Gremlins in my G23 MLD machine...

[sccarlso]

Usually I'm the one answering questions, but this problem has me stumped and I've just been guessing on the root cause and the tilts keep coming back.
Couldn't find anyone reporting similar issues with a search of prior posts.

My G23 MLD machine has been all setup and working fine for like 8 months.  No issues at all, button deck, Tito card, printer, and BV all working perfectly.

But about six months ago, I wasn't thinking.  lol  Nothing that would damage the machine, just something not to do, even though it seemed like a good idea at the time!

I put WiFi switches on the main power cables of a few of my machines, all G23's.  Doh!  It does work great, initially.  Until you think about it...  When powered off at the main power plug, the NVRAM batteries are being slowly drained, and the telltale battery isn't getting a maintaining charge.  Bleah.   End of using those.  I picked up some "hard wired" WiFi switches with the intent to put a WiFi switch on the power switch inside the machine instead! I'll have to do some meter testing as the internal switch has more than just + and - power in/out.   But pretty sure I can identify the right wires so the WiFi switch can turn the internal power switch on/off instead of doing so at the main power plug.  So it can be remotely powered on/off, but the batteries don't drain and the telltale battery still gets charged when it's powered off.    My other machines were unaffected so can't be SURE that's related here.  But it could be, so worth mentioning.

Given that all functioned normally, no changes to the machine, and this just occurred when I powered it up last week and I've had limited success in resolving them by checking the normal reasons for these errors.   One was intermittent as well.  Any error that doesn't always occur can be a challenge!

On to my "gremlins".  When I powered it up, it threw a BV offline tilt and a batteries tilt.  Took a snip from the screenshot on a different post, but the first one I got didn't list "Telltale battery low".  It only displayed the BV offline error, and just "Batteries Tilt" initially.  No indication if it was the NVRAM batteries or the telltale battery.   

The BV displays all 3 lights solid, red/yellow/green on boot.  Then as it boots, it cycles normally.   Then displays a solid green for a few seconds (what I would expect).  But then the single green light blinks slowly.  And by the time it has fully booted.  It displays the red/yellow/green lights solid again and the BV tilt is displayed.

I focused on the batteries first.  I had picked up a few 3.6v Ni-MH battery packs, diff connector, but just used the original telltale battery connector and soldered it to the new battery pack and plugged it in.  Didn't replace the NVRAM batteries at the time, as they weren't that old and were Duracell lithium.  My BV is an MEI Cashflow (flashed properly as it functioned just fine before), USB connected.

So I plugged the USB cable for the BV into another USB port on the backplane (v2 board with the yellow handle).   And powered it back on.  When it came back up, the BV cycled and went green, this time I didn't get the battery or BV tilt anymore.  It accepted a cashout ticket no problem, cashed out and the printer kicked out a cashout ticket.    I "thought" I had fixed the tilts and that was it.   

But if tilts occur, I generally let the machine run for several hours with no credits and it cycling through the loaded games just to be sure it doesn't pop up again.  And about an hour later I got a button deck tilt for a disconnected button?  Huh?  Powered off, removed the main power, and checked my buttons and connections to the button deck.  All good.  Powered on again, no more button tilt.  Again, thinking it was good now, I still left it running to see if any tilt returned.  Running normally, but about an hour later, ugh again, the same Device Offline Bill Validator tilt just popped up

Again, shut down and moved the BV's USB cable to another port on the backplane.  But now the BV tilt won't clear.  It displays the red/yellow/green lights solid, it cycles, solid green light for a few seconds again, then just returns to the red/yellow/green lights all solid again, and the BV tilt pops up again.  Now it's getting confusing.  Even replaced the USB cable from the BV to the backplane with a new one.  No change.

Frustrated with the dang thing.  I powered it off at the internal switch until the next day.

Then it just got more confusing.  When I powered it up the next day.  Still got the BV tilt once it fully booted.  But NOW, I also had a Batteries Tilt.  Except unlike before where it didn't indicate "which" battery in the tilt message.  This time it listed Telltale battery low!  I replaced it the day before and the generic Batteries Tilt message was cleared!  Meh.  I read with the telltale that you can clear the tilt by just pulling the battery plug at the backplane and plug it back in with the machine "hot".   When I do so, it does clear the Batteries Tilt for the Telltale Battery.  But it just pops up again about a minute later.  I read it checks every minute, not the exact voltage, but will tilt if it drops below 3v.

So just to be sure, I fully shutdown and pulled the power cable, and also replaced the NVRAM batteries with new ones.  Cleared NVRAM/SafeStorage, no issues booting to initial config requried as expected, and reconfigured my games.  Closed up the machine.  But no joy.  And now I have the exact tilt messages as in the attached screenshot anytime I boot the machine.  BV offline, battery tilt for the telltale battery, and I'm out of ideas.

The printer and button deck which are USB connected to the backplane as well and work fine.  So USB connectivity to the backplane should be good as other USB devices function.  And the BV has a new USB cable.

The telltale battery is new, so are the NVRAM batteries.   

No idea why it would get a telltale battery tilt with a new battery pack only after it was replaced and cleared, just to come back the next day.  And the BV tilt is even more confusing.  Since I did get the BV error to clear early on where it accepted a ticket in, then went offline again about an hour later.  Next step is pulling the BV head, inspecting it and reseating it, as well as removing the cash can and also inspecting, putting it back in.  Perhaps an "iffy" connection on the BV head?  And, if I had to, I could simply disable the BV just so it would run.  The telltale battery tilt would remain though.

But why a new telltale battery would clear the error.  Then tilt that it's low just the next day (with the machine plugged in and just switched off at the internal power switch the whole time so it's still being float charged) makes no sense to me.

Anyone have any suggestions/ideas for what I should check that I haven't already?  There are no "bad" suggestions.  Maybe I'm overlooking something obvious! 

Thanks!   

[Stayouttadabunker]

Call a high priest for an exorcism!   
Dang! You're the best one on these G23's.
You've fooled around with them more than I ever did and understand the behaviours of these machines extremely well.
That's how OCD works with me on these things, I've flipped ON the power switch just to watch every little event as they boot-up - to ingrain into my brain every little nuance as to how they behave.
I've pulled plugs apart with the power ON - just to see what would happen. and have went thru batteries to make Energizer and Duracell WANT to send me on an all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii...lol


Hmm...have you checked that lone onboard MPU cell battery?
Sometimes I forget about that one.
Also, it wasn't mentioned if you swapped out the MEI BV with another one.

[Solsurvivor]

Check to make sure that the connection to the 440W power supply is fully seated.  I have to reach behind it and fully push in the white plastic connector to fully seat it, even if the power supply unit is properly installed and its anchor screw fully tightened.  Hope this helps.

[sccarlso]

No kidding on OCD!  Not sure if it's a good or bad thing.  But if something interests me.  I want to learn all I can about it.  With AVP's, I just want to be able to set them up for their max potential, as well as be able to identify/fix things if they fail as they aren't "new" by any means.  But they are pretty well built.  Once things are in line, they don't fail often if you take care of them (good clean fans, and airflow is a big one).  Even if I'm stumped, when I figure it out, I won't forget how to fix the same problem if it comes up again.

MPU (Bios CMOS battery is good).  Even went into bios and did a "Load optimized defaults" in there just to be sure, as IGT recommends doing this when Bios CMOS battery is replaced.

By luck, I had a spare v2 "suitcase" board just lying around since all my machines are v2's.  So just to test, I swapped it.  They do slide right out, lol   It looks like it has a newer telltale battery pack on it. But for whatever reason, there's no socket for the plug on the board.  Just 2 pins where the socket should be.  Eh, as long as the 2 pins are there, no big deal.  It was disconnected so it wouldn't drain except from time, but I was sure it's drained.  So I connected the battery and went back to basics just booting with the diag.  I don't know how much power they get when the machine is plugged in, but it's only a "float charge".  And don't have a 3.6v charger handy.  So might take awhile to charge enough to remain above 3v.  Like trying to charge a totally dead car battery with just a float charger.  Doesn’t work.  But should with a smaller battery like this if you wait long enough.

But...  Using the diag, I didn't have to wait 5 mins or so for it to boot just to see if the BV comes up from any changes.  Didn't have to clear memory, but I did anyway.  Don't have another BV, but I know this one is good and it's just the USB connection. 

On the first power up with the diag, the BV wasn't even detected.  Booo!  So I switched it to a different USB port, and tada!  BV detected, displays firmware version, etc.  So then I booted normally, did a quick basic machine setup and enabled one game.  BV tilt is gone!  Hopefully that one doesn't return!   Doesn't prove the other board was bad, but it detected the BV so I'm fine with that.  It is mentioned in many posts around that the USB ports can "just go bad".  These machines are old!  lol  12+ year old laptops have USB ports that just "go bad" too!

But it still kicked up the telltale batt tilt.  Expected it since the v2 board I put in likely hasn't been in a machine for ages to charge the telltale batt on it.

Also, booting with the diag, it gives exact voltage for the CPU values, but for battery status it doesn't give exact battery voltage.  Just "good" or "low". NVRAM and CMOS batteries were good, but the telltale batt showed low as expected.  That can be meter checked though.  The telltale battery pins should have voltage when the machine is plugged in, but powered off at the switch with no battery connected so I can see that there's current on the pins to float charge the battery, it shouldn't be 0v!  And could meter the battery itself.  It's been connected to power but powered off since yesterday, so will see if it's still showing low a little later.

Will also check the power supply connections, good tip!

The telltale packs last a long time.  But I decided to be proactive as I'm not paying $35 for three 1.2v NiCD batteries in a wrapped pack!  That's all it is, 3 NiCd AA's in a series that are sealed in a pack for 3.6v.  So I ordered ten good quality 1.2v NiCD AA batteries, and a 10 pack of 3 AA battery holders from Amazon for $15 total, a bargain.  Which is essentially the same as the OEM pack except the batteries can be removed.  Plus I have a charger for individual AA NiCD batts, I just can't charge a wrapped pack with them wired in series at 3.6v.  And I charged the new NiCD's up last night on a normal charger.

If the existing telltale pack that was in the board I swapped has enough charge today.  Should clear it.  But if I still get a telltale battery tilt.  I'll use the 3 batt holder with the fully charged NiCD batts and that should clear it!  At least I would hope.  If not, it's the board.  But I don't think two separate boards would have the same problem. 

If the NiCD's in a 3 cell battery holder works.  I'll leave that connected, if it's not float charging, the telltale tilt will return eventually, and I'll deal with it then.  If it's good.  Then I have enough individual NiCD's/holders for two more packs if the telltale batt fails on any of my other machines, and also makes it a lot easier and way cheaper to replace if needed. But a pack with new batteries really should last like 10 years if it's getting a float charge.

Reason I got the holders and NiCD batteries was because the pack that I put in is an NiMH pack.  Typical AA/AAA chargers can charge both NiCD and NiMH cells.  And you can put either type in say an outdoor solar light and it charges fine, NiMH cells have larger capacity and hold a charge longer. 

But on the delphi forums there was a mention that it checks every minute for voltage being below 3v.  If it is below 3v, that triggers the tilt.  Explains why the tilt goes away if you unplug it with the machine on, and plug it back in.  But the tilt returns a minute later (pack is below 3v)  And it also mentions "battery chemistry" on the telltale battery.  The machine apparently does more than just charge it and has other parameters it monitors on the battery.  So it's not impossible that this 12+ yr old machine just won't charge an NiMH battery pack, perhaps it just doesn't supply enough mA. NiCD's need less mA to charge than NiMH cells do.  Any such detail wouldn't be in a service manual, as it's expected you replace the packs with OEM NiCD ones. 

A fully charged NiMH pack could last years in there without getting float charged, so as some have used them and it was fine, it may work for a long time since they hold a charge much longer and are larger capacity.  But don't get enough mA to float charge an NiMH pack from the machine.  But unless the machine is unplugged, the telltale batt really doesn't drain.

With the two possible solutions, if the existing pack on the board did get a charge last night to hold it above 3v.  Or replacing it with the "custom" pack holding three 1.2v NiCD batteries in it which are fully charged.  I'm pretty sure one of those options should clear the telltale batt tilt. Then all tilts are clear again!

Fingers crossed!  I'll post how it goes.  If either works.  Then if anyone else can't get a known good USB BV to be detected and shows offline, or can't get their telltale batt tilt to clear, it might help them resolve it faster.

[Solsurvivor]

I seem to recall that I even removed the power supply stationary molex bracket. Over time, it wasn't letting the connection fully seat.  When it warmed up, the connection would arc causing weird symptoms. I was real happy to have solved my mysterious gremlin problem with an easy fix.

[sccarlso]

I seem to recall that I even removed the power supply stationary molex bracket. Over time, it wasn't letting the connection fully seat.  When it warmed up, the connection would arc causing weird symptoms. I was real happy to have solved my mysterious gremlin problem with an easy fix.

What were your symptoms from the start?

This telltale battery tilt is just hitting a wall!  No matter what I do it won't clear! Ugh!

3 NiCD battery pack.  Three 1.2v cells registers 4.1v, more than enough.   Still says it's low.  As did the pack that was in there overnight does the same.  It's not the board as it does the same with two different ones.

I also unplugged the battery when it was on.  And when plugging it back in, the tilt clears for 5 seconds, then it just tilts again.  The log shows the tilt being cleared, then triggering again.

So I know the machine is detecting battery current when the battery is plugged back in.  Like it detects at least 3v or something, then something must be pulling a lot of current, enough so it drops below 3v again and retriggers the tilt!

It's never tilted for the battery before.  So I remember when I powered the machine on about 10 days ago after it was totally unplugged for several months.  And only the battery tilt triggered.  So I replaced it with the NiMH battery pack, which cleared it. I even played the machine for awhile and left it running.  Then only the BV tilt popped up about an hour later.  So troubleshot that for awhile.  Didn't get it cleared so I shut it off for the night at the switch, leaving it plugged in.

Then when making another go at clearing the BV tilt the next day.  When I powered it on, both the BV tilt and the telltale tilt were triggered.

After trying different USB cable, different board, etc.  Finally cleared the BV tilt, but the battery tilt is all that remains.

Something this machine has always done before that's notable.  Wasn't a big deal before and didn't seem to cause a problem.   

There must be some kind of relay in there to power on as the power switch has very small gauge wires, about 8 wires total, not large enough for the main machine power for sure.  Since I've had it, when I flip the power switch, it would take about 2 seconds for the main power to actually kick on but nothing was affected before.  Now when I flip the power switch, it takes about 7 seconds for the main power to kick on.   So I'm wondering if that's related somehow.  Seems pretty strange that it would, but who knows?  Perhaps that relay closes multiple circuits and not only the "main" power.  And it isn't closing them all now?

I'm almost positive that I have a spare 440w power supply, have to dig it up.  Then I can swap out the power supply and see what happens.

Thanks!



 

[Solsurvivor]

when you're changing out the 440W power supply, check the molex connection for any discoloration.  That'll tell you if the connection is sparking.

[sccarlso]

Many thanks! I'll certainly check that! 

[Matt411]

Following this because my telltale battery finally gave low warning. To be fair I haven't ran my machine for a few months and I think putting it in a surge protector that's off wasn't charging the battery even when the machine is off (correct me if wrong) as opposed to plugging it directly in an outlet. My battery did have a date of 11/11 which I'm assuming is 2011 so that's a crazy long time. Ordered one off ebay so we'll see when it arrives, hopefully no other issues. But I was also curious if these could be made from regular rechargeable batteries which it looks like they can unless there's some special thing I'm unaware of.

To OP's issues: if you have another brainbox maybe try that?

[sccarlso]

If the surge protector is used to turn it on/off.  Yep.  Same will happen.

But in many cases, unless the battery pack is really old and was regularly drained to nothing.  When power is restored to the main plug.  Then the battery pack is being float charged again, so if it's not worn out.  After a day or so it can get enough charge so the tilt goes away.  Many of my machines have "similar" battery packs with the connector from an OEM pack attached to the leads.  It's just 3 AAA NiCD batteries in series for 3.6v.   They can even be a little more than 3.7v as long as they're rechargable.  The only thing unique is the connector.  If you leave your machine plugged in with the dead battery still in there, it might work and the tilt will clear by the time a replacement arrives.   But good to replace it anyway.

The OEM packs aren't "special" otherwise.  They are 1650mah if I recall, so they last quite a long time even when unplugged.   Many old cordless phones use the same 3.6v battery pack, but are only like 600mah.  So if the connector is soldered to one of those and they work just the same, won't last as long when the machine is unplugged.  Still a good amount of time though, not a lot of power is drawn from the battery when it's unplugged.    Which is why many have a really old battery that's pretty weak and it's still fine as long as it isn't unplugged for weeks or months.   And a 3 AA battery holder with NiCD batteries will also work if the connector from an original battery is soldered to the leads.  Same thing, just not wrapped in a plastic pack.

In my case, I have 3 spare brainboxes, and three functioning AVP's next to it that are also v2 models.  And I've swapped the boards, the brainbox, and tried 3 different known good batteries.  It really isn't that hard to replace the battery and the tilt is gone, I've done it a few times.  So with the way my power supply doesn't kick on the main power for like 7 seconds after flipping the switch.  I'm leaning towards that as the cause as there isn't a lot more to explain it.  They get old too.

So hoping checking and cleaning the contacts if needed, and putting a spare power supply I have in the machine will fix it.   It's here somewhere, but finding it is harder than actually swapping it out to test!  lol

[sccarlso]

Well I finally killed off the telltale battery tilt!

A lot more effort than it should have been. 

Recap of what was tested, and the actual fix.

As previously mentioned, I had simply replaced the battery with an NiMH pack.  Tilt cleared but the tilt popped up again the next day.  Then with other 3.6v NiCD packs, nothing would clear the dang tilt!  Swapped the cabinet controller "suitcase" board, no change. (Luckily there is no flash in them to tie them to a specific machine).   So you can take one off the shelf and plug it into any machine without having to clear/reload anything.

I tried another NiCD pack, and a 3 AA NiCD battery holder. no joy.  In the end, I suspect they would have worked now given what I eventually found out.  But meh, it's working!  Not touching it now!  Only if it happens again on a machine in the future!

Power supply was good; connectors were perfectly clean.  Checking the power supply was what to test on my last post, that wasn't the problem.

Running out of ideas.  I put a DVM on the telltale battery connector on the controller board (used an old connector plug clipped from a dead battery with the wires still attached, and NO power to the machine, totally unplugged!).  You should have one in your “toolbox”. 
Even with alligator clip leads, trying to connect to the meter to the board, the pins on the board are just too small to clip onto.  So an old connector with wires made it easy to connect alligator clips to the wires of an old, clipped telltale battery connector to the meter.  Word to the wise, if you're going to toss a totally dead telltale battery.  Save the connector!  Just clip the wires at the battery and keep that connector with the wire leads!   If I hadn't kept one around, it would have been more difficult by far!

I had a spare v2 cabinet controller board (v2 with the yellow handle) with current blackfin/button firmware on it.  If you have a v2 machine, they are identical on both v2 models of G20 and G23 machines, so they're interchangeable.

Testing resistance isn't the best way to check a charging circuit.  And I can't be 100% certain it was the board.  But I'm fairly certain it was.   Just the ohms measurement gave me the insight I needed!  I'm not going to mess with it now that it's fixed.

The testing with a meter, the original cabinet controller board constantly autoranged from Kilo ohms to Mega Ohms back and forth.  Which is why ohms isn't the "best" way to test a charging circuit.  In common charging circuits.  The small voltage from the meter charges a capacitor, then it discharges, and that just cycles.  Which is what "can" cause the bouncing auto ranging behavior with a meter on a charging circuit.  But, it can also indicate a bad cap or intermittent connectivity on a board trace.  Ok, duly noted.

Then I swapped it with the spare board I had.   With the meter on that boards battery connector, the spare board gave a DIFFERENT reading!  It moved around a bit initially but stabilized in about 15 seconds and then it registered .444 Ohms solid!  No bouncing between Kilo ohms and Mega ohms!  Um, that's quite different behavior for identical boards. 

So I decided to go with the spare board, if issues remained, I was more confident in the board that was reading .444 ohms and stable on the battery connector pins than the original that just kept auto ranging.

Plugged in a battery and fired it up.  Use the diag unless you want to wait for a full boot everytime…  It won't give a voltage reading, it just displays a checkmark in the diag on 3 boxes in the battery section.  NVRAM, NVRAM2, and telltale.  If there's no checkbox by any of them, that battery is totally dead, or there is some other issue.

Damn!  Just as before, NVRAM and NVRAM2 had checkboxes.  But still no checkbox by the telltale battery!

Finally a "hail mary" play.  I had bought a simple 3.6v USB charging cable for RC cars (also charges any 3.6v NiMH/NiCD battery pack) for $7.  Clipped off the connector on the USB charger as the plug of course won’t fit, after verifying the black w/white stripe wire was +.  Just so I would be able to charge telltale battery packs outside of a machine.  Worth it for my "slot machine toolbox!" since so many machines use the same packs with the same voltage.

I pulled the spare board back out of the machine.  Which had a battery pack on it.  Which looked newer.  But I didn't use it when testing and had just plugged in other packs leaving it in place.  So this time, with the original pack unplugged from the board of course.  I just used a wire stripper to expose a tiny bit of the wires on the existing pack wires that were installed on the board to be able to use alligator clips to check voltage.  Sheesh!  It read .9 volts!

But now I had that simple 3.6v charger! ding ding.  So I connected the same alligator clips I used to test voltage with to the wires on the USB 3.6v charger, making sure + was to + and - is to - on the battery.  The USB charger light went red...it's charging!  And I left it to charge overnight.  Today the light was green.  Charged!  And just to verify, I rechecked the voltage of the battery, as the same alligator clips I used to charge were still connected to the battery wires.   Now it read 4.1 volts!  It may be old.  Don't have a way to tell, but it still took the charge just fine!  Even my 3 AA battery holder with three 1.2v cells in it read 4.1 volts with the cells fully charged.  So a fully charged OEM telltale battery actually reads 4.1v when fully charged, even though it only HAS to be at least 3v, if it drops below that, the battery tilt gets triggered. 

Once in a machine, the circuit will likely let it drain down a bit and won't float charge it until it goes below 3.6v to maintain it at 3.6v.  But over 3.6v won't harm anything.

Removed the alligator clips and plugged the battery to the board connector. And headed for my machine holding my breath!  As with any v2 machine, simple to remove/install the board. 

Side note: From schematics there are three "banks" of 4 USB ports on the board that's easily seen when you look at the board, as each 4 port "bank" is visibly separated.  Each "bank" has its own power circuit.  So I plugged each of the 3 USB devices my machine has into a different 4 USB port "bank".  Thus, each device will have its own power circuit.

All connected.  Fired it up with the diag.  Still has that 7 sec delay after flipping the power switch before it powers on.  But apparently it doesn't cause a problem.

Went to inputs/outputs in the diag under batteries.  Woo hoo!   All 3 checkboxes were checked when before, nothing I did would display a checkbox by the telltale battery.

Rebooted normally.  Success!  No more telltale battery tilt!  I'll still have to let it run awhile since previously the cleared tilt came back a day later.  But I'm confident it won't this time.

So from all this hassle.  What I've learned regarding what to do if you get a telltale battery tilt...  Usually it’s as simple as unplugging it and plugging in a new one.  But maybe not!

1.  Spend $7 for a 3.6v USB charging cable if you don't have one.  If you install any replacement telltale battery, whether OEM, or you use any other 3.6v battery pack and just wire the original battery connector to it.  There's a good chance that even OEM packs could have been made 10 years ago.   So it's discharged and is well below 3.0v.  Test the voltage if you're able before installing it, or if it doesn’t clear the tilt after installing it.   Even a 10 yr old pack is fine if it sat on a shelf and just discharged over time.  It hasn't been charged/discharged 200 times or something to degrade the cells it should still function like new.  If it is like 3.2v or higher, it should be fine to just plug it in and the tilt clears.

But if not, especially if it's really low.  If an OEM pack doesn't clear the tilt, just carefully strip the lead wires to expose a tiny bit of wire so an alligator clip can make contact. If you put the connector on a non OEM pack, you already have exposed wires.  And connect it to the 3.6v charger with the alligator clips (it charges at 2 Amps, the machine probably only float charges at like 100mA).  And charge it fully.

If the pack is really low, like 1v and you plug it in.  The float charge from the machine has such low current, it may not be able to charge a drained pack like that to at least 3.0v all by itself.  But if it's fully charged first, the machine can maintain it.

And if you're just unlucky (not really likely, but possible), and you get thrown for a loop as in my case, where you connect a fully charged battery in and the telltale tilt just won't clear.

2. Use a DVM to check the ohms of battery connector wires on the cabinet controller board with the machine unplugged.  It "should" bounce a bit and then stabilize and read roughly .444 ohms.  If it just auto ranges constantly from K ohms to M ohms forever when tested. The board just might be the problem!

If you have a spare cabinet controller board, and it's a v2, it's a 2 min job to swap. (you can swap v1 boards as well, it just takes more effort)   Can often pick up a spare v2 board for like $75.  Glad I had a spare board on hand since I have 5 AVP's that are all v2's!

And there it is.  Finally fixed.  Was a complete pain, and more difficult to isolate than most issues I’ve encountered, but now that I've been through it.  I know exactly what to check, so I "should" be able to quickly resolve it if any of my other machines misbehave!  lol

Hope this will help someone so they don't have to go through all this! 

[sccarlso]

Another last side note:

If you do leave your machine unplugged for months and get the telltale battery tilt when you power it back up.

Don't jump to buy a new battery right away.  If it's really drained low, which it would be if left unplugged for a long time.

Just have a simple USB 3.6v charger on hand, or get one.  And just unplug the existing battery from the board, and strip just enough from the battery wires so alligator clips make contact with the wires.  Make sure your + and - from the charger are correct, the battery wires are red and black, so can't miss that...

And using the USB charger connected with two alligator clips, let it charge overnight!  It's has a lot more power than the machine supplies to float charge the telltale battery.

Simple and easy charging cable I used that worked perfectly:   https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CBLR5N5B

The next day the charger light should be green.  Unplug your clips and plug the battery back into the board.

Even with a very old battery, I highly suspect the tilt would clear.  Then as long as you leave it plugged in and only power on/off using the internal switch.
The battery probably still has enough juice to keep the tilt cleared for many more years if it's been fully recharged with an external charger.  Even if you unplugged it for a day or something.  Just don't leave machines unplugged at the main power plug.  Ever. 

If you get a telltale tilt and the machine has been plugged in the whole time.   Then it's likely the battery needs to be replaced.

[Matt411]

Thank you for this. Funny enough after following this post my machine wouldn't boot at all... like it literally wouldn't post! (The beep you hear). I originally took out my telltale battery cause I purchased a new one but waiting for it to arrive I said "why don't I try putting it back in and leaving machine on to try and charge it". Then the machine wouldn't post. That's when I was like... what the heck did I just do?! Triple checked everything - reseated the board a dozen times.

Found another older post of someone mentioning alot of savp machines failed to turn on during COVID cause I guess the machines were all OFF, off for some time. So it got me thinking could it be as simple as the batteries in the brainbox - I have a few spare brainboxes and an extra new battery that goes on the board, switched em out... BOOM, machine posted and booted! (Just had to reconfig stuff)

Tested the old batteries w multimeter and they were indeed low / dead. Never knew a simple battery would stop a machine from starting up but glad it was such a simple fix, hopefully this saves someone else w similar problem some time. It's weird the machine never gave the error that the coin batteries were low but they were indeed low / dead.

Also after leaving machine on with my old telltale battery for a few hrs and then rebooting, it played fine for hours and the error never re-appeared. I even tested the next day, machine booted right up, never an error and played fine. That's of course now leaving my surge protector on and machine plugged in, turning on from the inside switch. So I figured I'm just going to run the old telltale till it's really gone or the error keeps popping up.

Hopefully this info helps someone else that might encounter similar issues with their G23 and telltale battery / coin batteries!

[sccarlso]

lol, glad you got it going!

Always good to have at least one spare of the batteries in a machine need to run on hand.  You can get them cheap from Amazon all at once.  And the name brand ones you want that are low priced aren't always 1-2 day shipping.  Then you won't have to pay 5X as much for one or two batteries locally if you want it quick.  They last like 10 years on the shelf anyway.  And just put em in your "slot parts" box.

One CR2032 battery for the CMOS on the motherboard
Two CR2450's for the PCI card
A replacement telltale battery (or just an inexpensive 3.6v NiCD battery pack)

Optional, but I'd recommend that 3.6v USB battery charger.  It was worth the $7 to me!   

And since I can't really trust the yellow handle v2 cabinet controller board I replaced and have four other v2 machines.  I picked up a good tested one on ebay today for $65 so I still have a good spare.  Usually not hard to find.  But some components get harder to find every year.  Less supply and more demand just means they'll cost more down the road.

[Mikey4026]

My short SAVP with gremlin TellTale battery tilt story
I had a TellTale appear on my SAVP after a recent power outage. It was unplugged for a day while we were living off of the generator. So, the next day I plugged everything back in. The G20's all started normally but not the SAVP, tested the TellTale battery voltage at 3.8, I tried another ribbon cable and CPU with the same results. The SAVP does not have the suitcase board, it has a backplane that does the same thing as the suitcase and interconnect board on the G20/23. The SAVP is terribly crowded and most everything has to be removed to access the backplane. After several hours of dropping tiny screws and bitching about the engineer that designed this cabinet the new board is in stalled and is once again working normally.
Thanks for teaching me so much sccarlso
Cheers
Mike

[sccarlso]

It is easier with the v2 board.   Just all those screws with the v1!   

Glad you got it back up.   Seems like as these machines get older there's more possibility of something else being the cause.
Or some are just finicky about the telltale battery!