Repair Guide

Repairs

While we do not expect you to need any repairs, it is realistic to assume that all things can eventually break down as time goes on. The unit is designed for consumer maintenance. Most repairs should take less than 5-10 minutes, and most parts are readily available online from popular sellers, or directly from us.

Please contact us with any questions or issues that are not covered here.

Troubleshooting

Video but no sound from speakers

If there is video but no sound from the speakers

No sound could be caused by a few different issues:

A few of the games don't have perfectly working sound.
- Try other games and see if they work.
Speaker jack was unplugged during movement or shipping
- Lay the unit on its back and remove the bottom panel. Ensure the speaker plug (as shown in the picture) is fully pushed in
Speaker inline volume wheel got lowered during movement or shipping.
- Unscrew the 4 screws that hold on the marquee panel up top. Remove the entire marquee as a single piece. Reach near the back and find the inline volume wheel and scroll it up or down to find the volume you desire. You'll want to have the unit playing a game at this time so you can hear music while adjusting.

See this picture for a legend of what everything is:

"No Signal" on monitor

No Signal is showing on the monitor

If you see "No Signal" on the screen, that means the connection between the computer and the monitor is not working. This can be caused by a variety of reasons:

HDMI cable was unplugged from the computer
- Look at the computer (as shown in the picture) and verify the HDMI plug on the back of the computer is fully plugged in
DVI connection from the monitor was unplugged from the back of the monitor
- Lay the unit on it's back and remove the bottom panel, follow the HDMI plug from the computer up to the back of the monitor and ensure it is plugged in. This uses a screw-in type connector so it would be extremely rare that this would be disconnected
Computer is not getting power.
- You might see lights and the monitor turning on, but it's possible the power adapter for the computer got knocked loose during movement or shipping.
- Lay the unit on it's back and remove the bottom panel, look for the power adapter plug (as shown in the picture). Ensure that it is plugged into the powerstrip and the other end is plugged into the back of the computer. You should see green and/or red lights on the computer when it is getting power
Computer system drive is corrupt.
- It might be possible that either a storm or repetitive turning on/off the unit that the system disk went bad. This would cause the unit to not boot up and therefore not give signal to the monitor. Contact us for a replacement disk and follow the repair guide below for replacing the drive(s).

See this picture for a legend of what everything is:

Available Repair Guides

How to swap out a faulty computer

Unplug the system and lay it on its back. If mounted on the wall, you may be able to work from underneath (be careful!)
Remove the 2 screws from the bottom panel and remove the panel
The computer is mounted on the back panel on the bottom right-hand side with all the cables plugged into it
See this picture for a legend of what everything is:
Carefully remove the cables making note of where they go, but they are fairly obvious connectors. If your unit has some tape on the plugs, we add that only for shipping purposes. You can remove that, being careful not to bend any connectors while removing it. You won't need to put that back on.
Pry off the old computer from the wood. It will be held in place with industrial velcro and a metal bracket to hold it down.
You may end up pulling off the entire velcro pad instead of separating the velcro parts. This is fine as the new computer has its own new velcro pair.
Reconnect all the connections to the new computer and stick it into the same place with the new velcro. Double check that the HDMI and audio jack connectors are fully pushed in to the computer. And note that the micro usb connector only fits in one direction. The same goes for the usb connections on the side.
If your new computer includes a new microsd and/or usb drive, use the new ones. Otherwise, take the one from the old computer and put it in the correct place on the new computer.
Put the bottom panel back on and put the 2 screws back
Plug it in and everything should be good to go.

How to replace the microSD card or USB drive

Unplug the system and lay it on its back. If mounted on the wall, you may be able to work from underneath (be careful!)
Remove the 2 screws from the bottom panel and remove the panel
The computer is mounted on the back panel on the bottom right-hand side with all the cables plugged into it
See this picture for a legend of what everything is:
Remove the microsd card by sliding it out with your thumbnail. Replace it with the new one. Note usb drives only fit one direction and the branding should be facing away from the computer.
Remove the usb drive by pulling it straight out. You may need to temporarily remove some other usb cables to get access to it. Replace it with the new one. Note usb drives only fit one direction.
Put the bottom panel back on and put the 2 screws back
Plug it in and everything should be good to go.

How to swap out a faulty monitor

Unplug the system and lay it on its back.
Remove the 4 screws from the marquee panel at the top of the unit. The marquee itself comes off as a single piece.
Tilt the bottom of speaker panel up from the back, this will give finger space to reach in and lift the front panel out.
Remove the 2 screws from the main front panel, you will need to remove this panel to access the monitor.
Be sure to keep both panels together. The graphic is sandwiched between these panels and you'll want to keep dust out.
Stand the unit on its bottom and note the round access hole behind the monitor. You will need a small phillips screwdriver to unscrew the mounting screw that holds the monitor to the back panel. That screw is located right near the bottom of that access hole.
1. If your unit does not have a hole, or if you cannot get the screw from this direction, the alternative is to use a very long screwdriver and come in from the top.
  1. Remove the 2 screws from the top-back of the unit. This will allow the top panel to swivel up from the back
  2. Now you should be able to reach the long screwdriver down the back behind the monitor. Use a flashlight to see the screw.
Once the monitor has been unscrewed, it can be lifted out from the front.
Be sure you are replacing the monitor with the same model, otherwise the front graphic will likely not line up.
Remove the VESA mounting bracket, HDMI cable, and power cord from the rear of the monitor and put it on the new monitor.
Reverse your steps to mount the new monitor and put all screws back. You may want to test while open to ensure the new monitor is working properly

How to replace a bad button

Unplug the system and lay it on its back.
Remove the 2 screws from the bottom panel and remove the panel
Locate the bad button from the underside of the control panel
Determine if the button is bad, or just the light is bad. If the light is out, but the button works, then only the light may need to be replaced.
1. If using the microswitch style of button, you can grab the switch assembly and turn counter-clockwise 1/4 turn. You should feel it click and release. Pull that out and leave wired
  1. If it is just a bad light, you can swap out the LED light here as you would a holiday light bulb. Replacement LEDs are available through us or on eBay if you search for "Arcade button LEDs".
  2. If the actual switch is broken, hold the button from the topside and unscrew the nut from the bottom. Swap out the button and screw the new one in place. Note the original direction of the button plunger as it needs to go in the same way as the old button to ensure the wires reach properly.
2. If using an all-in-one button where the light and button are all one assembly, you will need to replace the whole button regardless of the issue. Two of the wires (usually Red/Black) at the bottom of these buttons are for the button control, the other two wires (usually black) are for the button lights.
  1. To remove the button control wires, you will need something like a toothpick to press the tiny release level on the connectors, and slide them off.
  2. To remove the lighting wires, you will need to just pull hard to get them off. Careful not to pull off the actual connector from the wires. You may need to use needle-nose pliers to ensure you are pulling the right area.
  3. Once the wires are removed, hold the button from the topside and unscrew the nut from the bottom. Swap out the button and screw the new one in place. The button alignment doesn't matter in this case as the wires are more freely movable.
  4. The button control wires can be put back in any order, but the LED wires have to follow polarity. You may need to plug the unit back in while on its back to see which way they go to light up the new button before fully pushing them in.
Test the buttons in a game that uses those buttons to the new button is working correctly.
Put the bottom panel back in place.

How to install and use 4-player addon

How To install gamepad dongle for 4 player addon:

Unplug the system and lay it on its back. If mounted on the wall, you may be able to work from underneath (be careful!)
Remove the 2 screws from the bottom and remove the panel.
The computer is mounted on the back panel on the bottom right-hand side.
See this picture for a legend of what everything is:
Note the spot for "usb drive". There should be one more open usb spot there and that is where you put the usb dongle that is inside the battery compartment of one of the gamepads
Put the bottom panel back on and plug it back in.
Under the "Arcade" system menu, choose "4-Player Games"
Here is a list of about 40 games that are 4 player compatible
On the gamepads, the first one turned on is player 3, the second one is player 4
Select button is insert coin, Start is player start
Action buttons vary per game so test them for each game you play.

How to remove some games

How to remove certain games

1. Shutdown and unplug the unit and lay the unit on its back. If wall mounted, you may be able to work from underneath (be careful!)

2. Remove the 2 screws from the bottom panel and remove the panel

3. Follow this reference photo to find where the "usb drive" is located.

4. Remove that drive from the system computer and insert into your home computer.

5. You should see a folder structure like this. Under the name of the system folder you choose, there will be files. Normally each file is a game.

For example, the nintendo folder is "nes" and each game is aptly named

7. Simply delete the games you don't want (you many want to make a backup first before deleting)

8. Go through each system and remove as you like. Be sure not to delete files like "gamelist.xml" or neogeo.zip as that's a system file.

Some systems like Atari and Arcade are forced to use an 8 character max name so they are a little harder to discern.

For example "Captain American and the Avengers" is in a file named "captavnu.zip"

So you can see there is some abbreviation that needs to be considered. When in doubt, you can open the gamelist.xml file in that same folder and search for the file name and it will have more details:

How can I add games?

How to add games

Adding games to the system is possible, but be aware that it is really only intended for people who understand the nuances of emulation.

What kind of console games can I add?
There are multiple game systems on the internal computer and each system has its own file structure for games. Some are simple zip files, others have supplementary files.
For most of the console systems, you already have 99% of the games. What you might want to add to those would be what are known as "rom hacks". These are basically user modified versions of games to add features or general silliness to existing games. Super Mario Bros, for example, has hundreds of hacks where people alter the scenery, characters, gameplay, etc.You can find these files at https://www.romhacking.net/ . Download the zip file of a rom and copy that zip to the \roms\nes folder. When you place the usb drive back in the system, it should show it in the game list. Note: There are no guarantees that all hacks will work and we don't support these added files.
What kind of arcade games can I add?
Arcade games are a little different than the rest of the games. While most console games will just work, arcade games have to match the version of the game file with the version of the arcade emulator code. The version we use on our system is Mame 0.78 romset. This means that if you want a certain game, it must be using the mame 0.78 romset version. Other versions of the game may not work. There are about 4600 rom files list for the 0.78 romset here: https://ia601207.us.archive.org/26/items/MAME2003_Reference_Set_MAME0.78_ROMs_CHDs_Samples/roms/, however it is important to note that many of these files are just regional copies of the same game. For example the "Aliens" game is named "alienu.zip" for the US version and "alienj.zip" for the Japanese version. In reality there are only like 2600 unique games for this romset. We include only about 300 arcade games because let's face it, not all games were all that great. We curated our list from top 100 lists online and tried to get the cream of the crop to avoid needing to scroll through thousands of less popular games. It's also a little hard to discern the actual game name from the arcade naming format, as they are limited to 8 characters. For example "captavnu.zip" is "Captain America and the Avengers (US version)". So you'll want to search the name of the zip file online to find out the real game name, or vice versa. When you find a game you want to add, copy the zip file to the \roms\arcade folder and drop it there with the rest of the games. When you place the usb drive back in the system, it should show it in the game list. Note: There are no guarantees that all games will work and we don't support these added files.

1. Shutdown and unplug the unit and lay the unit on its back. If wall mounted, you may be able to work from underneath (be careful!)

2. Remove the 2 screws from the bottom panel and remove the panel

3. Follow this reference photo to find where the "usb drive" is located.

4. Remove that drive from the system computer and insert into your home computer.

5. You should see a folder structure like this. Under the name of the system folder you choose, there will be files. Normally each file is a game.

For example, the nintendo folder is "nes" and each game is aptly named

7. Following the bullet points from the beginning of this document, copy the game file you want to the respective game folder.

8. When you load the system again, it will show this game in the list, without and image or description.

8. If you want to add a description, edit the \roms\<system>\gamelist.xml file and follow the xml structure to add details for this game. You'll also want to upload an image to \roms\<system>\image folder and point to that image from this file. Here is an example of a <game> tag