Think my C64 is on the way out
Ian McCall
didn't look good. Looks to me as if the memory is going - symptoms are
that the machine turns on with characters randomly scrambled. Not all
the time, but greater than half I'd say. I have an MMC64 - same thing,
often boots to a scrambled character set.
Trying to load things off a 1541 I have never works - seems to either
just spin forever or alternatively it starts loading and then corrupts
the characters on-screen. Eg. I loaded Defender of the Crown tonight -
started off saying "VMax!" on-screen, disk spun for minutes then the
screen changed to "VMa�%", then nothing.
Looks dead to me - RAM? Sounds most likely to me but I'm no hardware
expert. Recoverable or am I on the hunt for a new C64?
Cheers,
Ian
Sam
Take a look at Ray Carlsen's repair article:
http://personalpages.tds.net/~rcarlsen/cbm/c64-ic.txt
Regards, Sam
Ian McCall
RAM it is then I think. From that page:
"U9 THRU U12 & U22 THRU U24 8 RAM CHIPS (4164)
note: only 2 4464 RAM chips in C64C
Blank screen, no border. Shorted chips will get warmer than the
other RAM chips. Partial failure: will sometimes produce garbage
screen, abnormal number of bytes free or "out of memory" error on
startup screen."
That's what I'm seeing. Had forgotten until that article prompted it,
but occasionally I switch the machine on and the entire screen is black.
This is a breadbox-style C64, not a C64c, but I suspect it's the same.
So...new RAM chips a possibility or am I just better heading ebaywards?
Cheers,
Ian
John McFerren
Somebody may have the chips laying around, unfortunately I only have 4116s
so I can't help you there. Are the chips socketed? If so remove them and
re-insert them and see if that fixes it. Your problem could be a simple
case of chip creep.
--
John McFerren
AST Computer Servicing Technology
Amateur Radio Operator General Class: KB3PXR
Garberstreet Electronics
"John McFerren" <robbie....@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1xa07w75yxtp$.v7sypngbpmg6.dlg@40tude.net...
Here are some you can buy. I get a lot of my chips from there.
Bill Garber of Garberstreet Electronics
http://www.garberstreet.com
Ian McCall
<will...@comcast.net> said:
>
> "John McFerren" <robbie....@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1xa07w75yxtp$.v7sypngbpmg6.dlg@40tude.net...
>>
>> Somebody may have the chips laying around, unfortunately I only have 4116s
>> so I can't help you there. Are the chips socketed? If so remove them and
>> re-insert them and see if that fixes it. Your problem could be a simple
>> case of chip creep.
>> --
>> John McFerren
>> AST Computer Servicing Technology
>> Amateur Radio Operator General Class: KB3PXR
>
> Here are some you can buy. I get a lot of my chips from there.
> https://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10001&productId=41662
>
> Bill Garber of Garberstreet Electronics
> http://www.garberstreet.com\
Thanks for the help from both. I'm in the UK however, so I've tried to
locate a UK-based source. Came up with here:
<http://www.alkalyn.com/electronica2.htm>
Am now debating the wisdom of buying new chips vs buying 'new' C64 off
ebay. Will definitely have a crack at resocketing if possible first of
course, but the price of four of those chips isn't far off the price of
just replacing the unit (it is in percentage terms of course, but in
terms of physical cash it really isn't much different). Advantages
either way - cheaper and more fun to try if I just get the chips, but
risk of it not working. Second way feels a bit more wasteful, but I
could keep the other machine as a set of spares for the new one.
Cheers,
Ian
ramswell
Well I have some memory chips lying around here that I have no need
of if your interested. We just have to make sure that they are the
same types is all. ;)
Good Luck,
Charles
Ian McCall
>
> Well I have some memory chips lying around here that I have no need
> of if your interested. We just have to make sure that they are the
> same types is all. ;)
Definitely am, I'll pay postage to the UK obviously. Will unscrew the
machine and take a look.
Thanks,
Ian
Clocky
"Ian McCall" <i...@eruvia.org> wrote in message
news:7lv62hF...@mid.individual.net...
Not trying to take business away from Ramswell, but arcadecomponents.com
also has RAM chips as well as other IC's for many different computer systems
at a very reasonable price. If you get stuck, try them,
ramswell
> On 2009-11-09 23:40:03 +0000, ramswell <shifty_bu...@hotmail.com> said:
>
>
>
> > Well I have some memory chips lying around here that I have no need
> > of if your interested. We just have to make sure that they are the
> > same types is all. ;)
>
> Definitely am, I'll pay postage to the UK obviously. Will unscrew the
> machine and take a look.
>
> Thanks,
> Ian
Cool, just let me know whenever your ready. ;)
Charles
Dmackey828
<will...@comcast.net> wrote:
Thanks for that link, I just ordered 20 of them. I have been pulling
them from dead systems lately.
Bill Garber
"Dmackey828" <n2...@NOSPAMarrl.net> wrote in message news:p3mrg5t3q2e2p32ql...@4ax.com...
Cool, you're welcome. I buy a bunch every so often,
as the Apple IIc uses those, and sometimes the IIe
80col cards are soldered in, so they can't be taken
out for use elsewhere.
Bill Garber