My Odyssey I got for Christmas isn’t working

[Silbu]

I think it’s the connectors on the console itself. Most of the time I turn on the tv and get nothing, I’m using a roku, and I use that thing avgn used to bypass the tv box. it does pickup the 480i picture, but nothing comes the screen aside from slits of white and electric gibberish. A third of the time, I do get to a select game menu, but when I press a button it goes to a collage of electric gibberish. Should I clean the cartridge connectors on the console?

[metarog]

It could be the connector and/or the microcontroller or graphics chip going bad. These do go bad from time to time. You could try reseating those chips too… they are socketed on the motherboard.

[Silbu]

7 minutes ago, metarog said:

It could be the connector and/or the microcontroller or graphics chip going bad. These do go bad from time to time. You could try reseating those chips too… they are socketed on the motherboard.

I’m gonna be honest with you, I’m 15, and I doubt me or my dad know how to do that 

[+atari2600land]

What you described sounds like what happens when you turn the Odyssey 2 on when there's no cartridge in. Try cleaning the cartridge.

[Lord_of_Sipan]

What upscaler are you using? Is it a retrotink? Odyssey 2 outputs RF so you should be feeding it into a demodulator if it is running to an hdmi converter/scaler.

 

is it hooked up to a modern tv or an old crt?

 

system probably works, O2 are built like tanks for the most part.

[+pboland]

On 12/26/2022 at 2:23 PM, atari2600land said:

What you described sounds like what happens when you turn the Odyssey 2 on when there's no cartridge in. Try cleaning the cartridge.

^^^^^This^^^^^

 

You need to clean your cartridges better. That is the most likely issue you are having. If rubbing alcohol and q-tips don't work, get your self an ink eraser. They look like this:

You can get them on amazon or any office supply store like Staples. You want to use the dark grey side of the eraser and rub down the contacts on the carts to clean them. Again, only use this method if rubbing alcohol and q-tips don't work (because it is a very slight abrasive). Be sure to add a little rubbing alcohol to contacts when using the eraser to cuts down on static electricity.