Red screen 130XE with 32 in 1 OS..

[Mclaneinc]

 

I've not been lazy, I did a search and found a thread, but just wondering it any other cases have happened and what transpired?

 

As said, installed said 32 in 1, not the hardest install and tested the process along the way to make sure the installed socket worked with the old OS, but when I put the 32 in 1 I just get a red screen. If I take it out and unplug the 3 wire header then off it goes as a standard machine with the OS in.

 

Now I noticed in the thread that Jon mentioned using a precision socket / turned pin one which I must admit I didn't have so used an old low quality one. Now I will get a better one online and swap them it out, but the old OS in the same socket works fine and a straight through continuity test of the socket down to the PCB checks out fine. I also reinserted the PLCC(?) (the little programmable chip on the 32 in 1) because Jon had found an alignment issue on one he worked on. No joy.

 

Any idea's, the 32 arrived as new from Gunstar (thank you!!) in a protective anti stat bag.

 

I've checked the installation until I was blue in the face, c'mon, it's 3 wires and a chip desolder and socket install, hardly pushing the envelope. All wires checked, no solder bridges, wires to right places.

 

As a side note, I finally got to try out my cheapo AliExpress tools, hot air gun, very good indeed, can't say if the supposed heat setting is accurate, but it works and helped with the OS removal. The desolder gun is another matter, when you get the knack of it, it does a pretty good job BUT, it uses a cheap solenoid to do the suck part, basically you press a button and it does one quick suck. The bad part is that once you have done a few pins, if you then press the button the jolting action from the solenoid sprays tiny bits of solder on to the PCB from inside the gun. Totally NOT good. I stopped using it and went back to a manual gun and wick to clean up. Spent ages looking for the solder splash bits, got them all.

 

Conclusion: Save up and get a Hakko or whatever

 

Any thoughts on the red screen appreciated..

 

Paul..

Edited April 4, 2022 by Mclaneinc

[Beeblebrox]

@Mclaneinc  is it the Atarimax one?

 

Just had a look on the website here http://www.realdos.net/AtariMax32n1.html

 

2/3rd's down the page it does say this so might be worth checking:

The most common sources of failure at this point are torn traces, bent socket pins or an improperly inserted OS ROM.

 

I know exactly what you mean having checked it so many times already. Been there before many times.

 

I agree though that I think installing a precision socket or at least replacing the old with - at the very least - a new double wipe socket - is worth it.

[Panther]

The three wires are likely just Select, Option, and the reset line, so you should still be able to boot from the 32-in-1 even without these connected.  However, with the wires connected, did you try getting into the 32-in-1 menu by holding down Select while powering on?

 

[Rybags]

It's a long time since I installed mine (currently superceded by U1Meg and waiting to go into another machine) but one wire actually goes to the PIA pin for PB7 (Self Test bit is used for serial comms to the onboard PIC).

I'm fairly sure it will still work but with less functionality with some wires not connected.

When mine was in my 800XL I used the stock OS socket (and still do with U1Meg)

Mine had the sparkly video issue (Phi2 timing?) but otherwise worked fine.

 

But from what you mention I'd guess there's probably some connection issue between upgrade and socket.

[Mclaneinc]

Thanks for the suggestions etc folks, will get a better quality socket and see how we go from there, and no, it was just red screen, reset and select did nothing. Can't test the 32 in 1 on another machine as they are populated with mods that I don't want to take out just for a test.

[CMR]

If it works fine with the original OS chip installed, I would assume the 32-in-1 is faulty.

[Mclaneinc]

It's certainly a possibility, the bloke that sent it to me (Gunstar) sent it as it had arrived to him, totally untouched. Would test it in my other machines but they have U1MB's in, so I don't want to pull all that out to test it. I'll put a better socket in the machine as I'm less happy about the quality of the socket that I installed (ultra cheap crap, what you get for blind ordering on ebay) but I fear that due to the simple nature of the installation that the simple answer is that the 32 in 1 maybe the culprit. At least the 130XE is working, so no harm done. Shame, always wanted a 32 in 1, seemed a funky little device...

Edited April 6, 2022 by Mclaneinc

[Panther]

Do you have something you could use to test or reprogram the flash chip from the 32-in-1?  You can even use the online ROM generator at AtariMax to put together a custom set of ROMs.

 

[Mclaneinc]

Wish I had a programmer, sadly not..

[Rybags]

Fairly sure the chip can be pulled and placed into an 8 mbit (1 Meg) Atarimax flashcart.

Then you can use the flash software for that to program an image.

Unsure which chip you pull (there's 3, I guess the labelled one is the controller) - but you could just create a 512K image then replicate into 1 Meg.

 

But the value of that is questionable - all you'd be doing is writing back something similar to what's already on it.

If the problem is in the PIC or elsewhere then it won't help.

 

 

What could be worthwhile is just reading the chip to see if it's valid - there's 31 OSes on there and the other one I'm fairly sure is always run at powerup, then it communicates with the PIC to determine which one to switch in and run the machine with.

[Mclaneinc]

Sadly, no real Atarimax carts here.... But thanks for the suggestions..

[Beeblebrox]

@Mclaneinc  I have a brand new Maxflash Atarimax 8Mb cart. You are welcome to borrow it if it helps. Happy to pop it in the post for free. Return it as and when you have finished with it. PM me if ya like. 

 

EDIT: although just looking at the cart there is no socket in place - just the PCB traces/vias for one - (nothing on the other side of the PCB either from what I can tell). So not sure it's viable:

 

Edited April 7, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[_The Doctor__]

oh no, it looks like they have gotten rid of the plcc sockets and chips... bad news...

[Mclaneinc]

Thanks Beeble for the very kind offer but at Doc says, there seems to be no socket to use...I'll put my order in for the TP socket and see how I fare..

[Beeblebrox]

@_The Doctor__   that's unfortunate. Yup this was purchased last November so these are the latest run Atarimax cart versions released I'd imagine. So looks like a no-goer.

 

[Beeblebrox]

2 minutes ago, Mclaneinc said:

Thanks Beeble for the very kind offer but at Doc says, there seems to be no socket to use...I'll put my order in for the TP socket and see how I fare..

@Mclaneinc no worries - anytime.