RE: Update with regard to ELIMINIATOR SOUND CARD Issues.. ..

Mark,
*****

 I will, as you suggested go through and proceed
with checking the Electrolytics on the ELIMINATOR SOUND CARD
as well as going through the SELF TEST Mode, then proceed
accordingly.

 Always good to hear from someone with lots of
experience and of course, keep up the Good Work.

Arcadius.........

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Jenison [mailto:jenison@enteract.com]
Sent: Monday, October 07, 2002 10:04 PM
To: vectorlist@synthcom.com
Subject: Re: VECTOR: Update with regard to ELIMINIATOR SOUND CARD
Issues....

> So the Explosion Sound is normal, upon ELIMINATOR Boot Up,
> and I do hear the Fade Out,as well, but what about the
> constant backround White Noise or Static when I turn up
> the Volume, is this also Normal from your past experience ???

White noise/Static is never good. The problem is I can't hear what you are
hearing, so it's hard for me to say what is wrong :-). I've come across
*three* different static sounds, all of which could be a separate problem.

1) I once experienced a Star Trek upright that had a "crackle" static
associated with it. Swapping Universal Sound board and even audio amp did
not solve the problem. I never figured out the problem and sold the game
:-)

2) Universal sound boards often exhibit "white noise" as a failure condition
of some kind. I forget offhand what cause it (rams, addressing chips, etc),
but its very loud and very similar to that of TV static.

3) What you may be thinking is "static" may actually be a stuck sound. I
believe both Space Fury and Eliminator sound boards have a dedicated "white
noise" circuit if you look at the schematics. Sometimes when something
fails, a sound gets stuck on. A sound which uses the white noise circuit,
such as thrust or explosion, would be triggered repeatedly, and that
constant sound would sound like static. What you think is white noise or
static in this case would immediately sound like a stuck thrust or explosion
sound to me because I've debugged these boards so many damn times.

My guess, offhand, is that if you are hearing the explosion sound just fine,
since all the audio circuits are fed into a summing circuit near the end,
you are also hearing a stuck white noise related sound.

To debug this, first I'd go through test mode to see what sounds ARE being
correctly produced. Most likely if there is a sound you CAN'T hear during
test mode, that's the stuck sound. If that doesn't help, replace the
electrolytic capacitors in the circuits that use the white noise and see if
that helps. Then it comes down to pulling out the logic probe....

--
Mark Jenison
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