February 20th, 2018
Atari 65xe (#1) (Part 1) Red Screen of Death
Back story from client: The client had plugged a C64 psu into the machine. Upon realizing this, had a friend try to start it with a Xegs psu. This is when the Red Screen of Death was first observed. Extent of damaged unknown.
Part 1: I connected up a test rig for gnd and +5v on the board. As well as connecting a test rig for the composite video. I proceeded to turn it on, observing the Red Screen of death. Afterwards, I left it on for 20 mins. Using the thermometer function on my dmm, it was determined that 7 of the 4264 and the os rom were hot enough to give you second degree burns.
Client has decided to forgo with any repairs. Due to the nature of the how it was damaged and budget concerns. Though he maybe trading it in as parts. So this project may continue. (Part 2,3,4 are on February 21st)
Atari 65xe (#1) (Part 1) Red Screen of Death
Back story from client: The client had plugged a C64 psu into the machine. Upon realizing this, had a friend try to start it with a Xegs psu. This is when the Red Screen of Death was first observed. Extent of damaged unknown.
Part 1: I connected up a test rig for gnd and +5v on the board. As well as connecting a test rig for the composite video. I proceeded to turn it on, observing the Red Screen of death. Afterwards, I left it on for 20 mins. Using the thermometer function on my dmm, it was determined that 7 of the 4264 and the os rom were hot enough to give you second degree burns.
Client has decided to forgo with any repairs. Due to the nature of the how it was damaged and budget concerns. Though he maybe trading it in as parts. So this project may continue. (Part 2,3,4 are on February 21st)
February 21st, 2018
Atari 65xe (#1) (Part 2)
Client decided to trade in the console towards other products. I then proceed as planed. I removed and socketed 7 of the 8 ram ic's and the os rom ic. Then I replaced the ram with 4164-10. The original ram was 4264-15. Did a quick test and had a orange screen. A tad weird as this solid color screen isn't documented anywhere online. That could be found by me at this time. Next, I burned the Rev.2 OS onto a 27c128 eprom. Then proceeded to test it the system again. Now we have a black screen of death. I guess this is progress. In the morning, I will redo the thermal test. See if any of the replacement ram are in fact good or bad. In addition to following the instructions by BяеиsKi on Atari Age. That authored these great threads, that have helped me while doing this and other Atari 8bit repairs. Red Screen of Death, and Black Screen of Death.
(Part 3)
I did the sound test and thermal test this morning. No sounds were heard. None of the ic's became extremely hot. So I figured that thought U13 ram didn't fail the thermal test. I proceeded to replaced it at this point. Which I should have done in hindsight. As this prompted it to boot directly in Rom Ram portion of the self test. Only the first of two bars for the Rom lit green. Followed by 40 green ram dots. I removed and re-seated the os eprom into the socket. This resolved that issue and booted directly into basic on the next test. I then accessed the self test menu by typing BYE. This only allows me to directly inspect 5 of the 8 ram ic's to my understanding. Taking info from the Manual in regards to the self test. The self test menu also allows me to test the keyboard and sound. Both of which worked flawlessly.
(Part 4) I will rotate the ram ic's, to make sure all ram is functional.
Time invested 5h 30mins, incl. prep, research & labor
Estimated time completing: 1h 30 mins. incl. Additional ram testing. Cosmetic cleaning. Modification for rca phono jacks and standard dc jack.
Atari 65xe (#1) (Part 2)
Client decided to trade in the console towards other products. I then proceed as planed. I removed and socketed 7 of the 8 ram ic's and the os rom ic. Then I replaced the ram with 4164-10. The original ram was 4264-15. Did a quick test and had a orange screen. A tad weird as this solid color screen isn't documented anywhere online. That could be found by me at this time. Next, I burned the Rev.2 OS onto a 27c128 eprom. Then proceeded to test it the system again. Now we have a black screen of death. I guess this is progress. In the morning, I will redo the thermal test. See if any of the replacement ram are in fact good or bad. In addition to following the instructions by BяеиsKi on Atari Age. That authored these great threads, that have helped me while doing this and other Atari 8bit repairs. Red Screen of Death, and Black Screen of Death.
(Part 3)
I did the sound test and thermal test this morning. No sounds were heard. None of the ic's became extremely hot. So I figured that thought U13 ram didn't fail the thermal test. I proceeded to replaced it at this point. Which I should have done in hindsight. As this prompted it to boot directly in Rom Ram portion of the self test. Only the first of two bars for the Rom lit green. Followed by 40 green ram dots. I removed and re-seated the os eprom into the socket. This resolved that issue and booted directly into basic on the next test. I then accessed the self test menu by typing BYE. This only allows me to directly inspect 5 of the 8 ram ic's to my understanding. Taking info from the Manual in regards to the self test. The self test menu also allows me to test the keyboard and sound. Both of which worked flawlessly.
(Part 4) I will rotate the ram ic's, to make sure all ram is functional.
Time invested 5h 30mins, incl. prep, research & labor
Estimated time completing: 1h 30 mins. incl. Additional ram testing. Cosmetic cleaning. Modification for rca phono jacks and standard dc jack.