Neo Geo 6 Slot Motherboard Repair

[@BaconMinion]

Man, this channel hasn't changed all that much in these 15ish years, and I love it.

[@lukemorse1]

It's the same low budget off the cuff vids you've seen years ago lol. Thanks BaconMinion for the kind words!

[@DreamGrandDragon]

Hard to believe it’s been 15 years you doing all this I’ve learned a lot from you over the years I remember your Japanese instruction videos, the earthquake videos, keep them coming, long-term subscriber

[@StRoRo]

Nice. The only place where I saw a 6 slot machine was in a local pub. Neo Turf Masters was by far the most popular game. Who knew years later these machines would be in the hands of everyday people and trying to preserve them. Neo Geo always impresses me, even today. I don't think my kids understand what it means to have an Arcade machine at home.

[@lukemorse1]

I know right. Its similar to being able to have a conversation with your favorite actors online or meeting them in person and such. Having an arcade at home now means that you can see the ending of a game whenever you want lol. Neo geo was and still is the leader for its 2 board design and is why so many dev's have continued to make games for it after all these years. Thanks as always for the comments!

[@GadgetUK164]

Wow, I wasn't aware of that interconnect for the power! Mine worked fine without it, but I guess that helps with current and voltage level on the other board! Great job Luke =D

[@lukemorse1]

Ive seen some that dont have it connected and I wonder if they made some kind of revisions over the years? Some have the clip on the top board but not the bottom but I SNK did this a lot with their older Jamma boards as well. Not quite sure but thanks as always man!

[@The_Magic_of_Zelda]

These 6 slot boards are getting harder to find so it is nice that you got this lovely beast alive and working again. I am helping a friend who is currently restoring a 4 slot Neo Geo cabinet “Big Red” (MVS25-4). The board works fine but the cabinet needs some love. I put a fresh coat of paint so now we are waiting for the decals to arrive. He is trying to replace the dead 25 inch CRT monitor but those are apparently hard to find. Zed Blade is a fun game but I felt it was a little too easy in terms of difficulty. I never played Gururin and Mr. Do.

[@KennAndJenn]

Does the 25” monitor have a wells gardner chassis? Those are pretty easy to find parts for. As long as the tube itself isnt damaged it should be easy to fix.

[@lukemorse1]

Nice! that sounds like a great project right there. If you can find an old 25" CRT tv and it has the right chassis on it you can modify the tube to accept an RGB signal. There are plenty of tutorials on YT if you can come across one but try that! Zed Blade is fun but that last stage is arrgh lol. Gururin is a nice twist on tetris/puyo puyo type games. Quite tricky at times but neat. Neo Mr. Do is a pretty cool game along the lines of dig dug but good. Best of luck finding a tube for your cab as well!

[@The_Magic_of_Zelda]

@@lukemorse1 Thanks. I'll look up the tutorials once I find a 25 inch CRT. I'll also give Gururin and Neo Mr. Do! a try as well once the project is completed.

[@The_Magic_of_Zelda]

@@KennAndJenn We have the chassis, it's the tube itself that is completely dead. Finding a replacement is hard to find so we might have to find an old 25 inch TV and modify the tube to not only fit but also accept RGB.

[@TheHighlander71]

Holy moly what a power house that thing is! Somebody had their way with this thing. Nice fix. Really enjoyed this video! Thanks Luke.

[@lukemorse1]

Haha, for sure. It was likely put aside due to the ram issue but glad I was able to bring it back to life.Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for checking as usual!

[@DlNKYDANA]

Nice job! Great to see you diagnose the problems and come up with solutions to get this all fixed up. Thanks for the video

[@SKHelios5100]

Damn, those Neo Geo boards are beast, even to Sammy Atomiswave, i love them but perfect that you fixed it :D

[@lukemorse1]

Yeah, these boards are right up there with the Sega model 3 hardware in terms of size. Atomiswave is some great hardware for sure though as well!

[@SKHelios5100]

@@lukemorse1 interesting

[@itamarazulai6767]

Great job on fixing those traces !!!

[@lukemorse1]

Thanks a lot, I really appreciate it!

[@nfang_tk]

Wow excellent work as always, that was a pretty good note to self about the I/O being a little bit different when using a Jamma harness (still learning about all these different boards). Hope you had a great weekend and thanks for the upload! 💯

[@lukemorse1]

Hey Peter, Yeah, even I forgot the pinouts were different for this one. It's the same when you get an early Capcom board or Sega system 16 pcb and wonder why it doesn't work when plugged into Jamma 😂 Doing well here and hope you have a good week!

[@THELEGENDARYK2]

Great work as always Luke! That 6 slot is a wild beast and you tamed it haha. Always happy to see your repair videos take care and be well!

[@lukemorse1]

Awe man! It's been forever! Great to hear from you. I didn't recognize the name except for the K2 haha. Thanks a lot brother. This thing was a wild beast but a little crack of the old solder "wick" and we tamed it alright 😅 Hope you're good and thanks for stopping by👍

[@AccFireballs]

Awesome to see the 6 slot running again. Great job, Luke!

[@lukemorse1]

Thank you very much! glad to be able to keep this board off the scrap pile for sure

[@KennAndJenn]

Man youre crushing the game repairs! Awesome job man! Now I gotta double check all my mvs boards and make sure those batteries are gone.

[@lukemorse1]

Haha, for sure brother! I have to say that this is where the repairs end as the other boards are working fine, no repairs needed :). Definitely get rid of those batteries on your 4 slot boards, they will eat the boards up for sure. Thanks to you, hopefully we can save a few more of these boards from eating themselves apart.

[@oldskoolpaul77]

Great stuff Luke! This board definitely ended up in the right hands! Another one saved from the grave! Zed Blade looks like a great game too. Not seen that one before. Awesome!

[@lukemorse1]

Thank you there Paul, I really appreciate it a lot! Tried to keep this one from becoming scrap parts and succeeded. Zed blade is a neat shooter but the last stage is utter torture 😂

[@oldskoolpaul77]

@@lukemorse1 Will have to try out Zed Blade 😀

[@darktetsuya]

finally able to take a minute to sit down and watch somma that! always nice to see another board restored to basically brand new. (or at least working as intended) love me some neo*geo stuff so many great games for the system for sure.

[@gumdeo]

Oh yeah, it's always great to see SNK's arcade beast.

[@lukemorse1]

Haha! SNK knew how to "Go big or Go home". Definitely the top players in the game at the time.

[@patzik1910]

Interesting repair. I was working on a 2 slot and a 4 slot last month, and had the same sound issue, as I never worked on neo geo before I was troubleshooting the sound till I figured out that it was the jamma connection 😂. Also using the unibios there is some known corruption of the screen when starting up and sound is missing on slots 2 and up if there is no cartridge in slot one. Just a tip in case you want to use the unibios, saves you from troubleshooting… The 2 slot I have has very extensive corrosion and besides a lot of trace repair some of the customs were damaged so I’m waiting for some replacement ic’s from Furrtek. Anyhow, nice job on the trace repairs! Another one saved.

[@lukemorse1]

What a great story, lol, I totally hear you with the sound issues. Ive owned around 100 of the MVS boards with the majority of them being the single slots and only had a couple of issues with the 4 and 6 slots in the past. After not working on them for a while its easy to forget about the differences haha. Furrtek is awesome. He's hooked me up with several custom parts over the years. The last 6 slot I repaired (or started to repair) was 11 years ago, (still a video up on YT) but the traces were gone so I hear your pain. Best of luck getting your board up and running hopefully sooner than later!

[@RetroGamingWithEdgarRivera]

Ahh yes the old mighty NEO GEO 6 slot is back to it's full arcade glory which reminds me of my youth playing the NEO GEO MVS 4 slot in my local Arcade either Metal Slug, KOF 97, KOF 98, Fatal Fury Special,Mark of Wolf's Art of Fighter, World Heroes and of course Samurai Showdown.

[@lukemorse1]

Those are some awesome games, I especially love the intro to 98' such a rocking beat! Luckily a lot of these games were ported to different collections and on other consoles but some great choices!

[@jacobrichardson1952]

This is gold Luke very interesting.

[@lukemorse1]

Thank you Jacob again! This took a bit of work but glad it's fully functional again

[@mrtuttle76]

Been a subscriber for a good while,you never disappoint, keep it up

[@coffmanlove2020]

Legendary

[@lukemorse1]

The legend continues

[@cagan97]

Welcome back ❤🎉 greetings from czech republic 😊

[@andymiddleton5677]

Omg that area that was caroded from that leaky cap... Great job on the repair. Another rare one! Hats of to you, Luke 😁

[@lukemorse1]

Thank you Andy! Actually the board was corroded by the battery that was in the bottom. The last one I saw that was eaten away much worse than this was the video I put up a decade ago on a broken 6 slot I was repairing

[@TheKayliedGamerChannel-YouTube]

Always hear 6 slot MVS are a bit of a nightmare to maintain Luke, suppose those multiple cart inputs take an hammering. Congratulations on another board up and running! 👏 😎

[@lukemorse1]

For sure man. I've owned quite a few in the past and only had a couple of them act up fortunately but nice to have one working here again! Hope you had a good weekend

[@TheKayliedGamerChannel-YouTube]

​@@lukemorse1Cheers, not bad thanks, unfortunately I seem to have picked up an head cold, suppose it's cause it's cooler here and we are heading into Autumn, so expect guess more of it to come. Cheers again fella, hope that your all well and good Sir, best wishes as always.😎✌️

[@tigheklory]

Awesome video Luke!! Now you've got me wanting to fix the first slot in my MVS 4!! I have a LS series tester and I should just pull all the one connected to the first slot and test them.

[@lukemorse1]

Thanks a lot Tighe! check to see if your battery has eaten away anything especially under it. If you seen any discoloration on the top or bottom of the top board there is a good chance something is eaten away. Also totally recommend making up a Neo Diag Bios v1.9. You can find the file on the net and it will help out a lot when testing! good luck man and hope you can get it running again

[@tigheklory]

@@lukemorse1 Thanks Luke!! I removed my battery YEARS ago and there was no leakage fortunately. I wish I could share photos on KZbin, because I would show you the World Heros 2 cart that was in my MVS when I got it is melted in the case over the upper left mask ROM on the prog board.

[@eddiegeerts6107]

awesome repair!! you make it look so easy -- NICE --

[@lukemorse1]

Thanks a lot Eddie! not easy by far but Not my first time working on these things lol.

Nice repair! These boards are soooo cool! I have repaired multiple MVS boards, but never touched any 6-slots one! I am not sure I even have 6 cartridges 😀.

[@lukemorse1]

Haha, I think even if you have a couple of fun MVS games you are golden. The 6 slots are are some space eaters but filled with games they can also act at a weight lifting tool. The MVS 1 slots arent bad at all but when you start getting the layered ones like the 2, 4, and especially 6 slot one's it becomes a bit more frustrating

[@Zebpro]

Great job man, those 6 slots boards are true beasts and known for being very unreliable, SNK must have been out of its mind with this!!! 😂🙃🤪

[@rich_in_paradise]

Great repair!

[@lukemorse1]

Thanks a lot!

[@steveazusa]

We need another Luke on the bike vid to hardoff

[@lukemorse1]

Haha, we've got a lot of retro enthusiasts handling the Hardoff scene nowadays, especially on the Japanese side too! Maybe we'll get another vid out some day here

[@MrBacchus18]

Your comment didn't sound too right lol

[@Ojref1]

Some of the MVS AIO carts (off ebay, Ali) tend to pull a lot of power and might show artifacts too, even on single slot configurations. Always keep an OEM MVS title or 2 around to test with if you intend to repair or recondition MVS systems, don't get a AIO cart and think you're good.

[@lukemorse1]

Some very good advice for sure! Luckily all of neo games I have are originals and I would totally agree with you on the fakes having artifacting and issues. Another thing Ive found is that some of the sony flat screen TV's will show graphic glitches when using component or s-video cables and a supergun. Not the fault of the games but actually the TV not being able to sync.

[@Jonas_Keunecke]

Nice job, thanks for the video

[@lukemorse1]

Thanks Jonas! much appreciated

[@snufl]

I got a couple of 2 slots a few years back, and both of them had problems due to those batteries leaking. I could only save one of them and I'm eventually going to put together a cabinet for it, but the other one was leaking for so long that the entire quarter of the board where the battery was had no traces and was delaminated, it was crazy.

[@sunnyvale104]

You the man Luke

[@beansoup1088]

Awesome channel ❤

[@Polaventris]

"Looks like really good physical condition" at 2 minute mark at a 32 minute video. Something makes me think it was not all well after all :D

[@scotshabalam2432]

White vinegar is your buddy when cleaning corrosion.

[@lukemorse1]

Bingo! I mentioned vinegar in the description but yes indeed, vinegar and some baking soda for the win!

[@TomStorey96]

The pins you were probing on the RAM chips weren't the data pins, the data pins are on the other end of the chips. What you were looking at were mostly some of the address and control pins. It would be perfectly normal to see some of the address pins in a steady state, especially if the CPU is stuck in a tight loop because it is displaying an error message and maybe waiting for some kind of input, so that doesn't necessarily indicate a problem. One of those RAMs was clearly a dud though, but I don't think you'd have found it by looking at the activity of the data pins. The value that it wrote to RAM and what it read back were different and indicates a stuck bit inside the RAM, but the rest of the data bus was clearly functional because it could execute code and test other memory addresses just fine. 🙂

[@lukemorse1]

Thank you for the clear explanation on the state of the ram chips, very interesting. Many of these vids are off the cuff and I sometimes wind up using the wrong names for pins and components, apologies in advance. As for the ram, I wouldnt have guessed that it was a stuck bit inside the ram, I probably would have thought it was simply burned out internally but it is interesting to learn new things so thank you. Will try different techniques next time

[@TomStorey96]

​@@lukemorse1 The error likely came as the result of a "pattern test", where you write certain values to RAM and read them back to see if they are the same. For example, in this case it looks like the test wrote a value of 0x5555 (a very common value in such tests), and read back 0x555D. 5 in hex is 0101 and D is 1101, so we can see that bit 3 (0 being the right most bit) read back high when it was written low. The opposing value would be 0xAAAA, where A has the binary pattern 1010 which wouldnt have caught this issue, hence you tend to use both values. With those two values you can detect a variety of issues, but its a somewhat simplistic test, and there are more thorough tests that can be done. Had there been a bigger issue with the data bus that was holding certain bits high or low then the CPU probably would not have been able to execute enough code to get to the point of putting an error message on the screen.

[@piratestation69]

Im suprised the bios had a slot... does the unibios work with a 6 slot? At the local arcade there is a working 6 slot in the original cab. Only problem the mem card function does not work... and of course I'm the only person that has a memory card. Even seening a working 6 slot is rarer than hens teeth. Awesome as usual...

[@lukemorse1]

Yeah, you can swap out bios's with these ones as well. They are definitely rare for sure. Back in the day I had a few of these and they were tricky to keep running for sure. Hopefully this one stays kicking for a while! Thanks as always!

[@final_fight_cd-y9g]

i got into this 'retro' scene in 2008/2009. found your channel then. very cool that all these years later you are still making similar videos. if i may ask, what is your background that gives you this knowledge?

[@Gypsycat19]

I have 3 6 slots that got fixed here in Australia took the tech a year to fix one the other 2 were quickly fixed by same tech he said he will never work on a 6 slot again he said plus the boards are over 30+ years old now

[@lukemorse1]

I totally understand that. I worked on one 11 years ago that had battery corrosion and eaten traces all over it and it was a nightmare. These are very tempermental boards for sure but really neat when they work correctly (although its not very often lol).

[@gamerguy425]

I've heard these are the worst NG boards and it is practically impossible to get all 6 slots working most of the time. Some site said to steer clear since if you subtract the slots that never work you're better off with a 4.

[@lukemorse1]

The 4 slots are definitely much much more reliable for sure!

[@MrRandomposter]

Nice one! Greetings :)

[@justinmijnbuis]

You might have wanted to zoom out a bit more; hard to get a good view of the whole PCB and the jerky movement makes it tiring to watch.

[@lukemorse1]

For sure, the board is so large there isnt enough space for it to fit on the counter but will try to keep the camera more stable next time.

[@jaridcool]

First 😮 🏃

[@lukemorse1]

Nice!

[@bradallen8909]

The 4 slot and 6 slot MVS boards are probably the most unreliable arcade boards ever made. Incredible hardware, but the quality of the PCB's is shithouse.