Metal Slug 3 Prob (Bad Graphics)

[Arakon]

I received a MS3 today "with gfx bugs".
Unfortunately they aren't just bugs, but 90% non-existant.

The cart is 100% original, the contacts as clean as they can be, the MVS unit perfectly fine too.

<img src="http://pirate.sparkhost.com/~arakon/MS3-1.jpg" alt=" - " />
<a href="http://pirate.sparkhost.com/~arakon/MS3-2.jpg" target="_blank">http://pirate.sparkhost.com/~arakon/MS3-2.jpg</a>
<a href="http://pirate.sparkhost.com/~arakon/MS3-3.jpg" target="_blank">http://pirate.sparkhost.com/~arakon/MS3-3.jpg</a>
<a href="http://pirate.sparkhost.com/~arakon/MS3-4.jpg" target="_blank">http://pirate.sparkhost.com/~arakon/MS3-4.jpg</a>
<a href="http://pirate.sparkhost.com/~arakon/MS3-5.jpg" target="_blank">http://pirate.sparkhost.com/~arakon/MS3-5.jpg</a>

I resoldered all C roms, no change at all. I can't see physical damage to the traces or contacts.
Also, the top part of the unibios screen is garbled in the same way (just above the unibios logo), in red.
Anyone have any ideas?
or want to sell me the second PCB of a MS3?

 

[kernow]

fix ROMS are ok then

and thats about it..

 

[ttooddddyy]

As Kernow says its looking that way.

You could copy the gfx related rom images from the mame set.

Good luck.

 

[Arakon]

well, aside from the fact that these are 64 mbit eproms which I can't find or burn, I have my doubts that all 6 of the proms are dead and failed at once.

I have the bad feeling the decryption chip is fried, is there an emu or something that would allow me to run the encrypted romset without decrypting, to see if it looks similar?

or does anyone have any other ideas?
or have the ability to burn these roms for me?
(for the board mods, this is obviously not piracy related or whatever, I own the original cart, I paid the money for it, this is entirely for repairing purposes).

 

[kernow]

hmm

the ms3 ROMZZ are available in encrypted and non-decrypted forms.

strange how they don't bother encrypting the fix bank "stuff"

 

[ttooddddyy]

well, aside from the fact that these are 64 mbit eproms which I can't find or burn, I have my doubts that all 6 of the proms are dead and failed at once.

Going by the screen shot showing the top layer gfx ok, it doesnt look like it is the case. Im not really up with this please put me straight.

 

[Arakon]

can someone tell me the exact type of eprom that could be used as a replacement for these C roms?
so far the largest I found is 16 and 32 mbit, but these are 64 mbit afterall.

 

[HPMAN]

64Mb EPROMs are referenced as 27C642 by ST (check <a href="http://eu.st.com/stonline/products/promlit/pdf/breprom-0101.pdf" target="_blank">http://eu.st.com/stonline/products/promlit/pdf/breprom-0101.pdf</a> ) but are basically nowhere to be seen...

Anyway a bunch of those EPROMs would cost way more than another MS3 cart...


Any pics of your PCB ?

<small>[ May 21, 2003, 01:22 PM: Message edited by: HPMAN ]</small>

 

[Arakon]

well, if it really is a bad prom, a single chip MIGHT be enough to fix it.

<a href="http://pirate.sparkhost.com/~arakon/ms3pcb.jpg" target="_blank">http://pirate.sparkhost.com/~arakon/ms3pcb.jpg</a>

 

[Razoola]

This is a strange one. Can you get the crc's of the program roms using the universe bios 1.1 and put them to this link. IF it shows this is a original encrypted p rom cart then its very unlikley there is any problem with the ROM's at all as the 8x8 tiles are fine.

Raz

 

[Arakon]

ID = 256
ROM region: 9C42CA85
ROM Bank 0: 6CFB73AD
ROM Bank 1: 7252E8EF
ROM Bank 2: 21E7F773
ROM Bank 3: 4415B9A9

All return "OK".
These CRCs match the ones in your CRC thread posted by magnaflux.
if it's not the roms, what else could it be?

<small>[ May 21, 2003, 04:21 PM: Message edited by: Arakon ]</small>

 

[Arakon]

Is there a way of calculating all rom crcs seperately with an unibios (modified version) to see if a rom in particular is bad? and/or verify the function of the decryption chip? I have no means of dumping these cause my eprom progger doesn't support them.

 

[HPMAN]

Well, you *could* dump them by doing 2 32Mb banks with an adapter forcing the last address line, but you'll spend a lot of time during the process...

 

[Arakon]

my programmer only supports 8 mbit eproms, so it'd be even more work :/

 

[HPMAN]

If you have the nerve to unsolder all chips you could start to make a check of the first 8 megs of each chip, I dunno...

But that's a lot of work here, those boards are pain in the ass to unsolder...

<small>[ May 21, 2003, 06:09 PM: Message edited by: HPMAN ]</small>

 

[Arakon]

any further ideas?
raz?

one thing I recalled is that by the looks of it, the neogeo reads blank data from the chips.. so not even encrypted or whatever, but simply blank. my cps2 board had similar behavior when the B board wasn'T plugged in right.

I measured most pins of the roms and decryption chip to the edge connector, all seemed fine.