black screen on pc

shayne66

Hi All, I had an old pc that was no longer been used so decided to have a go at using retropie on it.

installed everything, setup game controller etc, when i select a rom sometimes it'll load but most of the time it will just hang on a black screen and not allow me to do anything. This forces me to hard reset the pc.

can anyone offer any advice please,
thank you
shane.

rbaker

@shayne66

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

Impossible to help. No mention of emulators used? Roms? Setup etc etc. Based on the small snippet you mentioned a black screen - MAME? If so......

https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Arcade,

if not, fill out the form in full for further guidance.

shayne66

Pi Model or other hardware: (B, B+, 2 B, 3, X86 PC etc..) = am using an old pc that was spare, with the following hardware;
Foxconn n15235 motherboard, Intel Pentium d cpu 3.40ghz x 2 processor, 989.7 mib memory, 117 gb space on hard drive
Built From: = i built retropie onto top of Ubuntu 16.04.3 lts (32bit) and followed the guide from github for Retropie on Debian/Ubuntu/Mint
USB Devices connected: = I have a keyboard and mouse connected that both work fine
Controller used: = usb rockfire controller again works fine
Error messages received: = no error message, just pot luck if roms will work, i've tried snes, nes, master system and megadrive. sometimes they will play but mostly they will cause a black screen with the mouse cursor visible and then it stays like that.
Guide used : github retropie setup wiki debian

any help will be hugely appreciated,
thank you.

rbaker

@shayne66 said in black screen on pc:

just pot luck if roms will work,

A very common issue. This is related to not matching the rom format to the emulator of choice. It is an exact science. There is no ambiguity. Each doc describes the exact romset and/or file extension needed for all the various emulators. They also describe where to place the BIOS files that enable roms to launch. So, please consult the docs and post examples of roms that are not launching for you, their location, their extension etc.

shayne66

Okay, but I've tried the exact same snes rom, was fine playing it. Gone back to it later and causes the black screen.

rbaker

@shayne66 Which rom, which emulator? - 3rd time now.

shayne66

Sorry, I've had a look to tonight at the emulators and they are
Snes = snes9x2010 on

shayne66

Various roms, pliotwings, street fighter, super mario

Master system = genesis plus.gx using Alex the kid rom

Mega drive = picodrive using After Burner rom

Also noticed thay it will lock up even if I go into one of the retropie settings like config

rbaker

@shayne66 OK so I have no experience with that chipset. However, a quick Google around revealed that Foxconn refuses to play nicely with Linux back when this board was in use. Foxconn is a large OEM motherboard manufacturer, but according to a thread on the Ubuntu Forums, they refuse to support Linux. There is a bug in one of their DSDT tables for their BIOS that's causing installation and lock up issues. Now this was years ago but since you have an old board, if it's BIOS is original then maybe you are experiencing the hell that many did years ago. If you have played a ROM and now you cannot, then it probably points to an installation problem. I have never heard of a rom working and then not working unless configs and/or the emulator was changed via the runcommand.