161-in-1 version 2 stability fix.

Razoola

Divine Hand of the UniBIOS,
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It is with a big thanks to 'ack' that this issue was found and fixed. To cut a long story short, ack donated me a 4SLOT in relation to fixing issues in PICKnMIX on multislot hardware. Once I got the MVS I could not get my 161-in-1 working correctly with it. Yet for ack it was working fine. Only difference was ack had 161-in-1 ver 1 and I had a ver2.

During my tests trying to discover the issue I discovered that trying to view the 0x200000 region with the unibios memory viewer would cause a system crash. Ack bought a version 2 161-in-1 and started to experiance the same issue. Still with no idea the cause ack looked over the PCBs in a last ditch effect to spot something.... And he did!!!

He discovered the following.

VERSION 1 PROG BOARD SOLDER SIDE
161in1-rev1.jpg

VERSION 2 PROG BOARD SOLDER SIDE
161in1-rev2.jpg

As you can see clearly from the pictures above on the first version the pins are bridged and on the 2nd version they are not.

He decided to bridge the pins to see if it helped... and BINGO.... It solved the problem.

VERSION 2 PROG BOARD SOLDER SIDE APPLIED FIX
161in1-rev2fix.jpg


In short.... If you have a version 2 161-in-1 I would advise applying this fix. It will for sure help on a multislot MVS but it might help in other situations also on single slotters. There is enough room to be able to apply the fix without the need to disconnect the PROG board from the CHA board (as picture above implies).

We also think at the moment it might be possible to tell which version you have by looking at the label, it seems (from the ones we have at least), if the edges of the cart label are square its version 1, if they are rounded its version 2.

Raz
 
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ack

Ninja Combat Warrior
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We also think at the moment it might be possible to tell which version you have by looking at the label, it seems (from the ones we have at least), if the edges of the cart label are square its version 1, if they are rounded its version 2.

I believe another way you can tell is by the edge pins on the cart. On version 1 boards the outer ground pins and middle Vcc are one big pad, while version 2 they were left as individual pins.

-ack
 

Finch

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Good to know, I just ordered a 161-in-1 from Aliexpress and I'm assuming it will be Ver2. I will definitely perform this fix. I've been trying to wade through the other 161-in-1 fix thread and I can't quite tell if the other fixes in there apply to this new Ver2 board, adding the caps and such.
 

Razoola

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There is a video on youtube of a guy showing howto do the audio fixes on the v2 board.
 

Hitokiri

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Damn, I've been away for too long, I had no idea a V2 was out.
I'll buy one, to play the games I don't have.
 

DuffCon

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I’m having crashing issues when running pick-n-mix on my mv-1fz

I applied this fix to my ver2 cart and it did not help. Certain titles like Kizuna encounter would consistently crash in this mode, but if I run them from the regular menu it works fine.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

GadgetUK

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Looks like PDTACT and PDWAIT1 - looking at other boards they are joined. Makes you wonder why they broke the connection on v2?!?! Mistake maybe. Thanks for sharing =D
 

superfry63

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Just applied this fix to my 161 in 1 Revision 2 cart (was purchased this year off ebay) and I haven't had it crash since!

Thanks Razoola - this goes great with the 4.0 Unibios I just put in.

Before this fix, the 161 would have some random crashes (no real pattern) and with the pick n mix it would crash almost every 10 min.
 

Razoola

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Great, glad to hear it helped.
 

RyuX

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Also did this fix along with the PCM Fix.. however some games will still randomly crush but I will have to monitor this behavior further.

Seems it's more common if I let the game run in the background in the demo mode..
 
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BulletMag

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Mine also appears to crash randomly during PnM demo mode but with no pattern,

I haven't had a crash during gameplay so I'm happy to live with it.
 

Razoola

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Some people get this and others not. I have seen it myself but every crash I looked could only be related to the cart and how the 68k read the data from it and not the unibios. It is unknown how these carts sync themselves to the NeoGeo clock and I suspect the issue lies here (maybe the cart requires the reset line to trigger after every game select but PICKnMIX does not do that). I really dont know. I would really need to get in contact with the makers to know more, I have tried to reach out but have got nowhere into who actually did them.

The NeoSD had simular issues on some systems when it first released, they however are activly working to improove it (and did solve it quickly) where I don't think the 161in1 makers are. I have a feeling the revision 1 carts might be more stable than revision 2 but I have no proof to say for sure.
 

superfry63

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Just applied this fix to my 161 in 1 Revision 2 cart (was purchased this year off ebay) and I haven't had it crash since!

Thanks Razoola - this goes great with the 4.0 Unibios I just put in.

Before this fix, the 161 would have some random crashes (no real pattern) and with the pick n mix it would crash almost every 10 min.

Oh course I had to go and jinx it - some of the KOF games still crash after hitting the main screen. I'm assuming it's the cart though. Maybe I can try reflowing stuff.
 

superfry63

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Oh course I had to go and jinx it - some of the KOF games still crash after hitting the main screen. I'm assuming it's the cart though. Maybe I can try reflowing stuff.

Oddly enough, if I run the cart for long enough playing other games for 5-10 min or so, they work moving forward. Oh well these carts are what they are.

For example, KOF 98 was crashing after about 15 seconds in. So I went back to KOF 94, confirmed it worked, then worked my way up to KOF 98 and it worked.

Note to self: start NeoSD MVS swear jar asap.
 

RyuX

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For me the crashes are also different on different types of consoles.
The Cart will crash less on my main MV-1C but more on one of my MV-1FZ (not all of them).

So there are many factors that cause this.
My first cartridge was crashing all the time (all games) but the second one I got never had a Ingame Crash (only sometimes when running in Demo Mode for a while)
 

Kujako

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Just got one of these new ones, and MAN is it an unstable POS... constant crashes and audio is Bjorked. Will have to start pulling together the bits to do some of these mods and fixes for it.
 

RyuX

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Just got one of these new ones, and MAN is it an unstable POS... constant crashes and audio is Bjorked. Will have to start pulling together the bits to do some of these mods and fixes for it.

Yes it's a real gamble.. my first one was trash.. the second one I got really isn't too bad.. I barely get crashes and after the PCM Fix I didn't notice any sound problems anymore
 

Kujako

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Yes it's a real gamble.. my first one was trash.. the second one I got really isn't too bad.. I barely get crashes and after the PCM Fix I didn't notice any sound problems anymore

It's a bit odd, since they clearly made an effort to fix some of the issues with the older boards. For example, it now has the voltage regulator that people had to add into the old one.
 

RyuX

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Yes but honestly.. any engineer with just a little bit of freetime on his hands could improve this board 100% - saving on capacitors that cost a cent each and putting a resistor instead of a cap and using preused ROM Chips from old devices to even further push down the cost is beyond me. I rather pay an extra 20 bucks than getting this type of quality control and design.
It seems the 138 in 1 is a much better choice (just make the DIP Switch Mod and select the games directly without the SUB PCB - its a great option)
 

Kujako

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Yes but honestly.. any engineer with just a little bit of freetime on his hands could improve this board 100% - saving on capacitors that cost a cent each and putting a resistor instead of a cap and using preused ROM Chips from old devices to even further push down the cost is beyond me. I rather pay an extra 20 bucks than getting this type of quality control and design.
It seems the 138 in 1 is a much better choice (just make the DIP Switch Mod and select the games directly without the SUB PCB - its a great option)

There are new 138-N-1 boards now as well, with an orange JAMMA connector. So who knows...

On topic, is there an audio fix for the new 161-N-1 yet?
 

bochi

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Well I have a very. 1 and 99% of the games crash. I don't know if it's the aes or the cart.
 
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