exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

im sure i have an issue with video on my falcon also, but not sure its the same one, my tt030 works with my dell etc fine, but the falcon seems to have issues, i even have a vga to rgb switch which doesnt seem to do much for me.

I have two Falcon 030s and both, when they are connected with the RGB cable via scart to an LCD TV (with the VGA cable I never noticed), I see that the background color changes, sometimes, from white to light blue with some interference. Yet that same cable used with any other Atari I have, works fine and with the same LCD TV. So should I change the orientation of that capacitor for both of my Falcons?

@Roberto no you should measure them both with a multimeter first, on some motherboard revisions they're OK but some they're not.

I have a (self-hacked) combined composite/RGB cable for my Falcon which needs an external power supply to switch to RGB mode. The composite is truly dire.

I wonder if this may be part of the issue (I had put it down to the terrible cable I employed).

Definitely worth a goosey.

Well found, @exxos.

BW

Badwolf wrote: 15 Apr 2024 13:32 Well found, @exxos.

:thumbup:

But just to be clear, I did not find this issue, @Steve asked me about it originally because the capacitor kept bulging.. So @Steve came across the problem first.

Though it's not the first time Atari have had caps in backwards in some machines (not limited to just the Falcon either).

If this is confirmed. Does it deserve being part of the "mandatory fixes" for Falcon030?

alexh wrote: 15 Apr 2024 15:23 If this is confirmed. Does it deserve being part of the "mandatory fixes" for Falcon030?

Yeah I will add it to the list. Though primarily it was a investigation into it rather than a "how to fix" article.

Don't forget @alexh @Roberto @exxos that isn't the only reversed cap on the Falcon motherboard: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=5989&p=94897

Steve wrote: 15 Apr 2024 16:27 Don't forget @alexh @Roberto @exxos that isn't the only reversed cap on the Falcon motherboard: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=5989&p=94897

Thanks I will add it to the list.

Steve wrote: 14 Apr 2024 16:20 @Roberto no you should measure them both with a multimeter first, on some motherboard revisions they're OK but some they're not.

So I should only test with a multimeter if I actually find a positive value on the "+" pin of the capacitor and a negative value on the "-" pin. Right?