cant clear bluebird- NVRAM?

[puckhead]

got a bluebird( wolverine).  not sure the exact model, the cpu has the flash card in the top, back to back.  the owner got a low battery error, changed the batteries, got in the weeds. bought a clear card from the vendor he bought the game from, the card just has a handwritten sticker,  says BB1 clear.
when you try to clear it halts on the message

uncompressing linuxacpi unable to locate RSDPaudit ( then a lot of numbers) initializedhda: drive not ready for commandhda: drive not ready for commandhda: drive not ready for commandhda: drive not ready for commandhda: drive not ready for command
the WMS graphic comes up,  then the dos text, then it halts. fairly quickly.

im thinking the ram on the backplane no good?



if i tried to boot up with the OS and game cards in, it gets a lot farther, the wms graphic come up, it lots a lot of stuff, appears to load the os and game files, then stops , again at what appears to be NVRAM .


i tried pulling the batteries, letting it sit, and a clear without the batteries in, no help.  i also have an 1810 clear card, that didnt help either.

the first pic is the halt with the clear card, the second with the os card.

there is also a little toggle switch loose in the bottom of the cabinet, with a zip tie on the toggle, see pic. what is that for?

thanks

[tjlee]

You have a green board cpu.  I have had problems clearing these types of boards.  I was told some 1810 clears will not work with this board.  I would try the  green board version of the 1810 clear.    Also an 1851 clear may work also with this board.  I usually change out the green board cpu for the newer blue board ones.  I have never had problems clearing the blue board cpus.  Someone here may be able to tell you more on this.  The little toggle switch is the cpu door open switch.  These cpus usually  have a metal door that swings  up.  The switch sensed whether this door is open or closed.  I see you have no door so the switch has to be held closed with a nylon tie.  Switch is spring loaded.

[Harvs]

I haven't messed with BB1 in some time but isn't there a 1350 clear for them?

[puckhead]

which board would you change to blue? the top( cpu) or the lower one?  isnt the nvram located on the lower board?

thanks

[rickhunter]

He means the board inside the mpu box.  The newer board is blue, the older one is green.  I would use the clear 1350, which version of the bios is in the mpu? (I can't tell because the red tape on top of the bios chips makes it unreadable)

[puckhead]

pic of the bios
thanks

[rickhunter]

You have the newer bios, any of the clears should work 18xx or 1350.  Are you sure your clear card is good?  Are you inserting your clear card in the same spot as your OS card?

[puckhead]

the owner has a clear card , but it just has a sticker hand written BB1 on it. he got it from the vendor sold him the machine. i have an 1810 i know is good.  the game card is to the front of the machine, the os card behind it, closest to the pcb board.  i asked the owner if he mixed them up, he said no.  there is a graphic on the board, just to the right of the card slots. says game and flash, but its not very indicative of the order. if you hit zoom on the 3 pic you can see it
thanks

[rickhunter]

So did he try a known working clear card?  My money is on the clear card being bad.  I've had issues with certain non-oem cf cards that are "too slow" and fail the boot process with weird errors.  I also have had issues with the same clear card will work on a blue mpu and not on a green mpu due to the problem I described. 

Replace the batteries on the mpu, and then use a known good clear card on oem cf card.  If that doesn't work, the nvram might actually be bad on the mpu.  With the bios he has, he should be able to use either 1350 clear or 1800/10 clear.

[puckhead]

i used my OEM 1810 card on it, no dice. im leaning toward bad nvram myself.  it is socketed and replacable?

thanks

[rickhunter]

It's an SMD chip I believe.  I would try a different mpu just to rule out everything.