Williams Firepower (Williams, 1980) "cutting out" ?

[njPinWiz]

My Williams Firepower has been having an intermittent problem, which I know is more difficult to figure out. Plays well for a number of games, then almost randomly, it shuts down in the middle of a game. The backglass just says “Game Over†and all lights on the playfield flash. Restarting another game results in the same thing happening.
I went thru all the diagnostic sequence per the owners manual - and everything seems to check out. I also looked at the coin door tilt mechanism. Cleaned it up, filed it down, and tried to make it a a more open connection (I believe the switch is supposed to be in the open position at rest). Not sure what else to try. Any ideas?
If anyone has experienced this with theirs, or heard of any possibly causes/solutions please let me know.
Thanks!

 

[spalmer]

Have you noticed if the problem seems to happen if both flippers are hit at the same time. Quit often on the Williams system 6 the connector between the MPU and Power supply goes bad and will cause this type of reboot.

 

[njPinWiz]

Thanks spalmer....the problem seems to occur when the game has been played for a while, 10 - 15 mintues or so after it is warmed up. And, it cuts out just after the ball goes thru a lane at the top & hits a pop bumper. Will have to look at MPU connector too.

 

[Coil_Smoke]

The Fix Is In......

My Williams Firepower has been having an intermittent problem, which I know is more difficult to figure out. Plays well for a number of games, then almost randomly, it shuts down in the middle of a game. The backglass just says “Game Over†and all lights on the playfield flash. Restarting another game results in the same thing happening.
I went thru all the diagnostic sequence per the owners manual - and everything seems to check out. I also looked at the coin door tilt mechanism. Cleaned it up, filed it down, and tried to make it a a more open connection (I believe the switch is supposed to be in the open position at rest). Not sure what else to try. Any ideas?
If anyone has experienced this with theirs, or heard of any possibly causes/solutions please let me know.
Thanks!

Hey, Good news and an easy fix for Williams games that reset because the logic +5V protection circuit is over active. Check out this previous thread>>>New product to address resets in WPC pinball - Pinball Nirvana Forums

 

[rkahr]

Hey, Good news and an easy fix for Williams games that reset because the logic +5V protection circuit is over active. Check out this previous thread>>>New product to address resets in WPC pinball - Pinball Nirvana Forums

My daughterboard only works in WPC machines - it will not help in older system 3 thru 7 machines such as Firepower.

-Rob
-visit http://www.kahr.us to get my daughterboard that helps fix WPC pinball resets

 

[pinballdaveh]

first off do not file any switches other than flipper button switches and flipper EOS switches. the switches with the gold points can be cleaned with a business card or a folded up dollar bill. i think spalmer is correct , the 40 pin interconnector is prob. bad. the 40 pin female connector on the driver should be changed first, its connections can start going bad when the machine warms up. inspect the male pins on the cpu for pitting, replace if needed.

 

[spalmer]

first off do not file any switches other than flipper button switches and flipper EOS switches. the switches with the gold points can be cleaned with a business card or a folded up dollar bill. i think spalmer is correct , the 40 pin interconnector is prob. bad. the 40 pin female connector on the driver should be changed first, its connections can start going bad when the machine warms up. inspect the male pins on the cpu for pitting, replace if needed.

I was more thinking about connector 1J2 on the left hand side of the CPU board and 3J6 on the top of the power supply (the larger of the 2 connectors). Bad connection in either of the 2 places can cause a reboot. On my Firepower, pressing both flipper buttons at the same time would often trigger a reboot. Connector 3J6 was the problem.

pinballdaveh however is correct in that the 40 pin interconnector could be an issue. The worst design anybody ever came up with to connect two boards. General run of thumb on system 3-7 machines is if you are having any intermittent problems, replace the connector on both sides (CPU and Driver board).

Another possibility is a weak power supply that is dropping the 5 volt after the game warms up.

 

[father-of-4-kids]

possibly power supply?

I had the same problem. A friend troubleshooted the power supply and found 1 of the transistors were bad, so I replaced the power supply with a new rottendog supply I purchased on e-bay and solved my problem.