Because we all love troubleshooting Intellivisions

[HunterZero]

The capacitor is C40. It's a 16V 47uF electrolytic.

 

- James

[HunterZero]

OK, so I replaced that capacitor with the split shrink wrap (it otherwise looked fine), and replaced the two transistors.

 

And... No change. If anything, the picture looks slightly sharper. Remarkably clean for an RF signal.

 

I noticed that there's what looks to be a trim pot on the daughterboard with the PAL crystal circuitry. My younger self may have meddled with this - What are the symtoms if fiddling with this?

 

My sister has another non-working unit that she's going to give me to try and get working, so when I have that apart, I will try swapping IC components.

 

Unless there are any more suggestions? Or cartridges to try? Or voltages to test on the board? Or someone locally in Australia with an MTE-201 they are willing to let me use?

 

- James

[+DZ-Jay]

OK, so I replaced that capacitor with the split shrink wrap (it otherwise looked fine), and replaced the two transistors.

 

And... No change. If anything, the picture looks slightly sharper. Remarkably clean for an RF signal.

 

I noticed that there's what looks to be a trim pot on the daughterboard with the PAL crystal circuitry. My younger self may have meddled with this - What are the symtoms if fiddling with this?

 

My sister has another non-working unit that she's going to give me to try and get working, so when I have that apart, I will try swapping IC components.

 

Unless there are any more suggestions? Or cartridges to try? Or voltages to test on the board? Or someone locally in Australia with an MTE-201 they are willing to let me use?

 

- James

I believe that is to adjust the color balance.

[pimpmaul69]

OK, so I replaced that capacitor with the split shrink wrap (it otherwise looked fine), and replaced the two transistors.

 

And... No change. If anything, the picture looks slightly sharper. Remarkably clean for an RF signal.

 

I noticed that there's what looks to be a trim pot on the daughterboard with the PAL crystal circuitry. My younger self may have meddled with this - What are the symtoms if fiddling with this?

 

My sister has another non-working unit that she's going to give me to try and get working, so when I have that apart, I will try swapping IC components.

 

Unless there are any more suggestions? Or cartridges to try? Or voltages to test on the board? Or someone locally in Australia with an MTE-201 they are willing to let me use?

 

- James

if your younger self played with it then there is a possibility.if you turn too far the picture goes out. you might want to put a game in and adjust the color. if you are right on the border of that being adjusted to show picture or not, then it is possible it is the cause. boot up provides extra power (amperage) that may allow it to show picture but not when you go to different rooms etc... if that is the case, your demon attack is possibly just a bad game.

[HunterZero]

if your younger self played with it then there is a possibility.if you turn too far the picture goes out. you might want to put a game in and adjust the color. if you are right on the border of that being adjusted to show picture or not, then it is possible it is the cause. boot up provides extra power (amperage) that may allow it to show picture but not when you go to different rooms etc... if that is the case, your demon attack is possibly just a bad game.

 

Hmmm, the picture looks really good though, with strong colours. Is there a proper method to properly adjust that pot? Eg, turn it one way until the picture goes out, then turn it back X turns? I'm pretty sure I didn't touch it, It's a bit hard to reach on the PAL Inty, but there is a small chance I might have.

 

Demon Attack is definitely good, though. It works 100% in my INTV System III.

 

I'll try a few more games with it... Beauty and the Beast, Thunder Castle, Bump 'n' Jump. I have an idea that BatB works the console pretty hard, I played the heck out of that game on this console and recall issues first appearing with that game at the same time I noticed sound problems on other games (eg, missing arrow count on AD&D). Eg, the banner trailing the plane between levels with the encouraging messages would be messed up - it appears it's made of sprites, and they're shown mixed about, although I haven't tried this cart recently.

 

So I'm now pretty sure it's an IC logic issue.

 

- James

[pimpmaul69]

Hmmm, the picture looks really good though, with strong colours. Is there a proper method to properly adjust that pot? Eg, turn it one way until the picture goes out, then turn it back X turns? I'm pretty sure I didn't touch it, It's a bit hard to reach on the PAL Inty, but there is a small chance I might have.

 

Demon Attack is definitely good, though. It works 100% in my INTV System III.

 

I'll try a few more games with it... Beauty and the Beast, Thunder Castle, Bump 'n' Jump. I have an idea that BatB works the console pretty hard, I played the heck out of that game on this console and recall issues first appearing with that game at the same time I noticed sound problems on other games (eg, missing arrow count on AD&D). Eg, the banner trailing the plane between levels with the encouraging messages would be messed up - it appears it's made of sprites, and they're shown mixed about, although I haven't tried this cart recently.

 

So I'm now pretty sure it's an IC logic issue.

 

- James

it fully turns either way. you should be able to access from both sides of the board. also use a marker to mark their place but feel free to adjust the pots slightly on the rf unit (metal box if you didnt know) as well to test them. free and easy.

[pimpmaul69]

Hmmm, the picture looks really good though, with strong colours. Is there a proper method to properly adjust that pot? Eg, turn it one way until the picture goes out, then turn it back X turns? I'm pretty sure I didn't touch it, It's a bit hard to reach on the PAL Inty, but there is a small chance I might have.

 

Demon Attack is definitely good, though. It works 100% in my INTV System III.

 

I'll try a few more games with it... Beauty and the Beast, Thunder Castle, Bump 'n' Jump. I have an idea that BatB works the console pretty hard, I played the heck out of that game on this console and recall issues first appearing with that game at the same time I noticed sound problems on other games (eg, missing arrow count on AD&D). Eg, the banner trailing the plane between levels with the encouraging messages would be messed up - it appears it's made of sprites, and they're shown mixed about, although I haven't tried this cart recently.

 

So I'm now pretty sure it's an IC logic issue.

 

- James

so have you tried last suggestions? any luck?

[HunterZero]

so have you tried last suggestions? any luck?

 

Haven't tried yet. Having a new baby means finding time is tricky...

 

- J

[HunterZero]

Twiddled the knob, no difference.

 

- HZ

[pimpmaul69]

Twiddled the knob, no difference.

 

- HZ

what i really wanted was for you to twiddle the pots on the rf unit. sorry this is hard as hell to trouble shoot like this so try to be patient with me.

[HunterZero]

what i really wanted was for you to twiddle the pots on the rf unit. sorry this is hard as hell to trouble shoot like this so try to be patient with me.

 

I am sure I haven't touched those, almost certain I hadn't touched the pot on the daughterboard actually. It crashes consistently at the same place every time, which is why I'm inclined to think it's a logic/IC issue.

 

Noticed as well the system hangs to black screen when I use pepper on Burger Time. I see a quick flash of the pepper sprite, don't even hear the white noise SFX play, then black screen.

 

But definitely many thanks for your input so far.

 

- J

Edited February 15, 2013 by HunterZero

[pimpmaul69]

I am sure I haven't touched those, almost certain I hadn't touched the pot on the daughterboard actually. It crashes consistently at the same place every time, which is why I'm inclined to think it's a logic/IC issue.

 

Noticed as well the system hangs to black screen when I use pepper on Burger Time. I see a quick flash of the pepper sprite, don't even hear the white noise SFX play, then black screen.

 

But definitely many thanks for your input so far.

 

- J

ok. now mentioning that i am inclined to believe that more. there was a possibility a faulty rf could be affected when the entire screen was changing, but just the pepper shouldnt be affected with a faulty rf. so now that intvnut is back he would have more insight on the software side. you might try asking him his thoughts. mention the pepper issue, sorry i know jack shit about the software side of the intv. intvnut is the one you want to talk to when it comes to that. carl mueller might be able to help as well

[HunterZero]

Tried a few more games to get a few more symptoms:

 

Lock 'n' Chase: Title screen OK. Press any key to go to the select 1 or 2 players screen, the maze appears with the cops and corrupted Lupin sprite briefly, first tone of the music plays, then crashes to black screen and constant audio tone.

 

Bump 'n' Jump: Title screen OK. Press any key to select players, press start. Roadway appears with a corrupted yellow blob instead of the player car sprite, with brief white noise, then the game crashes.

 

D2K: Game usually crashes on Electronite screen, but sometimes boots fine to game select screen. When it does boot, the game starts and plays fine, but there are some graphical corruptions: On the how high screen, the left half of DK's tan face is corrupt, and replaced with random other garbage graphics from the game. Sometimes in-game sprites are corrupt or replaced with other sprites. Most common are the rolling barrels being replaced with the flaming barrel graphics, and corruption of the floating points scores.

 

Beauty and the Beast: Starts plays, however the 1st and 4th sprites making up the biplane sign are missing on the title (C imagic) and after each level. Buford's sprite is occasionally missing the yellow body, and enemy sprites are occasionally invisible. Buford will glitch to the left while moving to the right, sometimes glitches off the left side of the building and falls. It is possible to complete several levels though.

 

Thunder Castle: Where do we start, the most glitches of all. Intro screen usually shows OK and music starts, although occasionally the top left character is a black and red check, and the music freezes. When the title starts OK, it will cycle through the attract mode, although the music will occasionally glitch out into wrong notes. Game will start, and can be played for a short time, but the sprites glitch (eg missing parts of dragon) and usually crashes, either with random garbage on the top and bottom lines, or crashes when the bat enters or player would be energised.

 

- James

[fabulous_Muller]

Tried a few more games to get a few more symptoms:

 

Lock 'n' Chase: Title screen OK. Press any key to go to the select 1 or 2 players screen, the maze appears with the cops and corrupted Lupin sprite briefly, first tone of the music plays, then crashes to black screen and constant audio tone.

 

Bump 'n' Jump: Title screen OK. Press any key to select players, press start. Roadway appears with a corrupted yellow blob instead of the player car sprite, with brief white noise, then the game crashes.

 

D2K: Game usually crashes on Electronite screen, but sometimes boots fine to game select screen. When it does boot, the game starts and plays fine, but there are some graphical corruptions: On the how high screen, the left half of DK's tan face is corrupt, and replaced with random other garbage graphics from the game. Sometimes in-game sprites are corrupt or replaced with other sprites. Most common are the rolling barrels being replaced with the flaming barrel graphics, and corruption of the floating points scores.

 

Beauty and the Beast: Starts plays, however the 1st and 4th sprites making up the biplane sign are missing on the title (C imagic) and after each level. Buford's sprite is occasionally missing the yellow body, and enemy sprites are occasionally invisible. Buford will glitch to the left while moving to the right, sometimes glitches off the left side of the building and falls. It is possible to complete several levels though.

 

Thunder Castle: Where do we start, the most glitches of all. Intro screen usually shows OK and music starts, although occasionally the top left character is a black and red check, and the music freezes. When the title starts OK, it will cycle through the attract mode, although the music will occasionally glitch out into wrong notes. Game will start, and can be played for a short time, but the sprites glitch (eg missing parts of dragon) and usually crashes, either with random garbage on the top and bottom lines, or crashes when the bat enters or player would be energised.

 

- James

 

Very difficult to give a diag James . Only these carts are presenting problems ? Baseball is working ? Can be many things , without the MTE-201 test we can only make some trial'n'error .

Brgds...

[HunterZero]

I don't have access to an MTE 201 I'm afraid. Unless there's someone in Sydney Australia who I can drop in on sometime who can let me use one?

 

Those are the only carts I've tried so far. Only Pole Position played without any apparent issues. It's a later game, which is why I suspect this game may use fewer exec routines and the problem is with the exec or GROM. I think I have a baseball cart, I'll try it.

 

- James

Edited March 24, 2013 by HunterZero

[Games For Your Intellivision]

The Elektronite screen on D2K is a separate program.....the whole mess is bank switched....so, if it doesn't make it to the actual D2K rom, that means the second rom never loads.....of course the splash screen is tiny.

[HunterZero]

The Elektronite screen on D2K is a separate program.....the whole mess is bank switched....so, if it doesn't make it to the actual D2K rom, that means the second rom never loads.....of course the splash screen is tiny.

 

Interesting! Don't forget this is a PAL console, and when the game does run there seem to be some minor timing problems with the music running a little slow. Game play is super sweet. So it might be a PAL issue that means it sometimes fails to load, I haven't tried it on my INTV III yet.

 

- James

[HunterZero]

Very difficult to give a diag James . Only these carts are presenting problems ? Baseball is working ? Can be many things , without the MTE-201 test we can only make some trial'n'error .

Brgds...

 

OK tracked down a Baseball cart.

 

Baseball starts the game, the crowds cheer, and all the blue players run onto the field... And keep running... Until they get stuck in the top corners of the screen! The home/vstr scores turn black when the blue men run over them.

 

The main reason I think Baseball is used as a test cart is because it's good for testing the controllers with (selecting the fielders).

 

- J

[fabulous_Muller]

OK tracked down a Baseball cart.

 

Baseball starts the game, the crowds cheer, and all the blue players run onto the field... And keep running... Until they get stuck in the top corners of the screen! The home/vstr scores turn black when the blue men run over them.

 

The main reason I think Baseball is used as a test cart is because it's good for testing the controllers with (selecting the fielders).

 

- J

 

Ok hunter , that's tough. Definetly , something is wrong. If we had an osciloscope, things are eaiser. But I know, not easy to have one otherwise you do repair for survive. The pin-out voltages would be helpful either , but I didn't kame it yet, my console is demaged and I'm waiting parts and another demaged console that I bought to arrive in order to complete de voltage maps. It's seems a demaged IC , could be the STIC , GRAM or CPU. If could wait a month more maybe I got my tests done.

 

Rgds..

[HunterZero]

Yeah I'm pretty sure it's an IC. Leaning towards CPU but don't have parts to swap to check. Can't rule out ROM issue, eg EXEC. I do have a logic probe. Any voltages I should check at the IC's?

 

- J

[HunterZero]

Update... It works again! It was a faulty RAM chip. Everything I tried that crashed, now works perfectly.

 

Many thanks to Games for your Intellivision for the dead logic board with the part I used.

 

- James

[pimpmaul69]

Update... It works again! It was a faulty RAM chip. Everything I tried that crashed, now works perfectly.

 

Many thanks to Games for your Intellivision for the dead logic board with the part I used.

 

- James

thank god................ this was turning into a nightmare thread. without parts and physical system on hand, ram is hard as hell to diagnose. its amazing the many faulty things ram can create.

[HunterZero]

thank god................ this was turning into a nightmare thread. without parts and physical system on hand, ram is hard as hell to diagnose. its amazing the many faulty things ram can create.

 

LOL! Yes, it appears the service manual was right all along when it has U2 system RAM first on the logic IC replacement sequence!

 

- J

[HunterZero]

So close, yet so far...

 

The console seems to work fine and plays well for almost all games I tested... Almost. Burgertime, fine. Lock 'n' Chase, fine. Thunder Castle, fine. AD&D Cloudy Mountain, fine. Baseball, fine. Pole Position, hard as heck, but fine.

 

Demon Attack has a problem where the ship intermittently turns red, and won't move, but the aliens still move, drop bombs and kill the player. D2K crashes intermittently on the title screen, when DK climbs the ladder, or when you reach the top. But these problems only seem to happen after the unit has been on for a while, when the unit is cold it plays just fine. Most of the time the picture output is perfect, but I have noticed from time to time that the brightness of the picture fluctuates, or has a faint rolling bar.

 

So I am suspecting the power supply now, I might try some freeze spray and maybe replacing the voltage regulators. Or... ?

 

- J

[pimpmaul69]

So close, yet so far...

 

The console seems to work fine and plays well for almost all games I tested... Almost. Burgertime, fine. Lock 'n' Chase, fine. Thunder Castle, fine. AD&D Cloudy Mountain, fine. Baseball, fine. Pole Position, hard as heck, but fine.

 

Demon Attack has a problem where the ship intermittently turns red, and won't move, but the aliens still move, drop bombs and kill the player. D2K crashes intermittently on the title screen, when DK climbs the ladder, or when you reach the top. But these problems only seem to happen after the unit has been on for a while, when the unit is cold it plays just fine. Most of the time the picture output is perfect, but I have noticed from time to time that the brightness of the picture fluctuates, or has a faint rolling bar.

 

So I am suspecting the power supply now, I might try some freeze spray and maybe replacing the voltage regulators. Or... ?

 

- J

on the power board check the solder joints on the 2 large capacitors. the next thing i would do is replace the ribbon cable. i have seen this happen in both ca-scenarios.