dafivehole Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 ... when I turn it on. This is the only thing that it will do... the only button that works is the Reset button but it just restarts the memory test. Obviously, there is some bad memory... any suggestions? Is it trash? Help!!! Roger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 The 64K extended Ram shares those addresses, so there must be some sort of selection problem going on. The Ram itself is probably OK. The block for $5400 doesn't fail because the 2K where Self-Test switches to doesn't get tested. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dafivehole Posted June 16, 2012 Author Share Posted June 16, 2012 Ummm... OK. Is this fix-able? Thanks, Roger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 Almost anything's fixable. It might be the EMMU or PIA chip. The problem with diagnosing XE without test equipment is that you can't swap chips over easily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sloopy Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 I am gonna suggest purely bad ram... and def is fixable... sloopy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dafivehole Posted June 16, 2012 Author Share Posted June 16, 2012 Where can I get replacement RAM? Roger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kogden Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 The individual RAM chips can be had from eBay or Jameco for a couple bucks each. You'll either have to identify the bad RAM chips or replace them all. There's 16 RAM chips in all in most 130XE's unless you have the version that uses 4-bit RAM chips, then there will be 4. They are soldered to the board however and the XE boards are a bit delicate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russg Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 (edited) ... when I turn it on. This is the only thing that it will do... the only button that works is the Reset button but it just restarts the memory test. Obviously, there is some bad memory... any suggestions? Is it trash? Help!!! Roger I've heard it said that sometimes bad DRAMs get hot. You could open it up and see, they are the 16 chips lined up on the left side. Whatever replacements you have, it isn't simple because all the chips are socketed. Maybe sloopy would take it and fix it for you. edit: 'are NOT socketed' Edited June 16, 2012 by russg 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillC Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 ... when I turn it on. This is the only thing that it will do... the only button that works is the Reset button but it just restarts the memory test. Obviously, there is some bad memory... any suggestions? Is it trash? Help!!! Roger I've heard it said that sometimes bad DRAMs get hot. You could open it up and see, they are the 16 chips lined up on the left side. Whatever replacements you have, it isn't simple because all the chips are socketed. Maybe sloopy would take it and fix it for you. Somebody closer to him would probably be more convenient, MEtalGuy66 is in Houston. Is there anyone in the Dallas/Fort Worth area who might do this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russg Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 ... when I turn it on. This is the only thing that it will do... the only button that works is the Reset button but it just restarts the memory test. Obviously, there is some bad memory... any suggestions? Is it trash? Help!!! Roger I've heard it said that sometimes bad DRAMs get hot. You could open it up and see, they are the 16 chips lined up on the left side. Whatever replacements you have, it isn't simple because all the chips are socketed. Maybe sloopy would take it and fix it for you. edit: 'are NOT socketed' I'm sorry. I shouldn't mention someone's name, just say someone may volunteer to fix it. I don't know if anyone would fix it for the original poster. This is a good place to ask. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dafivehole Posted June 16, 2012 Author Share Posted June 16, 2012 I would love it if I could find someone who could help me here... it doesn't sound too difficult but I guess the fragile board makes it a little harder. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Roger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atari8warez Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 (edited) @Roger I agree with Sloopy, it is most likely bad memory chip(s)...I know there will be some people suggesting otherwise but my experience with three separate computers (130XE, 65XE and 800XL) tells me if you can find a good working memory chip, you could simply piggyback it over each one on the motherboard (one at a time) and do the memory test. If the number of red blocks reduces or sometimes completely dissapears you found the bad one. Checking for temperature did not work for me as the bad chip(s) in my case weren't really warmer than the good ones. To piggyback it you don't need to solder, just make sure each leg is in contact with the corresponding leg of the chip being tested. This is the only sure way of testing without proper equipment like oscilloscopes etc... and it works.. Once you find the bad chip you will need to desolder and remove it from the mobo and replace it with a good one. This is the part that may get tricky if you don't have experience with soldering. Actually the desoldering part is the trickiest, you may lift or break a trace if not careful. So given all that you could either choose to do it yourself or get somebody to do it your ya. If I was near you, I would have offered help but I am in Canada and it will cost you a lot in shipping. Edited June 17, 2012 by atari8warez Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 In the operating System rom there is in The power up part a routine that checks ram. If there is a problem found there is a flag in memory set. On every reset the Atari checks this flag. If set ... The RAM test starts. That is why you keep getting this... Even after RESET. The safest way of desoldering is to cut the piece from the mobo with the right tools. Then it is easy to remove what is left (the pins). Then use a (heated) desolder pump and there you go. There are a lot bad DRAM xe's around. You'd better replace all dram chips at once. The extended memory is probably not tested with this self test. Only the newest xe computers do test extra 64kb! Which is visible at bottom of test page (not on your screenshot!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russg Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 I would love it if I could find someone who could help me here... it doesn't sound too difficult but I guess the fragile board makes it a little harder. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Roger I'm not a hardware person. The DRAMs are 1x64k 150 or 120 nanosecond 16 pin chips. My old 800XL 64x1 chips are 'F' MB8264-15 and my 130XE are nec japan D4164C-12. I believe the 12 and 15 are the speed/10. I guess the two speeds are compatible. Jameco sells 64x1 16 pin DRAMs. http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10001_10001_41662_-1 But Jameco has a $10 minimum and $5 ship for the .99 cent chips. I could donate a 800XL DRAM to you for testing. I guess it would be compatible with the chips you have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russg Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 (edited) I would love it if I could find someone who could help me here... it doesn't sound too difficult but I guess the fragile board makes it a little harder. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Roger I'm not a hardware person. The 64kx1 DRAMs from my 800XL are 'F' MB8264-15 and from my 130XE are nec Japan D4164C-12. The 15 and 12 are the speed/10 (150 and 120 nanoseconds). I can donate a 'F' MB8264-15 to you for piggy-backing. I replaced my 64KXL dips with 256Kx1. Jameco sells 64kx1-120 drams for .99, but they require a $10 minimum order and $5 ship, if I recall. If you bought a soldering kit and desoldering solder sucker, that'd bring you over $10. http://www.jameco.co..._10001_41662_-1 edit: Shoot, I posted twice. I was looking if 'Futurlec' had cheaper drams and lost my edit, I thought. Edited June 17, 2012 by russg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sloopy Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 I would love it if I could find someone who could help me here... it doesn't sound too difficult but I guess the fragile board makes it a little harder. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Roger Right now I am way too behind in work to accept any new jobs (unless you want to wait for late July at min return ;'), the best I can offer is a trade of one of my spare working 130XE mobo's which are fully socketed, and have a the peterson 320K upgrade, for the price I usually do a full socket and DRAM replacement... as for replacement DRAMs, you can also use 41256's which are usually cheaper and work fine as long as pin 1 on them are tied to GND (or Vcc via resistor)... russg: thanks for the recommendation tho :') and yes, I am working on VBXE's right now at 6am... taking a break from solder fumes, rumor has it they arnt good for you ;') sloopy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macgoo Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 I would love it if I could find someone who could help me here... it doesn't sound too difficult but I guess the fragile board makes it a little harder. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Roger It will cost you a lot to pay an engineer to desolder and resolder 16 RAM chips in, sell it for parts and buy one with pictures of it shown working fully on ebay. Don't throw money down the toilet, fixing is only for engineers with spare parts laying about that cost them nothing. I have a few dead machines but screw paying someone to fix them. They can stay in the parts bin for cannibalisation Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russg Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 (edited) I would love it if I could find someone who could help me here... it doesn't sound too difficult but I guess the fragile board makes it a little harder. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Roger It will cost you a lot to pay an engineer to desolder and resolder 16 RAM chips in, sell it for parts and buy one with pictures of it shown working fully on ebay. Don't throw money down the toilet, fixing is only for engineers with spare parts laying about that cost them nothing. I have a few dead machines but screw paying someone to fix them. They can stay in the parts bin for cannibalisation I like saving the old machine. It is a learning experience to succeed in fixing a busted A8. I have an oscilloscope, but I don't know how to use it. I have Sam's Photofact with oscilloscope pictures, but I don't know what they mean or how to achieve them. There's lots to learn. If I understood how the A8 worked, I would feel I know how modern PCs/tablets/etc. work. They all do bits and bytes. Edited June 17, 2012 by russg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 It will cost you a lot to pay an engineer to desolder and resolder 16 RAM chips in, sell it for parts and buy one with pictures of it shown working fully on ebay. Don't throw money down the toilet, fixing is only for engineers with spare parts laying about that cost them nothing. I have a few dead machines but screw paying someone to fix them. They can stay in the parts bin for cannibalisation This really does not make any sense. Ofcourse: when you are going to ask someone who is doing this for a living... yes. But here in the community there are a lot people who would want to do it. I would do the job for free. But I'm in The Netherlands, which will be a lot of shipping, which is a waste of money. So I'd say: ask around here... if you are not in a hurry, I'm sure there will be someone available. Greetz M. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macgoo Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 It will cost you a lot to pay an engineer to desolder and resolder 16 RAM chips in, sell it for parts and buy one with pictures of it shown working fully on ebay. Don't throw money down the toilet, fixing is only for engineers with spare parts laying about that cost them nothing. I have a few dead machines but screw paying someone to fix them. They can stay in the parts bin for cannibalisation This really does not make any sense. Ofcourse: when you are going to ask someone who is doing this for a living... yes. But here in the community there are a lot people who would want to do it. I would do the job for free. But I'm in The Netherlands, which will be a lot of shipping, which is a waste of money. So I'd say: ask around here... if you are not in a hurry, I'm sure there will be someone available. Greetz M. That post is on the basis that he has to take it to someone to fix at market rates for engineer time per hour I have a 7800, we couldn't get it working again between us so I just kept it for parts because it is not rare enough to blow £50 on having it looked at and fixed when I can replace it for £25+postage. Assumed this is the same situation Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atari8warez Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 (edited) The extended memory is probably not tested with this self test. Only the newest xe computers do test extra 64kb! Which is visible at bottom of test page (not on your screenshot!) True, the extended memory is not checked with the 130XE Memtest program. There is however a utility which looks very much like the familiar Atari Memcheck but also includes extended memory banks. MemTest Radon.zip Edited June 17, 2012 by atari8warez Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atari8warez Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 and yes, I am working on VBXE's right now at 6am... taking a break from solder fumes, rumor has it they arnt good for you ;') sloopy. Especially if it's not lead free.... I switched to lead free since I started doing more soldering lately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 True, the extended memory is not checked with the 130XE Memtest program. There is however a utility which looks very much like the familiar Atari Memcheck but also includes extended memory banks. In the newest XE computers the extended memory is tested. If interested I have the bios ROM here. Greetz M. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atari8warez Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 (edited) True, the extended memory is not checked with the 130XE Memtest program. There is however a utility which looks very much like the familiar Atari Memcheck but also includes extended memory banks. In the newest XE computers the extended memory is tested. If interested I have the bios ROM here. Greetz M. Marius that software is much easier to use than burning a OS ROM and replacing the OS in my XE, but thanks for the offer anyway :-) Edited June 17, 2012 by atari8warez Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 The fumes from soldering are generally the flux (which in itself isn't exactly healthy for you). There's not much point with any memory testers since the machine won't allow anything to boot. They could have easily had the OS allow a boot with a couple of flags and bit of program change, e.g. POST Ram test fails, go to self-test, when user hits Reset boot normally. Got to agree though - unless you have help nearby it's best to just sell/trade for a working one. Just 2 trips in the mail might be near enough to replacement cost anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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