Fuzzy screen and error message every time I boot

PaulXMann · October 6, 2021

So, every time I boot the VCS from cold, I'm greeted with a garbled mess of video. I can't make anything out, but I discovered that if I attach a keyboard and hit "enter," I'm able to get past whatever the error is and boot into the Atari OS without issue (and it's fine from there, even returning from "sleep" mode). Again, once I've gotten past this error that happens before the OS loads, the screen is perfectly fine and I can do everything like normal.

Today, I wanted to go into the bios so I could change the boot order (want to be able to boot Batocera OS from a flash drive, which it surprisingly wouldn't do on its own... guess they made Atari OS the default, now?). Unfortunately, even though I was able to access the bios screen, I wasn't able to do anything because it's all a garbled mess.

Anyone have any ideas what's going on?

Here's my equipment:

LG HU810PW 4K UHD projector (w/ HDMI 2.1)
Sony STRDN1080 (w/ HDMI 2.0 a)
Blue Jeans HDMI (BJC Series-3A Active HDMI Cable and BJC Series-FE all HDMI 2.0 certified)

Note that I have NOT experienced any issues like this in the past... other, currently-connected equipment includes an Nvidia Shield Pro, Roku Ultra, Xfinity Flex, Nintendo Switch, etc. None of these devices have exhibited any issues.

PaulXMann · October 7, 2021

UPDATE:

I tested with another device (small, 1080p TV), and I get the same garbled mess on startup. So, it's not device-dependent.

HOWEVER... I also discovered that if I turn on the VCS first, and then turn on my display device, it appears to output video normally. So, something appears to be happening with some motherboard-level video driver or something. I don't know... out of my depth on this one.