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RFM questions

AlanJ

AlanJ

Site Supporter
Joined
Dec 27, 2017
Messages
7,776
Location
Leeds, West Yorkshire
Alias
Alan
So today i received a poor condition RFM,
cab decals are badly scratched and cane with a few know issues. eg crt screen plays up after a while and there is no sound.

playfield has wear and whole thing needs a good clean and refurb.

cpu fan on the motherboard very noisy, so that needs replacing.

the good news is it powered up and more or less worked. wire off one of the flipper eos switches& plenty bulbs out too[emoji23]

Q1. No sound. there is an error on the diagnostics: “DCS: DSP failed to reset (A)”

Not sure what to look at. the prism card has a bunch of black wires that go out to a sound amplifier board. the amplifier board has a red led that lights up ok.
There is also a two black wire lead coming off the prism card but the other end is not plugged into anything? is that correct or not?
If i try adjust sound using the coin door buttons the display shows a “DSP error” message.
cbb374ed8d1a72cf03a856148b20dd28.jpg


Q2. I’m thinking should upgrade to latest software. Can someone point me to idiots guide to do this. Looks like I need some sw on my laptop and a 9 pin D serial port.

Many thanks

some pics:
c2ae285f7ffb1d3a14804c3e0a6c6930.jpg
c86c64f7d2c6421291ca926508e99095.jpg
2a87f61adc06bbffbf2586f0ce5e2148.jpg
5c0f6399e4526623d3d150f876429061.jpg
321d28c227716125b863c26c283db566.jpg
c6c9f2ef1f947c3efc1fb606aa0df9ae.jpg
fd5e87d8ecdaaa679efb09eac49df492.jpg
93362b90c4febf89c70210c89cb45400.jpg


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Pick Holder said:
Do yourself a favour - send the PC to Jim at @myPinballs
Get him to sort that all out.
He has spares and he can put in latest software whilst he is doing the work.
Click to expand...
Yep I will, but just want to have a play and also learn how it all works first! :) It's all alien tech to me at this moment in time.
Still intrigued what those two black wires are for, if anything.......
 
I don't think it's as simple as just plugging in a modern PC. You'd need an ancient operating system like Windows 95. Could be wrong though.
 
ref the two black wires - check the manual - it goes from the prism card to somewhere on the motherboard I think!!!!

You cant put in Jims software via the serial port (I Dont think!) - you also have to use a null modem lead from the old serial port.

USB to serial ports rarely work!
 
Rob zombie said:
I don't think it's as simple as just plugging in a modern PC. You'd need an ancient operating system like Windows 95. Could be wrong though.
Click to expand...

the pinball 2000 update manager software won’t install on 64bit machine BUT i’ve found the actual command line executable that will run ok, so should be ok.

Searching my box of cables for a null modem cable and also need a usb to rs232 interface.

Whilst messing about with the RFM i switched off the “use code updates” and it’s reverted to the very old original code on the prism card roms, tried to switch it back on to use the code updates. and it won’t have it. It mentions this in the user manual and the fix is to insert a keyboard and type in a command. So now the search is on for a keyboard with an AT 5pin din or ps2 plug and not an usb one! or an adaptor. think i’ve chucked all my old keyboards and adaptors away though!
can’t believe i’m stumped by not having some old tech!!!! [emoji23]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
AlanJ said:
the pinball 2000 update manager software won’t install on 64bit machine BUT i’ve found the actual command line executable that will run ok, so should be ok.

Searching my box of cables for a null modem cable and also need a usb to rs232 interface.

Whilst messing about with the RFM i switched off the “use code updates” and it’s reverted to the very old original code on the prism card roms, tried to switch it back on to use the code updates. and it won’t have it. It mentions this in the user manual and the fix is to insert a keyboard and type in a command. So now the search is on for a keyboard with an AT 5pin din or ps2 plug and not an usb one! or an adaptor. think i’ve chucked all my old keyboards and adaptors away though!
can’t believe i’m stumped by not having some old tech!!!! emoji23.png


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I remember when I wanted to do some upgrades on my old one the price of antique RAM was silly. I've literally just thrown an old keyboard in the bin this week. I think I have a null cable if you get stuck. But honestly you're better farming it out to mypinballs.
 
Sounds like the battery on the PRISM is flat and has reverted to 0.99 code.
It's worth sending the PC to JIm, as that cooling fan is Fooked, unless you are good with removing it without screwing up the CPU then JIm is well versed in sorting that. The PSU will need replacing as well, and whatever you do don't take the PC out and power it off a 240v supply, that PSU is set for 110V from the internal supply.
I think the NULL modem runs at a weird baud rate, I have that many bookmarks on bits and bobs i can't find it. DCS possible amp board knackered, they are an external sound card its not internal to the PC, again a common failure. Depends how attached you are to keeping the thing original, i ripped mine out, kept them in case someone wants the original kit, new PC and monitor mounted on 4 bolts so 10 min job to swap it all out. With Jim's code the old girl has a new lease of life, rule improvements, and other features makes it fun.
At least yours has black legs, mine doesn't at the moment.
 
Last edited:
Cheers @carl lawrence and @Skippy - Makes sense that is labeled reset on the motherboard. I will hook it back up and see.

I checked the amp board, seems to be okay - introduced some interference to it and got some noise coming out of the speakers, so I think that is good.

The DCS system is failing on boot according to the shell log I can access, I'll try plugging those wires back onto the jumper and see what happens.
 
Made no difference at all, didn't think it would to be honest looking at the schematic, but at least I know where it goes now thanks.
 
AlanJ said:
So today i received a poor condition RFM,
cab decals are badly scratched and cane with a few know issues. eg crt screen plays up after a while and there is no sound.

playfield has wear and whole thing needs a good clean and refurb.

cpu fan on the motherboard very noisy, so that needs replacing.

the good news is it powered up and more or less worked. wire off one of the flipper eos switches& plenty bulbs out too[emoji23]

Q1. No sound. there is an error on the diagnostics: “DCS: DSP failed to reset (A)”

Not sure what to look at. the prism card has a bunch of black wires that go out to a sound amplifier board. the amplifier board has a red led that lights up ok.
There is also a two black wire lead coming off the prism card but the other end is not plugged into anything? is that correct or not?
If i try adjust sound using the coin door buttons the display shows a “DSP error” message.
cbb374ed8d1a72cf03a856148b20dd28.jpg


Q2. I’m thinking should upgrade to latest software. Can someone point me to idiots guide to do this. Looks like I need some sw on my laptop and a 9 pin D serial port.

Many thanks

some pics:
c2ae285f7ffb1d3a14804c3e0a6c6930.jpg
c86c64f7d2c6421291ca926508e99095.jpg
2a87f61adc06bbffbf2586f0ce5e2148.jpg
5c0f6399e4526623d3d150f876429061.jpg
321d28c227716125b863c26c283db566.jpg
c6c9f2ef1f947c3efc1fb606aa0df9ae.jpg
fd5e87d8ecdaaa679efb09eac49df492.jpg
93362b90c4febf89c70210c89cb45400.jpg


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Evening all :) Looks like fun project alan. an as is RFM is a great game to fix up.

Interesting DCS error. not seen one of those for awhile. Normally when you get a prism card with no sound you dont get any message at all. Seems like the dcs processor itself has failed or a bad connection/trace somewhere. The bad news is that chip is soldered onto the prism card. The dcs hardware is the same as wpc-95, ie its the same design as the av board.

The DSP part of the message is referring to U50 the main DCS cpu.
 
AlanJ said:
Made no difference at all, didn't think it would to be honest looking at the schematic, but at least I know where it goes now thanks.
Click to expand...

The wires going to the motherboard from the prism card are just for the reset line, so that the prism card can reboot the full computer. However, check your motherboard carefully as they are not all the same. Williams used a variety of different media gx motherboard during production. Probably just what they could get hold of at the time. It wont solve the dcs cpu fail issue though, thats a prism card inspection job
 
So, I got myself an old keyboard. one with. 5 pin din plug on the end, plugged it into the keyboard socket on the side of the pc cabinet

The instructions in the user manual say to type in “fupdate enable” from the % command prompt.

How the heck do I get the pc to a command prompt?????

tried the “shell” option from the utilities menu, tried pressing various key combinations as the pc boots. nothing is working. tried just typing the command in blind.

78a460488cc6f0301f777e529862a51d.jpg


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
In search bar type command will bring up command prompt app
i suggest you google how to update revenge from mars 1.6 there are a few youtube videos using the old software
not sure if the old p2000 update manager can be downloaded from somewhere...mr google is most helpful though.
 
AlanJ said:
So, I got myself an old keyboard. one with. 5 pin din plug on the end, plugged it into the keyboard socket on the side of the pc cabinet

The instructions in the user manual say to type in “fupdate enable” from the % command prompt.

How the heck do I get the pc to a command prompt?????

tried the “shell” option from the utilities menu, tried pressing various key combinations as the pc boots. nothing is working. tried just typing the command in blind.

78a460488cc6f0301f777e529862a51d.jpg


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Its talking about the pc that you have connected to the game, not the pinball 2000 computer. The fupdate command runs on the computer connected to the game.

What version of software did you have on the game before you disabled the update?
 
Skippy said:
In search bar type command will bring up command prompt app
i suggest you google how to update revenge from mars 1.6 there are a few youtube videos using the old software
not sure if the old p2000 update manager can be downloaded from somewhere...mr google is most helpful though.
Click to expand...

Yes you can get it from me
 
myPinballs said:
Its talking about the pc that you have connected to the game, not the pinball 2000 computer. The fupdate command runs on the computer connected to the game.

What version of software did you have on the game before you disabled the update?
Click to expand...


1585927777104.png

That seems to imply it is run on the pinball 2000 pc?

I can't remember what the version was? didnt write it down, foolishly though it would be easy to disable then re-enable the software update - that was before I read the above in the manual. Doh!
 
Anyhow if it does run from the connected pc then that's ok as I have got the fupdate.exe already and so can try that, once I get a decent usb-rs232 adaptor!
 
Right ok,

So if you have the keyboard plugged in at boot when the game starts up you should be presented with a special window with various options. Do you get this?

If so i think there is an option on there to get the shell window up.

I always connect via a separate pc though for stuff like this. Sometimes updates fail and cause a similar problem you see. Though i've never seen a game disable the update and not be able to re-anble it via the std menus. That's why i was asking that the original version was.

For info, the update is stored in flash memory separate from the game roms on the prism card and overrides them. If it gets corrupted for any reason it gets disabled and the roms are used instead so i means a game can never be totally down regardless of whether an update works or not. A good feature back in the day for operators.
 
thanks jim. no nothing special came up. there is a shell window option in the utility menu accessible using the coin door buttons. but when i open this it just shows a shell screen of things that have happened but it has no command prompt.

i’m starting to suspect the old keyboard is faulty. i’ve nothing else to plug it into to test, so i think i’ll just move on and try to update the latest sw from an external pc and see if that works. ill also try the fupdate enable command from there too.

the rom code is version 0.99. it doesn’t even run and start a game, not that i’d want to play that version![emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

ill update once i’ve got my laptop hooked up


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