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Sega RingEdge / RingWide

Sega's Windows PC generation after the Lindbergh (2009): two variants, RingEdge (high-end) and RingWide (budget), on Windows Embedded. Tied to the ALL.Net network and locked by a keychip. Border Break, Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Arcade, Sangokushi Taisen…

RingEdge hardware — an arcade PC in its chassis.
RingEdge hardware — an arcade PC in its chassis. Photo uploaded by Black Squirrel to Sega Retro, a site under CC BY 4.0.

Identification

Field Value
Manufacturer Sega
Year 2009
Base x86 PC — Windows Embedded 2009
Network ALL.Net (profiles, rankings, P-ras digital distribution)
Security keychip (gates boot/launch)
Output up to 2 screens 1920×1200, 5.1 sound

Architecture (PC)

Model CPU RAM GPU Storage
RingEdge (high-end) Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2160 (1.8 GHz) 1 GB DDR2 (PC-6400) NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS (384 MB GDDR3, SM4.0) 32 GB SSD
RingWide (budget) Intel Celeron 440 (2.0 GHz) 1 GB DDR2 (PC-5300) ATI Radeon HD 2xxx (128 MB, SM4.0) SSD

Gigabit networking; both do 5.1 and dual screen. It's a Windows PC in an arcade case (after the Lindbergh's Linux, before Nu / ALLS).

Security, network & preservation (the real topic)

  • Keychip: a security chip gates the boot and launch of the game. Many resold boards lack their keychip (Sega property, returned at the end of the operator contract) → a major preservation obstacle.
  • ALL.Net: Sega's network (since 2004) for profiles/rankings/online play; extended as ALL.Net P-ras for digital distribution and updates. Server-dependent games → a separate preservation topic.
  • Preservation: the community has reverse-engineered the keychip protocols to keep cabinets running; imaging the SSD is the first step.

Notable games

Border Break (2009, AM2, first game), Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Arcade, Sangokushi Taisen, Sega Network Taisen Mahjong MJ, Ollie King… (mostly networked / player-card games).

Faults & repair

Standard PC hardware:

Symptom Likely cause Lead
Won't boot/launch missing/dead keychip Critical part (Sega property); see preservation
Overheating / GPU crash GeForce 8800 / Radeon HD (fan/paste) Clean, re-paste, ventilate
SSD end of life wear Image the SSD
Reboots ATX PSU / capacitors Replace / recap
Controls / player card JVS I/O, card reader JVS / reader diagnosis

Modernisation & mods

The common ground for every JAMMA board

Video, power, control panel and upscalers depend on the cabinet rather than the board: everything is centralised in Modernising a cabinet. To run the board outside a cabinet (at home, on a display): supergun.

  • Hard disk ⚠️: a perishable medium — image the drive before it fails, then consider an SSD/CF replacement → PCB preservation hub.
  • Scan rate 📺: PC-based hardware — VGA output (31 kHz and above). ⚠️ A 15 kHz chassis is incompatible: you need a VGA/tri-sync monitor or a computer display. (Derived from the platform's PC nature documented above — not measured from MAME.)
  • FPGA / emulation: see the Emulation & FPGA section below.

Repair (technician)

  • Keychip: without the keychip (often missing from resold boards, Sega's property) the game won't start — check before suspecting the hardware.
  • x86 PC (Pentium Dual-Core + GeForce 8800 GS): PC diagnosis — PSU, RAM, GPU (caps/fan), SSD; a consumer GPU can have capacitor / BGA joint failures.
  • Network / player-card reader: an ALL.Net / JVS I/O dependency.

→ Methods: PCB fault-finding · Recap · Traces & vias

Procedure — a dead board, step by step ✅

What this adds

The general method lives in PCB diagnosis. This is its application to this platform: the same order, but with the values actually expected here, so you do not have to go back and forth.

This platform is a PC

Most of what kills one of these is not on a board: the disk, the dongle, the BIOS settings or the OS. Go through those first — the procedure below still applies to the rails and the boot, but stripping a machine that simply will not boot off its disk wastes a day.

Tools: multimeter, oscilloscope (or frequency counter), current-limited bench supply, desoldering braid. → Tooling

If the board is still in a cabinet

A CRT holds its charge with the machine unplugged. → CRT safety

1. Inspection, power off. Corrosion, cut tracks, oxidised EPROM legs, leaking SMD capacitors, dubious earlier repairs.

2. The connector, before anything else. A large share of "dead boards" are a contact problem, not a fault. Clean the contacts with isopropyl alcohol and reseat — not with an abrasive eraser on a gold edge, which takes the plating off and brings the problem back worse. It costs two minutes and settles the question.

3. Power, measured on the board. Aim for +5.0 V measured as close as possible to where power reaches the board — not at the PSU output: the drop is in the loom, and that is exactly what makes a board boot on the bench and not in the cabinet. Where you probe depends on this board's connector — JAMMA edge, JVS loom or a proprietary harness — plenty of makers kept one long after JAMMA arrived — see Identification above. → Wiring Check −5 V and +12 V too if the sound stage uses them. Suspected short: bring it up current-limited and find the hot spot.

4. /RESET. It must release after power-up. Held low = the CPU never starts. A 1–2 Hz loop is not the reset circuit, it is the watchdog: the CPU is crashing at boot, so look at the bus, not at the reset.

5. Clocks. There is no measurement table for this platform — MAME's sources yield nothing usable for it. Any frequency quoted under Architecture on this page serves as a marker; otherwise compare against a working board rather than against a number: an invented value condemns healthy parts. → PCB diagnosis

6. Bus. Activity on the main CPU's address lines tells you whether it is running or frozen. Frozen with good clocks and good reset → work RAM, bus buffers, ROMs.

7. It boots but the picture or the sound is wrong — that is another job: see Common faults on this page, then signal tracing.

Emulation & FPGA

  • Emulation: Windows PC games → no MAME; preservation via SSD image + keychip (community RE protocols). No FPGA core.

Lineage

After the Lindbergh (Linux PC, 2005), before Nu / ALLS (2014+). The Europa-R variant (driving: Sega Rally 3, Initial D) is the same PC family.

Photos / assets

(To add: RingEdge vs RingWide board, keychip, SSD, JVS I/O.)

Sources & attribution

Image:

Review & corrections

How this space is used

Spotted a wrong value, an outdated procedure, a chip reference that does not match your board? Say so here, with what you observed (model, board revision, serial number, measurement). Every report is cross-checked against a source before anything changes — an unverifiable correction is published as “reported by …, not cross-checked” rather than silently applied.

Reading is open to everyone; posting requires signing in with Discord. Reports from the wiki's declared reviewers are handled first; anyone else's are read too, but go through a human before anything is changed.