New Falcon a lemon?

[troed]

I'm not too impressed with the comments you've gotten from the local expert and the seller.

1) The "riser card" (The Falcon memory module made by exxos) is from 2018 - as it says clearly written on it.
2) Before you opened it it had video, after you said it started going to just black screen
3) A faulty TOS can indeed cause issues, but believing a version change between 4.01 and 4.04 to cause video corruption is just ... strange
4) Nothing obvious comes to mind that would affect video and floppy together

However, if you really see a difference when switching between memory modules then there might be unstable voltage depending on current draw - or hairline cracks on the PCB with flexing.

There's a difference between expert and "expert". Just make sure you get the former.

/Troed

[beel1]

Could it be a PSU issue? It is "a new unused old stock unit" but it should be 25+ years old?

[Tomswork]

If the memory module being removed affects things maybe check the simm on the exxos board to make sure it is seated and clean. I find exxos products are solid.

The psu also looks like it has had a few of the capacitors replaced.

Some photos of the bottom of the board around the video connector and close up of the floppy cable pin header and roms top and bottom would help

Tom

[Gyrussfanx]

A hairline crack, bummer if that is true. How do you even find that?

PS: I did pull the simm and reseat it but it didn't seem to help I'm afraid to say.

[Gyrussfanx]

Could the "new but old" PSU be a problem? Sure. I hope the guy I'm taking it to looks into that. I'm pretty sure he mentioned that as part of the diagnostics.

[exxos]

- LOCAL help - a quick call to a local Atari expert (In NY) and he thinks there is probably memory issues with this module. He is a little closer than Steve in the UK so I am going to try him out first. (Sorry Steve!). They are going to look at the RAM first to see what's up then dig deeper. He also thinks the floppy and the video issues might have the same root cause.

I second what @troed says...

There's a difference between expert and "expert". Just make sure you get the former.

If this is one of those " self appointed experts" then I really do fear for your Falcon. So really hope you do some good background checks as you don't mention who this is even. "Trying this guy out first", does not fulfil me with confidence, if he cannot fix it, then he may well cause the irreparable damage that not even @Steve can fix. Having personally come from a background in repairing electronics for a large company, one of the worst pieces of equipment to work on is one which has already been " worked on" as you then have to start on doing even more damage than the original fault.

[Tomswork]

Yes I agree do no harm in the diagnosis it makes the repair all that much better. I got a mega ste motherboard someone reflowed with a soldering gun. What a mess to fix. I am a fan of high res pictures for suspect areas for finding cracks brakes and bad solder

Tom

[KLund1]

Any updates, waiting on baited breath to see how this works out.

In terms of shorting things:
All video problems and keyboard problems were happening before the case was ever opened by me. When you say, "he" I am not sure if you are referring to myself or the seller as the person who shorted something, it's still not clear that the actual problem is but I am going to have it looked at by a professional. I have opened and worked on plenty of PC's (just not Atari's). Even the seller (who I believe bought it from someone else) seems to really know what he is doing.

FYI: I was referring to your post #23 above where you state that you now get a "black screen" after you were inside taking pictures. Obviously, Something happened.....?

Yes, about the do no harm diagnostics! And posting hi-rez pics here where there are some real Experts. I know a lot, but here are those that know A Lot more than I can ever know.

[PaulJ]

I've been following this thread for awhile. Just doing things in the hopes of getting lucky causes more damage and makes it harder in the end to diagnose the real cause of the failure and the extra issues caused by the shot gunning. Your considering sending the machine to GB for a possible fix and return postage is going to be pretty expensive for the postage only not to mension possible shipping damage . You need to get the diagnostics cart and maybe if required supporting hardware. Most likely the serial interface still works so you will be able to test the hardware and know where the issue(s) lie. Also if you call Best they maybe able to help ya out or at least point you to a compedient repair enitity here in the states. Just my 2 cents.. :)

[Gyrussfanx]

So the latest is/was the unit is off to repair at the only guy on the East Coast of the US that does them (for now). I wanted to give it a try locally as shipping overseas has been a real PAIN lately. We have serious monkey business with the Post office going on over here. If the local guy can't do it then Steve is up next, I swear!

Anyway before sending it off all screens were restored and visible. I had someone I know with a falcon send me a Compact Flash card with it all setup for NTSC (not sure how that works) and regular Falcon 16 color medium rez mode. The falcon was restored to it's previous state with most resolutions working again accept the higher color (256 and hi color) still looked pretty bad (With the wavy black lines and black menu's). Pretty terrible. So again, I think some of the resets I was doing might have caused it to go back into PAL model? Maybe? I'm not that well versed in things atari Falcon yet. And the VGA (as I said was back to what I was seeing before).

I didn't really try out any of the other apps he included before packing it up and shipping it off. I'll let you guys know when I find out more.

BTW: The pictures don't do it justice as the black spots move around the screen a bit.

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