I've purchased a system 246 board and am having issues getting it to boot up. I don't have an "arcade power supply", just an ATX PSU with a JAMMA hardness hooked up to one of the PSU's molex connectors. Upon flicking the power switch on, the fan will run in the 246 and the power warning light will stay solid on the IO board (this will blink if there are power issues afaik). I checked the voltages and they were about 4.6V and 11.5V for the 5V & 12V lines. So then I tried a second PSU that gave exactly 5.00V and about 12.4V, but still wasn't able to see it fully power on. From what I understand, the 246 should play a sound over the audio cables if there's an error, but this isn't happening. Even if I disconnect the DVD drive and fan for minimal power usage, I can't get any video or audio if I wire a video cable directly to the PS2 motherboard inside. It was from a reputable seller (Round1 on arcade-museum.com) who said it was fully working, so I'm not doubting that it's a working unit. With that in mind, is this probably a power issue? And if it is, should I get a standard arcade power supply? It's worth mentioning that the same power supply that gave me low voltages worked fine with a System 573 (very 5V hungry) and a Naomi. Edit: Would it be worth plugging a 12V source directly into the PS2 board with nothing else attached to see if it shows any life?
Here's a previous thread from a couple of years back that may help: How would I power a Namco System 246 board without a cabinet?
Hmm, I might try wiring an ATX 20-pin plug to the JAMMA harness if that would help with the power. Gamemaster14XIV's situation sounds similar to mine, but I don't think he ever fixed his original board.
After going through what I had gone through I highly recommend getting a JVS power supply (like what is used for Sega Naomi) and either making a custom wire or getting a JVS to 246 adapter. I tried the whole rigging up the pc power supply to the 246 and it worked ok for a brief time but the problem was this solution was in no way stable and the system would often turn itself off at random times and other times not turn on at all. It would be best to just spare yourself the hassle and do it right the first time. Trust me I learned the hard way. Just wondering what game(s) are you trying to get working? I currently have Soul Calibur 2, Soul Calibur 3 Arcade Edition and Tekken 4 for the 246 plus Tekken 5 and 5.1 for my newer System 256. The adapter looks like this (sometimes cheaper if you know how to make one or know someone who can): http://www.ebay.com/itm/Namco-syste...1093403353?pt=Video_Games&hash=item5412d812d9 The power supply will look like this one (once again cheaper depending where you get it): http://www.ebay.com/itm/INITIAL-D-n...349?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2343e0ffad I no longer use the Namco Jamma (B) I/o board that I received with my unit, these days I use the Sega Jamma to JVS I/O board that I had received with my Naomi 2 since it is easier to wire up for most games and doesn't require the kick harness for the Tekken games. Plus the power does not need to go through this I/o since the power is plugged directly through the jvs psu.
I'll probably look into getting a JVS power supply in the future if some are available for a decent price. As for the IO board, I do have a Capcom JVS IO that might come in handy if the Namco one is causing part of the issue. I'm trying to get Soul Clibur 2 Ver. C to run here.
I use a PC-AT PSU (from early 90s) to power mine. Works a treat. But obviously you can use ATX power supplies just fine. I bet mini ITX would supply enough juice for it too. It need a lot of juice on the 5V lead because it steps that down to 3.3v, 2.8v and 1.8v for the PS2 core.
Cool, one of my First games war Soul Calibur 2 Ver D. The best part is it had come with a memory card which had location data on it so all of the conquest mode characters people had made on location are in my game. I am pretty sure the i/o board was not really the problem, but try as I may I was not able to find an atx power supply that could keep the system running stable for long. I am just glad that the jvs power supply works and has no problem. It seams no matter how I ran this system, the error lights on the i/o always flashed which from what I understood meant a power problem. Strangely enough the i/o still worked, when the unit was getting enough power for those brief play sessions.
It was crashing ? I bet with you it was the DVD drive. The System 246 don't like drives which spin down when they detect long term use. Some drives are programmed (in the firmware) to detect constant/linear data access (like if the user is watching a DVD VIDEO movie) and it will slow down the media to reduce noise. Also some drives like to spin down the media after a very brief while. The System 246 will issue a read request and won't wait for the drive to spin up. That crashes the game. These are the reasons why only very few specific models of optical drives work on the 246.
From what I could figure out it was a power issue. The system would be playing the game just fine and all of a sudden all video and audio would cut out. Ever since I received the JVS to 246 power supply adapter it has never had a problem like that again (same dvd drive). I had even tried like 500watt power supplies with no luck but my sun psu from my naomi with that adapter works like a champ. Just love playing my Soul Calibur 2 Ver D and Soul Calibur III Arcade Edition Ver B, of course the same setup works with Namco System 256 as well, never bothered trying the pc psu with it since the jvs one worked so well.
Fixed it! I made a MOLEX -> 246 power cable to be used alongside my MOLEX -> JAMMA cable going to the IO board and it's working great now. Played SC2 for a little while without any issues, yay. Strangely, my new PSU (Antec EarthWatts EA-380D) would kill the power when the DVD drive spun up and everything would reboot. Yet my 200W Dell PSU works like a charm with good voltages and stability.
