets to zero. Since TITO still works, I just load it back up for testing.

[DB26]

Ah I see now. I was thinking of the EPROMs and not the eeproms. So it is the other chips not the SB VS and GMEs.

So, if I take my board out and not touch it, install a second board and play with that for a minute, and then reinstall the original board, it is the resetting of the ram error that ends up earasing the saved TITO settings?

[sixcardmark]

You can switch boards all you want as long as you are only changing the SB. You will not loose anything except the credits and sometimes the enhanced sound will need to be re-setup and/or sound simm swap.  When you change the VS or GMEs chips THEN you probably will loose TITO settings and other settings and may even need to key.

[DB26]

Okay, great. I will do some board swapping tonight. I’m getting my testing rig together and don’t want to lose TITO settings on the original board when I throw a second board in to test. My machine will be able to take both the 50x and 1270 boards. I did a swap last month with a different board and then went back to my original board and lost the settings. I was using chips from my second machine on the different board.

I did not realize the machine would clear the settings on my original board when reinstalled. I figured since it was taken out and the chips weren’t removed the machine wouldn’t know the difference.

So, how does the machine know you went from one board to another? If all the data is kept on the board and you simply pull it out and put it aside, what is it that causes it to delete the data? Does the board interface with some other device on the machine?

[lookes]

The MPU has a ROM on it that stores a unique serial number. (and that's all) That serial number gets compared to the one in the EEPROM on the motherboard at boot time. If they don't match because you changed MPU's you will have to marry them together again. The only things that seem to change are the serial number in the MB EEPROM, and credits are zeroed. Might be some others things, but they don't seem to matter to TITO.

[DB26]

Awesome, thanks for the multiple explanations. I think I have it wrapped around my head now. When I do hands-on work is when it really sinks in. So, tonight I’ll do some board swapping and see how the machine reacts. That should hammer the ideas home.


And also it didn’t help that I kept reading / seeing / thinking motherboard and MPU as the same thing. Sometimes I forget that the motherboard is also the backplane.

[DB26]

I did my board swapping last night and I was successful in keeping my TITO settings. I did, however, have a few settings reset. The game volume was reset back to a higher volume, credits were cleared, android  my reel stop solenoid was turned back on ( I had the reel stop sound / solenoid off and I’m not using a MML board) But those don’t bother me as they are easy to set back to my preferences.

So thank you both for your sound advice.

I ended up pulling out my 502, installing the 1270 (which needed me to set up TITO settings because I’ve never done them for the 1270) and then reinstalled the 502 and my TITO was still active. Perfect!