Unless you have purchased from a fellow enthusiast, there is a good chance that your system has not received the attention that it needs. The most important thing you can do is replace the battery that is on it. After nearly two decades, many of these Ni-Cd batteries are beginning to leak. The consequences? Often fatal to your board. While you’re at it, you might as well clean your boards too. Below, I’ll outline the steps and materials that I used to make my system nearly as good as (maybe even better) than the day it was made:<br/><br/>0. Unplug cabinet from wall, remove all cartridges. To perform a cleaning you will need a <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_F._Phillips” target=”_blank”>Phillips</a>-head screwdriver, 50 cotton swabs, and a glass full of water. I also used an electronics cleaner after cleaning up all the dirt. If you plan on replacing your battery, you’ll need a soldering iron, a small bit of thin solder (you could likely get away without any if you’re better than me), and a 3.6V Ni-Cd (original) or Ni-MH (preferred replacement) battery. I picked up a <a href=”http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062192&amp;cp=&amp;sr=1&amp;origkw=3.6V&amp;kw=3.6v&amp;parentPage=search” target=”_blank”>small cordless phone battery</a> from <a href=”http://www.radioshack.com/” target=”_blank”>Radio Shack</a> for $15 that was rated at 600mAh capacity. The original battery has a capacity of 50mAh, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a match anywhere other than those weird online battery shops. A higher capacity battery won’t hurt anything as the correct voltage is the key here.<br/><br/><span style=”font-weight: bold;”>NOTE: This entire how-to assumes you have an MV-4F (the only US 4-slot) board. If you have a 6-slot, this guide applies to you as well (same battery), but due to some overhanging items on your top board, you’ll be forced to get creative if you want to mount your battery on top of the bottom board (guide below hows how to mount below, so no worries). Older 1-slot boards also use the 3.6V, while newer ones moved to 3V. Since I don’t know the exact details, </span><a href=”http://www.neo-geo.com/forums” target=”_blank”>make a post on the Neo-Geo forums for help</a><span style=”font-weight: bold;”>. You may also find some info in your system’s service manual, available at </span><a href=”http://www.hardmvs.com/html/PCBcompare.htm” target=”_blank”>hardMVS</a>.<br/><br/>1. Remove your system from the cabinet. If this scares you, don’t proceed any further and put your unit up on <a href=”http://www.ebay.com/” target=”_blank”>eBay</a> with a low Buy-It-Now and let me know ASAP <img src=”http://www.iammike.org/cutenews/data/emoticons/wink.gif”/> Seriously though, this is easy stuff. Think of it as easy and just logically work your way through things. Back on topic, the system should be held down by a screw (or four or none, like mine) in the feet, a speaker connector on the left side [1], three large connectors on the front (the two on the right require you to unsnap the little arms) [2], and three medium sized connectors on the right [3]. Once you’re done there, remove the grounds, which should be screwed in to the front left corner of the unit [4].<br/><br/><div style=”text-align: center;”><img align=”none” alt=”” border=”0″ src=”http://www.iammike.org/cutenews/data/upimages/figure1.jpg”/><br/></div><br/>3. Your system is now out of the cabinet. We must now remove the cover (the gold piece above). You will find a screw in each of the four corners as well as one centered in the back. Sorry, no pictures for this one.<br/><br/>4. To take the top card away from the bottom, you will find one screw per slot #1 and #2. They go in to mounts on the bottom board so I’m pretty certain they’re all in the same place on all boards despite it looking rather random [1]. After those, you will find six small nut/bolt combos that keep the connection between the boards tight [2]. I only found five on mine, but I can only assume that was due to a previous owner losing one. I didn’t need anything more than the pressure supplied by my fingers to remove these.<br/><br/><div style=”text-align: center;”><img align=”none” alt=”” border=”0″ src=”http://www.iammike.org/cutenews/data/upimages/figure2.jpg”/><br/></div><br/>5. You now have everything apart! Let the fun begin! We’ll first check our battery. If it looks like the picture below, you need to replace it; that is the original. Heck, if it looks like the one below, consider yourself lucky, you likely don’t have any damage. If it has already leaked and you do have damage, I’d recommend <a href=”http://www.arcadecomponents.com/index.html” target=”_blank”>contacting an expert for help</a>.<br/><br/>6. To remove your battery, you need to first heat up the solder on the positive terminal [1] down at the board, wiggle a bit, and pull it off. You then must remove the ground terminal, which is a bit more tricky so it’ll get its own step.<br/><br/><div style=”text-align: center;”><img align=”none” alt=”” border=”0″ src=”http://www.iammike.org/cutenews/data/upimages/figure3.jpg”/><br/></div><br/>7. The ground terminal, situated right under the battery, is not hard, but not nearly as easy as the positive. To get to it, you must flip the board over and carefully cut out a small portion of the card [bright red area of the red area in figure below]. This will reveal the back-solders (yeah, I’m new to all this, I’m sure they have a real name) for both terminals. Heat up the ground and pull the battery from the top side; it should pop right out.<br/><br/><div style=”text-align: center;”><img align=”none” alt=”” border=”0″ src=”http://www.iammike.org/cutenews/data/upimages/figure4.jpg”/><br/></div><br/><span style=”font-weight: bold;”>NOTE: If you do not feel comfortable putting a new battery in, you can stop here. Your system will work fine without a battery, but bookkeeping and soft DIPs will not stick when you cycle the power.<br/><br/>NOTE #2: If you don’t plan on cleaning your boards, skip to Step #9<br/></span><br/>8. Cleaning! There isn’t much to this. Your battery is out, you have no power in the system whatsoever, everything on the boards is sealed, don’t worry bout messing anything up. Some people swear by throwing the boards in a dishwasher with no soap and air-dry. That scares me… I took a cup full of water and approxiately 50 cotton swabs, washed everywhere and finally sprayed it all down with electronics cleaner. The result? Not spotless, but my boards are now green rather than brown. Do not proceed to Step #9 (adding power again) until the cards are fully dry. I waited about six hours. Depending on how wet you got them, use your brain.<br/><br/>9. If you’re this far, you pretty much know what you need to do. Strip any connector off the battery you sourced, strip the shielding off the wires, but only a few millimeters worth, and get soldering. Red to positive, black to negative. I don’t know if it is required, but I live by a last-off, first-on rule for the ground; I always want a ground when adding or removing a hot wire. It is up to you whether you solder your battery in from the top or the bottom (unless you have a 6-slot). I chose the bottom so the next time I replace the battery I don’t have to open it all up. I added a touch of velcro to the red card and the battery so it’s nicely secured and out of the way.<br/><br/><div style=”text-align: center;”><img align=”none” alt=”” border=”0″ src=”http://www.iammike.org/cutenews/data/upimages/figure5.jpg”/><br/></div><br/>10. Reassemble and happy gaming! Please be sure to check your battery again in ~5 years. If you mounted it below the board, you  won’t have to worry about damage as much, but it can still happen. A bad battery can push death right up the wire in to whatever components are attached on the other end. To verify your battery replacement went well, make a change to a soft DIP settings and cycle the power (wait a few seconds). If it is there when you power back on, you’ve succeeded.<br/><br/>Following this, I went ahead and cleaned all my games as well. You can just take a cotton swab and 99% rubbing alcohol and swab over the contacts OR you can pop the four screws out of the cartridge, open it up, pull out the two cards, and use a pencil eraser on each and every contact. The result of this cleaning is incredible; my carts that we previously difficult to insert, slid in like a warm knife in to butter.<br/><br/>Finally, before throwing the system back in the cabinet, I used a can of air and ruined a washcloth (w/ water) on the inside of the cabinet. Unfortunately, it is still filthy, but much less so.<br/><br/>In the near future, expect a how-to on replacing joysticks/buttons and <a href=”http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=175481″ target=”_blank”>redoing the control overlay</a>.<br/>