Buggy R77s crashing with Stella 6.x

[MMarcoux66]

28 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Same Nanya RAM chip as in the amber you posted above. What chip does the working one use?

Happy motherboard woody. Blank chip.

[fredtriestomakeretron77work]

18 minutes ago, MMarcoux66 said:

Happy motherboard woody. Blank chip.

Blank and... textured? Comparing with my blank one, mine has a slick and smooth surface while the one in your pic looks a little like sandpaper

(The image in my head is of someone assembling R77 boards next to buckets labeled "Assorted RAM" and "Assorted Heatsinks")

Should we try to compile these results to see if there is a pattern? ie: BoxStyle/AmberOrWoodGrain/RamStyle/Stability

[Rodney Hester]

1 hour ago, fredtriestomakeretron77work said:

Should we try to compile these results to see if there is a pattern? ie: BoxStyle/AmberOrWoodGrain/RamStyle/Stability

I'm not sure what that buys you - it's easy enough to know if your RAM is busted through just testing without having to even pop the case, and if it is busted, a heat sink is only going to delay your pain.  Truly bad hardware is bad hardware.  Maybe they got a good deal on RAM that didn't pass QC muster from the maker.

[fredtriestomakeretron77work]

49 minutes ago, Rodney Hester said:

I'm not sure what that buys you - it's easy enough to know if your RAM is busted through just testing without having to even pop the case, and if it is busted, a heat sink is only going to delay your pain.  Truly bad hardware is bad hardware.  Maybe they got a good deal on RAM that didn't pass QC muster from the maker.

It's to see if there were "safe batches" of Retrons that people could buy without having to worry about it being defective. I've seen a few posts with a theories like the "woodgrains with the original box style" don't have these issues.  

I'm kind of jealous and wouldn't mind getting my hands on a stable one. I was surprised to get issues, as it was the same box and model of one that I saw was running really well in a video. 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

7 hours ago, Rodney Hester said:

Maybe they got a good deal on RAM that didn't pass QC muster from the maker.

The Nanya chips can be "down binned" from 1600 to 1033F (not sure if this would be reflected on their label). Which would still allow a memory clock speed of 516.5 MHz. But the tested faulty chip doesn't even run stable at 408 MHz. So this chip would be definitely defect. 

 

We are starting to wonder if there is another factor, e.g. wrong parameterized RAM.

 

BTW: It would be helpful to find out where the other faulty RAM chips become stable.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

9 hours ago, fredtriestomakeretron77work said:

Blank and... textured? Comparing with my blank one, mine has a slick and smooth surface while the one in your pic looks a little like sandpaper

Blank chips could indicate that the manufacturer doesn't want to be related with these. Most likely because they failed testing. If the chips had been labelled before, this would have to be removed. And there might be different processes to remove the label, one creating a texture and one which does not. Or the blank ones where not labelled and failed testing before labeling. I have no detailed insights, so I am speculating here.

 

However @DirtyHairy's and my console have unlabeled RAM too. And they work just fine.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

On 9/16/2022 at 3:02 AM, fredtriestomakeretron77work said:

I'm kind of jealous and wouldn't mind getting my hands on a stable one. I was surprised to get issues, as it was the same box and model of one that I saw was running really well in a video. 

Maybe buying a used, early one is the best option.

[MMarcoux66]

Testing with the 408 build seems stable on the 2 flakey ones. They are not bombing right away. It is taking a while for them to. I've got them both going right now, and they are 20 minutes in no red.

 

Spoke too soon...  the woody just locked up. The only difference is the heatsync that I put on the RAM in the amber one.

Edited September 19, 2022 by MMarcoux66

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Yes, 20 minutes is too short for a real test. It should last at least 1 or 2h.

 

The behavior you describe is like what happened to @fredtriestomakeretron77work. His console ran for a while at 408 MHz too before it crashed.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Thomas Jentzsch

[MMarcoux66]

10 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Yes, 20 minutes is too short for a real test. It should last at least 1 or 2h.

 

The behavior you describe is like what happened to @fredtriestomakeretron77work. His console ran for a while at 408 MHz too before it crashed.

Gotcha. Very disappointing that Hyperkin changed the RAM. It looks like the exact same motherboard. I did not see any changes whatsoever besides different RAM and different size heatsyncs. 

[Mr SQL]

Try Fluid City to visually see the difference across Retron77 hardware/software builds, it drops frames under constant load.

[fredtriestomakeretron77work]

5 hours ago, Mr SQL said:

Try Fluid City to visually see the difference across Retron77 hardware/software builds, it drops frames under constant load.

Thanks! Went to check it but the attachment seems missing "This attachment is not available. It may have been removed or the person who shared it may not have permission to share it to this location."

[fredtriestomakeretron77work]

  

7 hours ago, Mr SQL said:

Try Fluid City to visually see the difference across Retron77 hardware/software builds, it drops frames under constant load.

 

OK I think I found it in another thread. It's this one?

 

SillyVenture_Fluid_City_ImpressionismII_PAL_R3.bin

Edited September 22, 2022 by fredtriestomakeretron77work
bad quote

[Mr SQL]

8 hours ago, fredtriestomakeretron77work said:

Thanks! Went to check it but the attachment seems missing "This attachment is not available. It may have been removed or the person who shared it may not have permission to share it to this location."

 

6 hours ago, fredtriestomakeretron77work said:

  

 

OK I think I found it in another thread. It's this one?

 

SillyVenture_Fluid_City_ImpressionismII_PAL_R3.bin 8.25 kB · 0 downloads

 

You're welcome. That is an earlier version. I was able to download the file from the PlusCart club link. Interesting the Club is now open but the attachment downloading may still require joining the club to get the file. 

 

FLUIDCITY_B_Side_PlusCartClub_ThrottleControl.bin

 

[GTS]

Hello. I installed the latest version of Stella and now the games are freezing. I read through all three pages to this thread. What is the solution for a person like me who does not want to go inside and make alterations. Can I downgrade to a lower version and everything will be okay? Thanks!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

5 hours ago, GTS said:

Hello. I installed the latest version of Stella and now the games are freezing. I read through all three pages to this thread. What is the solution for a person like me who does not want to go inside and make alterations. Can I downgrade to a lower version and everything will be okay? Thanks!

On 9/13/2022 at 12:11 AM, fredtriestomakeretron77work said:

If your Amber is having issues with 6.6, I'd recommend downgrading to 3.5.4 to see if it's stable, and stick with it if it is..  

On 9/13/2022 at 8:13 AM, Thomas Jentzsch said:

That's 3.9.4.

3.9.4. can be found here. This should work as stable as the original Hyperkin firmware even on buggy consoles.

Edited October 10, 2022 by Thomas Jentzsch

[+johnnywc]

Hi there! 

 

I downloaded and installed the 6.7 624mhz pre-build found in this link to test Gorf Arcade and Qyx (both CDFJ+ that require 6.7) but both crash.  Upon inspection, the help screen says it's still a 6.6 build.  Is there another place I can find a 6.7 pre-build for the r77 to test these games (as well as Elevator Agent)?  

 

Thanks!

John

[Rodney Hester]

On 1/3/2023 at 8:30 PM, johnnywc said:

Hi there! 

 

I downloaded and installed the 6.7 624mhz pre-build found in this link to test Gorf Arcade and Qyx (both CDFJ+ that require 6.7) but both crash.  Upon inspection, the help screen says it's still a 6.6 build.  Is there another place I can find a 6.7 pre-build for the r77 to test these games (as well as Elevator Agent)?  

 

Thanks!

John

There is no 'safe' 6.x build for the 'broken RAM' R77s.  It's stock or 3.9.4, that's it.  Anything newer will ultimately crash at any speed.

[+johnnywc]

Thanks for the info!  I have been running Stella 6.x on my R77 for a while (now 6.6) with no issues so I think I have an R77 that doesn't have the memory issue (hopefully!).  I was hoping to test my Gorf Arcade and Qyx on the R77 using a 6.7 build (since they both require the changes to CDFJ+ added in 6.7) and read this quote from DirtyHairy that suggests that these 'test' builds are actually 6.7 builds with the DRAM test program (minus some paddle fixes):

On 9/10/2022 at 4:27 PM, DirtyHairy said:

Changing the DRAM clock implies changing the bootloader, which is part of the SD image. I have prepared four different images of a build based of Stella 6.7 (not the final one though, there are still some paddle bugs that I need to work out). You can find those images on github here and here. There builds also contain a test program that was specifically created (not by me) to test for DRAM issues. In order to run the test create a file called "memtest" (the contents are irrelevant) at the root of the SD card and turn on the R77. You will see a spinning companion cube on a grey background. If your console has bad DRAM it will eventually crash, at which point the cube will stop spinning and the background will turn red.

I downloaded and installed the 624Mhz version and expected it to be version 6.7 from the description by DirtyHairy above, but it is 6.6 (and therefore Qyx and Gorf Arcade crash).  I understand that faulty RAM R77s will crash no matter what 6.x version is used but I was looking for a 6.7 build (at least one with the CDFJ+ changes required for Gorf Arcade and Qyx) that I can run on my presumably good-DRAM R77?  It just may be a typo on DH's post (they are really 6.6 builds); I'll reach out to him directly to confirm.

 

Thanks!

John

 

 

[+Atari2600PAL]

I don't know if this information helps at all but I've had the 624mhz cube test running on my Amber R77 for 90 minutes without any issues

 

Purchased in December, not used very much so far other than a few games of Space Invaders, from Amazon UK (it shipped from mainland Europe though)

 

[MMarcoux66]

4 hours ago, Atari2600PAL said:

I don't know if this information helps at all but I've had the 624mhz cube test running on my Amber R77 for 90 minutes without any issues

 

Purchased in December, not used very much so far other than a few games of Space Invaders, from Amazon UK (it shipped from mainland Europe though)

 

That is interesting. Mine screws up within 10 minutes. Sounds like maybe Hyperkin fixed the issue. That would be good news.

Edited January 7, 2023 by MMarcoux66

[Thomas Jentzsch]

7 hours ago, MMarcoux66 said:

That is interesting. Mine screws up within 10 minutes. Sounds like maybe Hyperkin fixed the issue. That would be good news.

Indeed. But maybe he only had luck. Hard to tell.

[tmop69]

Due to recent anniversary for Atari, I decided to buy a Retron 77 from Amazon, although I was aware of the issues listed in this thread. I'm in Italy and I was hoping to be lucky as @Atari2600PAL (the Retron is shipped from the same main distributor for Europe, located in Germany) I've ordered the woody version.

 

I've received it today and with some disappointment I've discovered that they've shipped the amber version. 😞 Anyway, I've started testing it with the 624mhz build. It crashed after 10/11 minutes. 😞

I've then run the 504mhz build. The screen passed to red after few minutes and was constantly changing the color from red to black, but the cube was moving and no crashes after approx. 2hours. Touching the plastic at the base of the console it seems that there is no heat.

 

I've not opened it, but I can see that is equipped with the Nanya RAM (cannot read the complete number without opening the console). The heat sink on CPU is approx. 2x1.5cm.

 

Now, some questions for the experts here:

Should I have to run also the 480mhz test or is reasonable to use the 504mhz build whitout expecting crashes while playing? What is the difference in performance with the "official" build in the repository?

 

What is the exact meaning of the red/black constant changes in the background?

 

Should I have to consider my Retron one of the "faulty" or "not totally bad" batch? I have to start thinking if I have to return or maybe try with the heat sink and use it. I do not expect to run it for more than 2 hours in each session and I'm interested mainly in the classic games. I suspect that most of the units in stores now have this problem.

 

What are the next tests you suggest? Testing the "official" build and play normally or the 504mhz one?

 

Many thanks.
 

[fredtriestomakeretron77work]

28 minutes ago, tmop69 said:

What are the next tests you suggest? Testing the "official" build and play normally or the 504mhz one?

 

sounds like you have one of the bad retrons... there is nothing more you can do except for getting a refund, or using the 3.9.4 build mentioned in the thread.  

[tmop69]

On 1/20/2023 at 4:18 PM, fredtriestomakeretron77work said:

sounds like you have one of the bad retrons... there is nothing more you can do except for getting a refund, or using the 3.9.4 build mentioned in the thread.  

 

For curiosity, I've run some tests:
the official 6.6.0 build crashed after a couple of minutes playing Ms.Pacman. With the 480mhz build I was able to play for approx. 10 minutes before crashing. The V6.1 crashed after 25 minutes. In this test I've disabled the TV mode and phosphor, but not sure if this is the reason that delayed the crash. With the same build I've then used the DONT_OVERCLOCK=1 flag and developer mode, but it crashed after a couple of minutes! With the 312mhz version it crashed after some minutes. So, yes, the V6.x is not reliable with the bad Retrons... 😞  It's quite strange that the test with 504mhz build was not crashing after 2hours (just red/black backgound). 😕

 

The V3.9.4 build seems totally stable. It's a good version, however is missing the new settings introduced with V6.x. For me, in particular, I would like to have the scanlines. 😞 

 

In summary, if you are in Europe and order from Amazon you'll probably get an amber version (I've ordered the woody, they've shipped the amber...) with the problem. It seems that the remaining stock is 10 units, so it's probably better to not risk until a new restock.