Arcade Repair Tips - Adjusting An Arcade Monitor 

I can't thank you enough for posting this. My Pac Man 25th Anniversary was never quite right. I finally took the time to investigate how to adjust and thanks to your video the difference is night and day. The picture looks amazing now...so sharp! Thank you!!!!

I adjusted my monitor today thanks to this guide and it made a world of difference. I thought i had it done right before but your guide helped me greatly.

Sweet! 11years later, and your video saved the day. Thanks!

Thank you very much for posting this video. I’m new to a machine with a crt and had no clue on any of these terms buttons meant until your video. Thanks again!!!

A lot of good info! thanks!

Great video! I'm new to arcades and this Solved my problem in just the opening seconds of the video! Thanks!!!

Really thanks for the great tips!

had my monitor off center. you video helped me a lot.now centered and focused. Thank you

thank you i just picked up a ridge racer cabinet that had been left behind a restaurant for 2 month because the screen was jumbled plugged it in and besides a little water damage and a noisy fan it works perfectly now!!! thank you!!!

Thank you great video. Lots of help

you are awesome!!! I recently bought two neo geo arcade machines one has an inmaculate picture the other is off i have been working on getting the colors right,but I havent been successful hopefully after watching this video I can get it the picture to look better thanks for the info and have a great day.

This was a huge help!

thank you man, very helpful, saludos from México.

Great Video! exactly what I needed to get my pac-mac sorted 😀

Thanks guys. Just bought a Sega Naomi and thought the screen looked a little washed out. Watched this video, busted open the Naomi, tweaked a few pots and it looks a million times better now. Excellent.

@djpaulhannon It's pretty safe as long as you take the necessary safety precautions. You might get some rubber gloves or plastic adjustment tools if you're really nervous about it. It's also a good idea to remove your watch. Take your time and watch what you are touching and you should be fine. We have also featured your question on episode 15 of our Q&A podcast. Please listen to it for more of our thoughts on your question. Thank you for your question and good luck with your future repairs.

wow, great info!!

Cool tips!

very informative.. subscribed!

Thanks, great video. I recently got a Terminator 2 arcade. I need picture adjustment. Thumbs up.

Hi there! besides all potentiometers you mentioned I was specting you to talk about those other potentiometers over the chasis board (there are 3 on mine scattered with no order in particular) I got the wired horizontal hold not functing! so i really nedeed to touch them... your video is really helpfull! Now i feel more secure to touch my flyback focus potentiometer (mine has 2 too) ... Thanks!

Great video.

Thanks for the HD. It helps.

thank you very much sir!!

Exactly what I needed to know. Looks like horizontal hold I need to adjust.

excellent vid - very helpful ... i had to figure out alot of this stuff by trial & error on my own ..... what i have found to be the easiest way to get a nice balance of color is to use a capcom cps2 game (like say a xmen vs st fighter A&B gameboard) & go into the color menu which shows the level of the colors so u can get it pretty close

All right thank you so much for your information and advice !!! Words cannot express how grateful I am foryour infomation !!! You Are A Lifesaver !! Just one more question, are Samsung CRT TV's availble on Amazon ??

With the info in this video I easily adjusted the color on my Ghosts'n Goblins Cabinet (was showing too green) and also was able to adjust the horizontal to better center the picture (was off about a half inch). The monitor and gameplay truly looks amazing now, basically what you would see straight from the factory. Thanks so much guys, keep up the good work!

Thankyou.

Thanks,if you can do the same with a blast city. I just have a tiny tiny red on the first part of the screen in 15khz almost invisible but more in 31 khz. The nanao have a lot of adjusments...

Hi! first of all, thank you so much for all this great videos! they are absolutely great! now, i have a question. from my monitor there's blue coming out of the white, like it happens on this video but with the red. i've seen that you moved your "red drive" pot, but on my neck, i don't have the "drives", just the colors. what can i do?

@varcadegames i recently purchased an mk1 cabinet and the guy did a flyback and cap kit prior to me buying it and it was documented on youtube as proof. i played the game at his house and everything seemed great. picture image fit very nicely and colors were vivid.it had to be taken apart partially and monitor was removed in order to get it to my house. when i rebuilt it and put the monitor back everything seemed fine but i had a v size problem.it didnt want to fit on the screen as it was before

what game had the color test menu you used? I was trying to find one that looked like that as it would help me greatly.

Very interesting video. Superior job in your details. I always wondered how these monitors worked because I never knew where the common controls were like on a regular TV. What about the hue/tint adjustment and the color adjustment where you can make the image black and white. What about audio adjustment, where are those controls?

Nice vids. I just got a brand new arcade machine and the screen is unfocused on the edges but center is fine. Is this normal for flat crts?

My Toobin' game has been blurry for years. This fixed it.

Great video tutorials. Do you have any used 25in tube Arcade monitor for sale?

Are you referring to the screens / monitors ?? What are the makes and the models of the TV'S that you recommend that I would use to play Time Crisis 3 ??

I have a Sony PVM and on certain colours im getting a simular colour bleed or smearing the always goes to the right any ideas what that could be? I have heard that replacing the caps will help?

Thanks for all these tips, and I don't know if you answer questions ? I picked up an old Space Invaders and the glow in the neck of the monitor is very/overly bright and sometimes there is a little sparking in the glowing area. There is no game picture but the screen does light up overly bright greenish. Why is that neck glow so bright, and how to reduce it. Thanks either way.

Thanks Varcade games. Brazilian neogeo arcade owner hapy here.

I just got a arcade system and have a separate control board like in video and have done all I can and screen still scrolls and can't find were to buy another control board could u help

Hi I have a old 1981 Williams monitor I can't find a horizontal pos adjustment did they not have that?

Do oty talk about volume control in this?

i dont have a horizontal size knob with the vertical size. I looked on my monitor decal it shows it to be back behind the focus on the tube. I cant really see in there good and I sure dont want to play around in there with it on. Any suggestions why it would be there or am I looking in the wrong place. It is a Zenith G-A63ADG25X

Help. I have an ms pac man/Galaga. keeps moving the letters to the bottom right at a curve down. for instance the front bleed toward the bottom right of the machine. This tends to move quite a bit through play. I have adjusted multiple knobs, but to stop just guessing. what should I be turning. the horizontal size or hold or the vertical size or hold. Any help would be great. Thanks

I recently put a new multigame board in a Golden Tee cab and the monitor was kind of scrambled and had multiple images. I was able to adjust out the scramble but still have double and triple images. I did turn down the power supply adjustment on to 4.9 as recommended by the board manufacturer, it was at 5.4 Any ideas? Thanks!

@varcadegames i tried to shrink it using the pots for vertical adjusting but still nothing...the top and bottom of the image doesnt show on screen, its too big and i cant get it to shrink to fit on the monitor. what can i do?

didn't you guys used to have intro music on your videos?

What is a arcade monitor dot cloth for adjusting screen?But what part?

I have an old JVC 32 inch crt television when i play scrolling gamed at the left and right side of the screen i get a distorted picture like a wavy look the color is good but like i said the edges look a bit wierd when the screen scrolls can you please let me know what this could be ?

I have a 39-in-1 Ms. Pacman arcade game. I had a power outage and the system went into test mode. There is a button and a toggle switch inside which resets game parameters, but I can't figure out how to get it back to game play mode. Any suggestions?

What can you do if your green yoke doesn't want to turn after loosening the radiator clamp?

I have an old Final Fight arcade game cabinet , the sound works but there is no picture.. just a blurry spot the size of a quarter, before that it had a collapse line across the screen.. what could be wrong?

I have a pac-man arcade and we recently moved the machine. It was working when we moved it but when we unloaded and turned it on in the new location the screen is reversed not upside down but reversed. Any suggestions

Would a bad cap cause a monitor to have a dark bar across the top?

i see, I have a consolized mvs in crt tv its ok.but when I put it into my cabinet when adjust the rgb. the red and blue is somehow ok. but the green is always black. how do i trouble shoot it?

On my adjustment panel I have a dial for R-Y and B-Y, I was wondering what do they do?

I just installed a 60 in 1 multi board and for some reason my 19" vertical monitor will not show the entire game on the screen. I have a Konami cabinet that used to be a Devastators cabinet. For instance, while playing Pac Man I can't see the bottom where it shows how many lives you have. I checked the settings on my monitor and I have a Vertical Size, but no Horizontal size adjustment. Do you have any clue what might be causing this, and how I can fix it? Thank you

Exactly how long,how wide and how tall are the arcade screens that Time Crisis 3 being played on ??

I've got a deluxe original house of the dead arcade cabinet, blurred image and text, I've tried adjusting everything in front like contrast and brightness, cant find any dials in the back,

There are two main types of Time Crisis 3 cabinets. The older style which uses CRTs and the newer style that uses LCDs. I'm fairly sure the old style cabinets use 25" or 27" CRTs, while the newer cabinets use 30+" widescreens.

Hello, my arcade monitor has a blue tint flickering to perfect screen now and then. Does anyone know what could be the problem ? thanks

anyone have any idea why my monitor is showing shrunken graphics on the bottom and enlarged graphics on top. when the game play is in the middle of the screen it looks normal. by middle I don't mean dead center, I mean like the middle as if it were a horizontal line. its,like there are 3 sections showing the characteristics I mentioned. in addition, I can't get the image to stretch to the very bottom of the screen, it's about 3 inches of nothing before the screen shows anything. the game is a Namco reunion and I believe it's a Wells Gardner monitor. I would greatly appreciate any insight or help.

I have ran into a problem with a MAME project my son and I are doing. The cabinet is an old SEGA GT and the monitor can plug directly into the PC. Everything comes woks great until windows loads. Once Windows fully loads we get four to five narrow versions of it on the screen at the same time. Up until it loads everything looks great. Anyone have a solution for this? I would greatly appreciate it.

do you know how to get the screen to light up on a ms pacman floor machine? The sound is good.

I need help, please! I got the jamma board to switch, but the game scrolls right to left and doesn't stop. What am I doing wrong? There is video and sound, but keeps scrolling and is video turned sideways. Do I need to adjust something on the jamma board or maybe this jamma board is for those flat table top arcades?

have any idea where these knob are usually would be on a Frogger Cocktail monitor?

I have 2005 golden tee. I adjusted the volume and screen went out. When I turn off power then back on think vision comes on screen then it’s blank. Is there a way to factory reset or adjust the screen. ?

I just bought a gorgeous Class of '81. Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga with 25" monitor. The very bottom of the screen is slightly fuzzy, everything else good. The distortion is just at the bottom like were the row of fruit is and on Galaga fuzzy were ship is and the board badge is fuzzy. Any suggestions?

How to enter the menu of the monitor in the city where I live there is no one to make repairs I'm trying to learn can help me I'm from Brazil and I do not speak English I'm translating through google.

Any idea where focus knob on cruisn world is ??

My arcade machine when I boot it can have a heavy red, green or blue colour tint. It wears off back to normal but can re-occur during play or even just idling. Now percussive maintenance (smacking the side of the machine) can make it come instantly back to a proper balance of colour but I'm looking for a fix! Is there something obvious that comes to mind for a fix on this?

ARCADE REPAIR TIPS, all arcade monitors have a B+ voltage set at 125 vdc. Why does the Vertical sync and horizontal sync hold circuit need a B+ bias voltage set at 125vdc in order for it to work correctly? 125vdc is a big DC offset bias voltage for a sync circuit

My horizontal adjustment knob doesn’t actually squeeze in the picture, like the knob doesn’t work. Vertical works. Is this the PCB of that crt controller?

My monitor is saturated in one color over another, we have recapped and changed the transistors with no luck. I see all the colors but I blue is over powering all, and doesn't change much when I try adjustments. would it be possible that its a bad pot? and if so are they just adjustable resistors that i could test? or would it be something else that I am missing?

by the looks of it that machine was an mvs 4 slot.. at least the cab was for that and they were playing an snk game that is for the mvs system... so it is probably still the 4 slot board in there.

What is the best way to take a color monitor and turn it to Black & White to use in old Space Invaders Cocktail game?

Hi! Help please. My monitor has a brightness problem. When the picture is full of brigth colors, the brightness goes up, when the picture has darker colors, the brightness goes waaay down. Like a total black screen. Also the brightness goes up and down like if you were the one moving the pot. Any ideas?

Get in there and turn some knobs!

Why don't they have horizontal size?

That panel for adjusting the display settings was moved right behind the coin door in front on the Arcade Legends 2 machine I picked up recently. I'm in the process of upgrading the joysticks and buttons... but all of a sudden, the display itself has shifted over to the right (it is partially cut off now). I've tried twisting the different knobs. Am able to raise/lower the display, mess with brightness/contrast, raise/lower the display... but for whatever reason, no matter which knob I adjust.. I cannot get the picture to re-center again properly. I may have to open up the back and see if there are any more knobs/adjustments I can make back there. what a pain!

Those are consumer TVs. Are you trying to play TC3 at home or are you trying to build an arcade cabinet?

I know I am decade late, but I am looking for info on the Horizontal SIZE. I see in your video, you also do not specify there being a SIZE for it, but you verbally said Horizontal Size. I have the same described options you do, and there is no way for me to adjust the width of the screen. Is it not possible? I can only make it bigger or smaller Vertically.

I just purchased time crisis 3 from an arcade that went out of business. I'm told one side has a fried board, an the other side just needed a monitor...I put the good monitor in the cabinet with the good board...I get sounds, lights from the decorative lights, but the screen does absolutely nothing! Any input from anyone would be greatly appreciated

What can you do to adjust the "stretch" of width and height when your external control board doesn't work? My control board which is the only way I know how to do so basically doesn't work. I can get into the settings by clicking the MODE button on the board but no other buttons function after that. I've already tested continuity with the cable connector as well as continuity on the control board itself. Continuity is not an issue. My monitor simply won't honor any other button press on the external board.

@varcadegames i cant get my mortal kombat image to fit screen i tried adjusting it but it doesnt fit completely in the screen...help!

I'm missing about an inch at the top of my monitor. If i try to move the image up with v size/ v postion it just starts coming back down and overlapping the screen, anyone know how to fix this?

one of the blue neck bord pots fell off what should i do

I have just installed an Icade 60in1 PCB, which I bought second hand from eBay, into my jamma cab. Basically, the colours are screwed up on the games, more noticeably on Donkey kong because Mario and the girders are purple and not red and frogger as most things look purple, logs, lily pads, everything. On the opening test colour bar screen, most of the squares are purple and colours look dull and flat. Not nice and colourful and vibrant like I've seen on other icade 60in1's. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I am a complete novice and never done anything like this before. Any help or suggestions would be gratefully received.

I worked on CRT monitors for a few years a few safety tips should be said before you dig into a CRT monitor. As a electronic tech who has been shocked, and burned by a CRT monitor need to beware. CRT monitors are powered in such a way that the chassis may have 70 volts in reference to earth ground because they don't use a 1 to 1 transformer they rectify the AC to DC and goes straight into the electronics saves on money and weight. Will you get a shock maybe if you are also touching metal bench or something and your hand is on the chassis. The way to stop that is to use a 1 to 1 transformer isolates the power from earth ground you don't need the 1 to 1 transformer just be mindful of it's danger. Also he said touching the flyback connector can shock you well its not easy to unplug it yes you could be killed by a shock like that. The more common thing to happen is brushing your skin against the flyback wire itself that can give you a burn because it's high voltage and higher frequency it will burn you like touching hot soldering iron. It's best to wear heavier rubber gloves if your adjusting pots always try to use a plastic handle screwdriver put some shrink rap down the entire metal length that way can't short anything by mistake. If your colors are not perfect try the focus and contrast before you mess with the color pots on the CRT drive board. Also you might want to mark the pots original position with some nail polish. Lot of times mess with those pots and now it looks lot worse can't get it back to what it was before. Tubes which run 24/7 like arcade games sometimes can't be fixed just have to be replaced.

I was told messing around the back of the monitor even with the power OFF can kill you? So I’m supposed to mess around back there with the power ON?

Or what about Sony CRT TV's ??

It probably needs a cap kit, that is the capacitors need to be changed. This solves a lot of monitor issues. It is not normal.

Hello mate im back. i recently rotated my screen and it stopped working. its completely black. no wires appear loose. the anode cup came off. does it need to be placed in a certain spot on the back or will anywhere do? any help is appreciated mate happy to flick you some cash for advice

But if Amazon.com is supposed to be less expensive and stilll charges exuberant prices ,then why are many people saying it is less expensive than other places ?? Also, would a Sony CRT TV that is 37'' work ??

Do you ever deal with connecting a gbs 8100 to an arcade?

if the red color gun is not working is the monitor fixable?

Then I would go for a Sony or Samsung CRT TV. Something between 27" and 36" is nice, but you have to take into account the weight and space they take up.

Hi. My Mario Bros has a white background to it. Everything works fine, but I just can't figure out why the background is white instead of black. Please help someone.. Thank you.