5200 Green Screen of Death

[OldAtarian]

I bought a lot of 5200's for parts and among them were two 5200's sold as non working, one of which I managed to get working after several tries but unfortunately that one didn't make the trip without some damage to the plastics. The other one powers up, but only to a green screen. Nothing plays on it. Has anyone seen this before? They are both two port models if it makes a difference. I'll probably just put the motherboard of the working one into the case of the non working one if repairs are more than just something simple.

 

(Believe it or not, I think the other one wasn't working because it had the wrong power supply with it. Someone was trying to use a power supply from an A8 or some other piece of Atari equipment instead of the one that says for the 5200 only. The power outlet was also a bit corroded so I think after inserting the power plug a few times it scraped enough of the gunk off to make contact again.)

[DensB68]

I bought a lot of 5200's for parts and among them were two 5200's sold as non working, one of which I managed to get working after several tries but unfortunately that one didn't make the trip without some damage to the plastics. The other one powers up, but only to a green screen. Nothing plays on it. Has anyone seen this before? They are both two port models if it makes a difference. I'll probably just put the motherboard of the working one into the case of the non working one if repairs are more than just something simple.

 

(Believe it or not, I think the other one wasn't working because it had the wrong power supply with it. Someone was trying to use a power supply from an A8 or some other piece of Atari equipment instead of the one that says for the 5200 only. The power outlet was also a bit corroded so I think after inserting the power plug a few times it scraped enough of the gunk off to make contact again.)

 

 

I had one do the exact same thing a while back and it had 2 bad RAM chips. Luckily they were in sockets and replacement was simple from a donor 5200. Don't know if that's the problem with yours though but it wouldn't hurt to try if both 5200's RAM's are socketed.

[BigO]

My experience is the same. Bad RAM chip. Screen was green. Moving the chips around changed the failure mode. I pulled RAM from a parts machine, hoping it wasn't bad. Swapped the presumed good chip in for old chips until the problem went away.

 

Then I found out that one of the analog switch chips was also bad so I still couldn't use it until I repaired that. But, I digress.

[OldAtarian]

I don't have a donor machine, but what chips did they use?

[atariksi]

My experience is the same. Bad RAM chip. Screen was green. Moving the chips around changed the failure mode. I pulled RAM from a parts machine, hoping it wasn't bad. Swapped the presumed good chip in for old chips until the problem went away.

 

Then I found out that one of the analog switch chips was also bad so I still couldn't use it until I repaired that. But, I digress.

 

It seems that the 16K*1 RAM chips from Atari 400 don't work with the Atari 5200 as I fried some while trying. So the Atari 5200 16K*1 RAM chips may have a different spec.

[zylon]

I've also tried using ram chips from an 800xl. Didn't work either.

[Kjmann]

Try Using Ram Chips From a 600XL. (4416's)

 

Those Should Work