I recently purchased Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder, and while reading up information about the board, I found a site claiming that some System 32 releases have suicide batteries. I'm having trouble finding more information on this in general, but I'm curious about a few things 1) Does RoDA have a suicide battery? 2) Is the suicide battery located on the mainboard or the ROM board (i.e. is the suicide battery game specific, or board specific?) 3) Can System 32 (or System 16, for that matter) games be "phoenixed" like CPS2 games can? 4) What are the effects of the suicide battery dying? Will the game completely stop functioning or will you just lose certain functionality? Similarly, I'm interested in a few non-system 32 games (Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars, Altered Beast, and Fantasy Zone specifically) - any advice on suicide batteries or what to look out for? I generally like to have all my suicide batteries removed professionally if possible.
Hey, there. Good game purchase. Why they never ported it to consoles is beyond me. But anyways... 1) I don't believe that RoDA uses a suicide battery. IIRC it has a special security board which uses a custom processor to generate the proper decryption table and it is not battery operated. 2) The suicide battery is located on the ROM board. It is part of the game, not the system. 3) Not sure on this one. 4) In a game with a suicide battery, the code stored on the ROM is encrypted. A RAM chip on the board contains a decryption table that converts the encrypted instructions to the correct ones for the processor to run. The suicide battery keeps the RAM powered when the board isn't powered to prevent it from losing the decryption table. Once the battery dies and can no longer power the decryption RAM, and the game is turned off, the RAM is cleared. With no decryption table, the processor just gets a bunch of garbage instructions instead of the correct ones, and the game ceases to function. Hope this helps.
I'm aware of some Japanese collectors who have decrypted System 32 games but I've never seen a dead one and I have most of the titles on the platform outside of the F1 games. All of the Sega boards can be revived provided someone has decrypted the files. Enduro Racer, Turbo OutRun, System E, System 16, System 18, System 24 and X Board are the platforms to look out for.
Welp, tangentially related, but I have a Moonwalker board that just came in. The seller said it was tested and working when he shipped it, but it has the FD1094 suicide chip on the motherboard. That thing must be 23 years old by now... anywho, testing it out on my supergun, I get no picture. The board lights up like it's receiving power, but I get nothing - no picture, no power, nothing. My TV simply says "unusable signal" so it's not like I'm even getting a scrambled picture. Just nothing. I've ordered a resurrection kit from Sega Resurrection, but I can't actually find any confirmation that it's the suicide chip which has died. Does this sound like suicide battery symptoms, or could my board be having other problems? EDIT: Thanks for the replies, btw.
With the board turned off, CAREFULLY open the top of the FD1094. Be very careful not to rip the battery out when you do this. With it open and the board off, use a multimeter to test the battery voltage. If it's below 2vdc, you are most likely fucked. If its low above 2vdc, then it needs replacement soon. If it needs replacement, then you'll need a soldering iron, a helper battery to wire in parallel while you remove the main one, and a 2032 with tabs soldered to it (just buy it that way, its a pain in the ass to solder tabs to the battery).
With the board powered off, CAREFULLY (do not take the battery with it) open the top of the FD1094. Use a multimeter to test the voltage of the battery. If you are getting less than 2vdc, you are probably screwed. If you are getting in the low 2s, you need to change the battery sooner rather than later. To do this, you will need a replacement battery (a 2032 with tabs soldered to it. Buy it this way, don't try to make it yourself), a helper battery or power supply, and a soldering iron. Wire the helper battery in parallel with the suicide battery to keep the chip powered while you replace the suicide battery. Desolder the suicide battery and solder in the new tabbed 2032. Test continuity and make double sure that the battery is in correctly before removing the helper battery.
I bought a System 32 board from someone on ebay and the suicide battery was modded by them so that 2 batteries are in top of the original battery case, so one at a time can be swapped out, dunno how they did it, but it is really cool. Very useful.
If I had to guess without looking, I'd say they wired the two batteries in parallel to the original contact point and mounted holders on top for easy access and replacement without requiring a helper battery. Well, at least if you keep up on both of them.
Erm...I can take a picture when I get home if it would help with this current thing here. But what you said above seems an accurate assessment to me.
Would anyone mind telling me what a suicide battery is? I'm new to the forums so sorry if I sound ignorant.
An old but brutal anti-piracy method used by arcade game creators...to prevent people playing copied/bootlegged version of the games, and also to ensure repairs on a board had to be done by officials from the companies that created them or were in partnership with them. The battery is connected to some of the chips on the ROM board (a watch battery attached to a bit of circuitry inside a case), if the battery died, the encrypted chips that rely on it, would be scrambled/fried and would not work, preventing the game from running.
Well, there are ways around it, such as decrypted ROMs or maintaining the battery to prevent the 'suicide' from happening...but yeah its harsh.
