Haunted House (Gottlieb, 1982): faults and System 80 replacement boards

Your Haunted House pinball by Gottlieb (1982) won't start, resets, the cellar has gone dark, a kicker coil is locked on, or the machine behaves as though it is permanently slam-tilted? These are the faults this game is known for, and most of them have a specific component behind them rather than a vague "old board" problem.

Here is what the Haunted House is, what actually goes wrong with it, and which Gottlieb System 80 replacement boards suit it.

About the Haunted House (Gottlieb, 1982)

See it: full photo gallery for Haunted House on IPDB — backglass, all three playfields, flyer and cabinet shots.

Haunted House was the first pinball machine with three playfields the ball can travel between, one of them below the main surface. The main floor is the game you see; above it sits the attic, below it the cellar, viewed through a window in the playfield. The clever part is that you can only lose the ball from the main playfield — drain in the attic or the cellar and the machine hands it back to another level and play continues. Getting into the cellar means finding the secret passage, a false target that drops away when you hit it.

It is a widebody with eight full-size flippers set at deliberately awkward angles, four pop bumpers, two kick-out holes, two up-kickers, a trap door, bat targets and a lightning animation in the backglass. There is no multiball and no factory speech — instead you get chunks of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor at game start, during play and at game over, which is a large part of why people remember it.

The game was designed by John Osborne, with software by Allen Edwall and sound by Craig Beierwaltes. Game Machine listed it as the sixth most successful flipper unit of the year in June 1983. It sits at #193 in the Pinside Top 100 today, rated 7.585 from 251 ratings, and it holds its money: Pinside's market data put the estimate at roughly USD 3,140–3,660 with a median asking price of 3,395 across 248 listings.

• Manufacturer: D. Gottlieb & Co.
• Released: June 1982 (see the note below)
• Production run: 6,835 units — Gottlieb's 24th best-selling game
• Design: John Osborne
• Software: Allen Edwall  |  Sound: Craig Beierwaltes
• Art: Terry Doerzaph (Pinside also credits Richard Tracy)
• Electronic system: Gottlieb System 80
• Cabinet: widebody, 4 players, digital displays
• Playfield: three levels, 8 flippers, 4 pop bumpers, 2 up-kickers, no multiball
• Speech: none from the factory

Where the sources disagree: Pinside and Pinball Rebel both give June 1982 and a run of 6,835. Wikipedia gives 31 October 1982 and 6,385. The two production figures look like a transposed digit; we have gone with the more commonly cited 6,835, but you should know both numbers exist.

The sound board, and the speech that never was

Here is a detail worth knowing if you are chasing a sound fault. The Haunted House sound board is the same design as the Black Hole board, but with the Votrax SC-01 speech circuit at U14 left unpopulated. Gottlieb built the capability in and did not use it. That is why an independent project by the Davroux brothers at Flipprojets can add speech to a Haunted House: it fits an SC-01, swaps the pair of 2732 PROMs for a single 28C64 EEPROM on an adapter, adds two 1N4148 diodes and rewires part of the 74LS138 decoder. It is their free DIY project, not ours — but it explains why your board has empty pads where a speech chip should be, and no, that is not a fault.

Common faults on Gottlieb System 80

The platform-wide list first. Every System 80 collects these with age: tired CPU and Driver boards, crashes and resets, spurious slam tilt, failing displays, marginal grounds and oxidised Molex connectors. The original NiCad battery on the CPU board is the worst of them — once it leaks it eats traces and chip legs, and a board left long enough stops being worth saving. If yours still has a battery fitted, remove it today.

Problems specific to the Haunted House (forum feedback)

These come up repeatedly in Pinside threads and restoration logs. Three playfields means three times the wiring, and that is where most of the trouble lives.

The cellar goes dark

The single most common complaint. The "U" relay is what feeds power to the lower playfield's lamps and solenoids, and the 24 VDC that lights the cellar's #313 bulbs runs through its switch stack — look for the slate and orange/slate wiring on that switch. Dirty or misaligned contacts there and the cellar simply stops lighting while everything else works normally.

There is a nastier variant of the same fault. One restorer found the general illumination fuse blowing because a lamp socket on the left side had shorted — the centre conductor pin touching the can of the socket — and it only blew when the U relay pulled in and energised that circuit. If your GI fuse dies at a repeatable moment in the game rather than at random, go looking for a shorted socket rather than a board fault.

Up-kickers that lock on, or do nothing

The two up-kickers — main playfield to attic, and cellar back to main — are the other recurring theme. Owners report both failure modes, and in the documented cases the cause was the same class of problem: connections rather than components. One restoration traced a dead up-kicker to the Driver board edge connector, where the ground for that circuit was not making contact. Another found an edge connector pin shorting across the row to a neighbouring pin deep inside the housing, grounding the circuit and killing a driver transistor in the process.

The practical advice from the forums is consistent: if you have re-pinned the connectors and a coil still misbehaves, re-pin them all, including the double-sided ones, and check the CPU-to-Driver link. A locked-on coil will cook itself and take a transistor with it, so cut the power the moment you hear one buzzing.

Up-kicker that fires in a loop

A related symptom worth naming separately: the kicker re-fires repeatedly, throwing the ball back to the main playfield and stacking up Monster Bonus each time. That points at the drive side — the transistor and its control signal — rather than the mechanism.

Behaves as though permanently slam-tilted

A machine that strobes on power-up and never settles into attract mode looks exactly like a stuck slam switch, but it is not always one. In one solved case the real fault was Z15, a 7432 logic IC, which had been killed when a solder drip shorted a pop bumper driver board connector. The giveaway was the switch matrix: the diodes tested bad in circuit but were fine once lifted out, which is the classic signature of a failed chip upstream pulling the matrix around. Replacing Z15 fixed it.

No non-controlled solenoids, Q relay won't pull in

If the features are dead but holding the Q relay down by hand makes everything work, the relay is fine and the signal is not reaching it. Corroded connector pins between the CPU and Driver boards are the usual answer. You can jumper at the MPU to establish whether the fault is on the board or downstream before you start replacing anything.

Dead bumpers, and the music

Bumpers that test fine but do not fire in play are again usually connectors and grounds rather than coils. And if the background music has vanished, owners point to switch 32, which controls it — worth checking before you condemn the sound board.

The board-side faults — resets, grounds, solenoid drive, displays — are solved by replacing the original CPU and Driver boards, or pinned down quickly with the Lisy80's diagnostics. The relays, sockets, switches and edge connectors still need doing by hand. Our free technical support will walk you through either.

Replacement boards compatible with the Haunted House

These are the boards we stock for the Gottlieb Haunted House. We test every board before it ships and support it afterwards.

• GottFA80_Plus (Light) — all-in-one board replacing CPU + Driver + power supply, without sound.
• GottFA80_Plus (Full) — the same all-in-one board with integrated sound.
• Gosof — replacement sound board (with or without speech).
• Godri80 — System 80 replacement Driver board. The obvious choice if your edge connectors have already cost you a transistor or two.
• Lisy80 — CPU board with web diagnostics, which makes chasing a three-playfield switch matrix far less painful. Lisy is a free, independent DIY project by its own developer (lisy.dev); we supply and support ready-built boards.
• GoPOP80 — pop bumper driver board (MA-922).

Everything installs Plug & Play, without a battery, with tutorials and free technical support. Unsure what you have in the backbox? Get in touch with your board references and we will tell you.

Step-by-step diagnosis

1. Powered off, look for battery residue or corrosion on the CPU board. Remove the NiCad battery if it is still fitted, before anything else.
2. Measure the 5 V and check it reaches the CPU board; re-solder the regulator or Q1 if the voltage sags under load.
3. Apply the System 80 ground mods between CPU, Driver, power supply and sound boards.
4. Re-pin the oxidised Molex and edge connectors — all of them, including double-sided ones. On this game they are the number-one cause of dead kickers and lock-ons.
5. Cellar dark? Go straight to the U relay and its switch stack, then the #313 lamp sockets.
6. Blowing the GI fuse? Look for a lamp socket whose centre pin is shorting to the can.
7. Permanent slam tilt? Check the switch matrix, and test suspect diodes out of circuit before replacing them — the fault may be a logic chip such as Z15.
8. Never plug or unplug a display with the power on. Test with a known-good display.
9. Final test: start-up, credits, coils, displays, all three playfields. Still stuck? Contact our free support.

FAQ — Haunted House Gottlieb

The cellar on my Haunted House has gone dark — why?
The U relay feeds the lower playfield's lamps and solenoids, and the 24 VDC for the cellar's #313 bulbs runs through its switch stack. Clean and adjust those contacts first. If the GI fuse is blowing instead, look for a lamp socket whose centre pin has shorted against the socket can.

My up-kicker is locked on, or dead.
On this game it is almost always the Driver board edge connector rather than the coil — either a bad ground or a pin shorting across the row inside the housing. A lock-on will destroy the driver transistor, so power off immediately and check the transistor after you fix the connector.

My Haunted House acts like it is permanently slam-tilted.
Check the slam switch, but do not stop there. A failed logic chip (Z15, a 7432, in one documented case) can drag the switch matrix around and mimic it exactly. Test switch matrix diodes out of circuit — in circuit they read bad even when they are fine.

The features are dead but the Q relay works if I hold it down.
The relay is fine; the signal is not getting to it. Corroded connector pins between CPU and Driver are the usual cause. Jumper at the MPU to prove whether the fault is on the board or downstream.

My Haunted House has no more music.
Switch 32 controls the background music, so check that first. If it is genuinely the sound board, the Gosof replaces it.

Does Haunted House have speech?
Not from the factory. Its sound board is the same design as Black Hole's with the Votrax SC-01 circuit at U14 left unpopulated — so the empty pads on your board are normal. An independent free DIY project by Flipprojets adds speech if you want it.

Which board for a Haunted House?
The Lisy80 (CPU plus diagnostics, genuinely useful on a three-playfield switch matrix), or the all-in-one GottFA80_Plus replacing CPU, Driver and power supply in one go.

What is a Haunted House worth?
Pinside's market data puts the estimate around USD 3,140–3,660, with a median asking price near 3,395. A machine where all three playfields work properly sits at the top of that; one with a dark cellar and a dead up-kicker sits well below it.

See also

• Black Hole (Gottlieb, 1981) — same sound board design, with the speech circuit fitted
• Volcano (Gottlieb, 1981)
• The Amazing Spider-Man (Gottlieb, 1980)
• Mars God of War (Gottlieb, 1981)

Sources & further reading

• IPDB — Haunted House (Gottlieb, 1982), machine #1133
• Pinside — Haunted House game archive (production, credits, market data)
• Wikipedia — Haunted House (pinball): three-level design, Bach music, rankings
• Pinball Rebel — Haunted House (secret passage, no multiball, no speech)
• Peak Pinball — Haunted House restoration (U relay, shorted lamp socket, edge connectors)
• Pinside — Haunted House cellar lights (U relay, 24 VDC to #313 lamps)
• Pinside — coils locking on (up-kickers, re-pinning, CPU-to-Driver link)
• Pinside — Haunted House help needed, solved (Z15 7432, switch matrix)
• Pinside — Haunted House issues (Q relay, non-controlled solenoids)
• Flipprojets — adding speech to Haunted House (SC-01 at U14, 28C64 EEPROM)
• Open Pinball Database — Haunted House (Gottlieb, 1982)

Own a Haunted House? Send us a photo and we'll add it here with credit — get in touch.