White Water - MPU Issue?

[Fifty]

Hi guys, I've been having an issue with the music on my White Water. It happens randomly. I have not been able to reproduce it. There are two things happening, but I believe that both things are related to the same problem. Here is what is happening;

1) Pin is on. Attract sounds are OFF. It will stay quiet for about 10 minutes (give or take) then all of a sudden music begins to play. It's the Whirlpool Challenge music. It comes on, and it doesn't ever turn off. It will only stop if I turn off/on the pin or start a game.

2) I'll be playing the pin. Sometimes for 10 minutes, sometimes for 2 hours. All of a sudden the Whirlpool Challenge music will start even if I'm not in that mode. It will continue until another sound effect is triggered, or I drain.

I was thinking it was the Sound ROMs failing, but I haven't really had to work on any sound problems until now.

Thoughts?

 

[Menace]

I would say it's a stray data call from the MPU. As to what is triggering it is the better question. Always start with the easy stuff first, reseat all of the ribbon cables a bunch of times and try again. Where it seems you can get the game to play the sound in attract after 10mins and it not stop, you should be able to confirm any changes in behaviour. Now I'm not sure if the attract sounds option only affects the flipper button activated sounds in attract or if it also controls the music as you are experiencing.

If reseating the ribbon's don't change anything, then get your hands on a PLCC chip puller and pull and reseat the ASIC chip on the MPU a few times, lather rinse repeat.

I'm not sure the ROM's would be at fault here, this seems to be a data call issue.

If either of these suggestions have no effect on your issue, then I'm afraid you'll have to dig into the logic portion of the sound PCB and try to isolate where the stray datacall is happening and slowly work your way back towards the MPU.

D

 

[Fifty]

I would say it's a stray data call from the MPU. As to what is triggering it is the better question. Always start with the easy stuff first, reseat all of the ribbon cables a bunch of times and try again. Where it seems you can get the game to play the sound in attract after 10mins and it not stop, you should be able to confirm any changes in behaviour. Now I'm not sure if the attract sounds option only affects the flipper button activated sounds in attract or if it also controls the music as you are experiencing.

If reseating the ribbon's don't change anything, then get your hands on a PLCC chip puller and pull and reseat the ASIC chip on the MPU a few times, lather rinse repeat.

I'm not sure the ROM's would be at fault here, this seems to be a data call issue.

If either of these suggestions have no effect on your issue, then I'm afraid you'll have to dig into the logic portion of the sound PCB and try to isolate where the stray datacall is happening and slowly work your way back towards the MPU.

D

There is a separate option to turn off flipper activated sounds. Right now I have attract sounds OFF and flipper button sounds ON.

I'll start with the ribbon cables. Might post this over on *gulp* Pinside as well to hear what they have to say. I'll post it as a generic WPC - Sound Issues so it gets more views.

Thanks!

 

[Menace]

Where you've got the music in attract option set to off and it's still playing music, I'm 99% sure this is an issue on the MPU and not the sound PCB. (all of the options are set and controlled @ the MPU) So even though this is presenting itself as a sound issue, the cause is likely on the MPU.

D

 

[Fifty]

For giggles, I'll try turning the flipper sounds OFF and see if I'm able to activate them 10 minutes later.

Good point on the MPU. What you're saying makes sense to me. I'll try disconnecting ribbon cabling from the MPU first.

 

[Fifty]

I've narrowed down the sound bite that is randomly playing. Each and every time it is the Whirlpool Challenge music, but more specifically it's the LAST CHANCE music for the Whirlpool Challenge. It's the faster, higher tempo music.

 

[Fifty]

So I'm in Test Mode. I figured I would try to understand the signal path the music is taking. In Test Mode I see T.7 Sound + Music but inside the menu there are only a handful of music and sounds in there. The one I'm looking for its not there along with a bunch of others. There doesn't seem to be any sub menus. Where are the rest of the sounds???

 

[Menace]

I would have to check my Wh20 sound and music test menu to confirm what sounds / music are available for testing, but I'm pretty sure they never give you everything available in the EPROMS. Likely what you see available are sound and music calls from each data line.

It is entirely possible that if it's just the one specific music track that is causing the issue you have ROM bit-rot. If you know exactly which sound EPROM contains the source for this music track you could try replacing it to see if that corrects the issue. I'm not sure if there is a list of what sounds / music is on each EPROM or not, so you'd likely have to replace all of them just to make sure.

D

 

[Fifty]

I guess I could always pull each EPROM off one at a time and then start up Whirlpool Challenge and try to trigger the music myself. Well, it's a place to start! I'll report back in a bit...

 

[Menace]

No, the sound PCB will not like it of all the EPROMS are not present as it will fail the checksum. You can try it, but I'm not sure how successful it will be.

D

 

[Fifty]

So the only way to trouble shoot this is to switch out all the EPROMs? Aren't there 3 of them? What if I take a sound EPROM off another game and put it in? Have 2 from White Water installed and 1 from another WPC game. Do you think the MPU would be smart enough to realise it's the wrong EPROM installed?

Sound troubleshooting is one of the worse documented areas of pinball machines. I haven't found much. Even on Pinside where everyone loves to get a shot in and won't shut the hell up my thread is nothing but crickets.

 

[Menace]

Yep, sounds issues are the WORST to troubleshoot on any game because it can be so many different things causing the issue. The trick is to nail down where the issue is without going crazy.

You likely won't be able to swap in one ROM from another game with the Wh20 ROMS as it will likely throw a bad checksum error. At this point if you don't want to spend the $ on new ROM's try and find someone local with a Wh20 and just swap the sound PCB's in and see if the issue moves with your PCB. If it doesn't, then you know the issue is upstream at your MPU. If you were local I'd do this for you no problem.

You cannot begin to dig too deep into this issue until you verify where the issue is originating. Once you know if the issue is on the MPU or the sound PCB, then you can begin to formulate a plan. My concern is even if you swap in a new set of sound ROM's into your game with no change, you still don't know if the issue is actually originating on the sound PCB or the MPU.

D

 

[spiroagnew]

So the only way to trouble shoot this is to switch out all the EPROMs? Aren't there 3 of them? What if I take a sound EPROM off another game and put it in? Have 2 from White Water installed and 1 from another WPC game. Do you think the MPU would be smart enough to realise it's the wrong EPROM installed?

Sound troubleshooting is one of the worse documented areas of pinball machines. I haven't found much. Even on Pinside where everyone loves to get a shot in and won't shut the hell up my thread is nothing but crickets.

One of the hardest areas to troubleshoot on a game, bar none. So difficult even the so-called Pinside "experts" are scared away! Good thing you have a real expert here trying to walk you through!

Sent from my SM-G920W8 using Tapatalk

 

[Fifty]

Thanks guys! I'll post over on MAACA and see if anyone is willing to loan me a White Water sound board. I'll report back!