New LTO Flash! cart only gives flashy glitches when powered on in my Intellivision.

[Rakutenka]

I recently got a "NIB" LTO Flash! cart off Ebay. As far as I know I've set it up correctly. via the LTO Flash! software, but when I put it in my Intellivision and power it on, I just get these random glitchy flashes on the screen. Anyone got any clue? Regular game carts work fine. My Intellivision is modded for RGB. It outputs to a Framemeister.

 

When I got the LTO Flash! I downloaded the LTO Flash! software, installed it and setup the cart. It asked me to update the firmware which I did and it said it completed successfully. I added the ROMs and menus, sent it to the cart and tried it, but it doesn't work. Could there be a chance the firmware didn't actually take? Is there somewhere I can try different versions? 

 

Here's a video of what it does when powered on:

 

 

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[abeckett]

This may not be particularly helpful. I had one Intellivision that did not like the LTO flash intro sequence. Not sure why. It would crash the Intellivision. I plugged it into another, disabled the title page and the LTO works fine in all of them now.

 

The failure mode was the initial drawing of the intro page (orange) and it would hang at random intervals. The Intellivision that it glitched on works fine on any ROM loaded so it’s not RAM - just didn’t like the title page.

 

So my question is - does it work on another Intellivision?

[Rakutenka]

10 minutes ago, abeckett said:

This may not be particularly helpful. I had one Intellivision that did not like the LTO flash intro sequence. Not sure why. It would crash the Intellivision. I plugged it into another, disabled the title page and the LTO works fine in all of them now.

 

The failure mode was the initial drawing of the intro page (orange) and it would hang at random intervals. The Intellivision that it glitched on works fine on any ROM loaded so it’s not RAM - just didn’t like the title page.

 

So my question is - does it work on another Intellivision?

Where do you disable that?

[abeckett]

Great question.

 

on the working Intellivision (if you have one!) go to the configuration page and the option is called “Title Screen”. Put that to Never.

 

Anthony

[Rakutenka]

14 minutes ago, abeckett said:

Great question.

 

on the working Intellivision (if you have one!) go to the configuration page and the option is called “Title Screen”. Put that to Never.

 

Anthony

Back up a step. On the Intellivision itself? I'm not following.

 

Edit:

 

I think I found it. I got a meeting coming up, so I will check that in about an hour. I'll let you know if this works. Thanks!

Edited March 20, 2023 by Rakutenka

[wolfy62]

Rakutenka,check back in here for a couple days.

There are a bunch of really helpful and knowledgeable people in here that probably have the answers to your questions!

[Rakutenka]

9 minutes ago, wolfy62 said:

Rakutenka,check back in here for a couple days.

There are a bunch of really helpful and knowledgeable people in here that probably have the answers to your questions!

Thanks. I've lurked here for a long time. Everyone hear seems pretty great.

[+intvsteve]

55 minutes ago, Rakutenka said:

Back up a step. On the Intellivision itself? I'm not following.

 

Edit:

 

I think I found it. I got a meeting coming up, so I will check that in about an hour. I'll let you know if this works. Thanks!

I think this is the spot in the UI where you can disable that. Not at a spot where I can hook up the cart, so it's disabled in this image:

[Rakutenka]

1 hour ago, abeckett said:

Great question.

 

on the working Intellivision (if you have one!) go to the configuration page and the option is called “Title Screen”. Put that to Never.

 

Anthony

This is what you were talking about right? (see screenshot) I changed that to "Never" and then pressed "Send to LTO Flash!" again. Nothing changed.

[mr_me]

What's the Intellivision model number?  Was the RF modulator removed?

[Rakutenka]

7 minutes ago, mr_me said:

What's the Intellivision model number?  Was the RF modulator removed?

The model number is 2609. I'm not sure if the RF modulator was removed or not, but I don't have any way to test as I'm in Japan.

 

I'm kind of wondering if this is a Framemeister thing. It can be weird about sync if there is some extra funky scanline trickery going on.

[ApolloBoy]

8 hours ago, Rakutenka said:

I'm not sure if the RF modulator was removed or not, but I don't have any way to test as I'm in Japan.

If it doesn't have the RCA jack where the RF out was, chances are the RF modulator is no longer present. It's a fairly common thing to do with RGB mods since you can mount a connector in that space and not have to drill any holes in the case.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

40 minutes ago, ApolloBoy said:

If it doesn't have the RCA jack where the RF out was, chances are the RF modulator is no longer present. It's a fairly common thing to do with RGB mods since you can mount a connector in that space and not have to drill any holes in the case.

For the record, I've removed a lot of the RF modulators for RGB installs and my LTO has always worked for me.

 

That said, the odd condition that the OP is getting with his LTO on his Intellivision is nearly exactly the same thing I see when I try to use my FW Diagnostics cart in an Intellivision II that only loads up my MTE test cart but won't load up any games. 

 

[Rakutenka]

Mine still has the RCA. Im just not sure if every component of the RF modulator is still there. Maybe it is? Regardless, I would need a North American TV. 
 

Im starting to wonder if the Framemeister is the problem here. Is anyone else using one?

[ApolloBoy]

This looks way more like an Intellivision issue than the Framemeister. I can't really speak to the Framemeister since I use a RetroTINK-5X.

[Rakutenka]

1 hour ago, ApolloBoy said:

This looks way more like an Intellivision issue than the Framemeister. I can't really speak to the Framemeister since I use a RetroTINK-5X.

It works fine with regular games, so I think the Intellivision is fine. My reason for thinking it's the Framemeister is it doesn't like it if you get too wild with scanline tricks. Some of the Atari 2600 games' video won't sync with the Framemeister because of this. If this is really a Framemeister issue, it's not that big of a deal because I'm waiting for the Retrotink-4K to replace it. I assume it will work fine then.

[Rakutenka]

Sorry for the necro-bump, but I have recently gotten a Retrotink4K and tried my LTO Flash cart again and it spits out the same video as in the original post. Is my cart bad? It talks to the LTO Flash software fine. I would love to get this working if anyone has seen something like this before.

[nick3092]

There is a 1uf bi polar capacitor in the reset circuit that sometimes goes bad and newer homebrew type carts have trouble initializing, but oem carts were fine (I think, I recall a thread a few years ago about this). It's worth a shot if nothing else is working for you. 

[Rakutenka]

9 hours ago, nick3092 said:

There is a 1uf bi polar capacitor in the reset circuit that sometimes goes bad and newer homebrew type carts have trouble initializing, but oem carts were fine (I think, I recall a thread a few years ago about this). It's worth a shot if nothing else is working for you. 

Right on. I'll look into it, but for something that has never worked, I'm struggling to find the energy to troubleshoot it. Thanks though.