exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Hi.

I have just finished installing the booster to my STE but have a problem.
Everything seemed to go smoothly and the machine was working fine after the installation of the TOS Switcher but now when I switch on all I get is 40 vertical black bars that gradually get thinner by being erased by alternating red and yellow bars until I am left with a white screen and nothing else happens.

Any suggestions?

Cheers

Dan

so you fitted the booster and the problem started after fitting the ROM board ? or was it the other way around ?

Fitted the TOS Switcher first and was all fine. Now I have fitted the booster and this issue is now occurring

You most likely have a bad solder joint or a damaged track on the motherboard, it is always the case.

Ok will recheck it. Didn't know if maybe there was something specific that would cause it.

Cheers :)

Is it a soldered in booster? If so you need to work back through all the solder joints and check for good continuity/shorts from every pin of the socket to the pins on the booster board through to the mainboard. Also check the the tracks and vias for physical damage.

Be aware that physically handling these boards can cause microscopic damage to tracks and vias you can't see that a beep test will show right up. This happened to me recently on my Mega4. I plugged something in and I lost 2 data lines in the 10 mm between the CPU socket and the next via along, but nothing visible.

If it's one that pushes into the CPU socket, then remove it and check for bent pins on the booster (this happened on mine.) and tweak all the springs in the PLCC socket, clean the contacts on the 68k and see if you are able to boot in the original configuration.

Yeah is the soldered one. Have put on hold for now as can't see anything obvious and don't have the test equipment (or knowhow :oops:) to check properly :(

The only thing you can do is probably ask @Steve To repair it for you. Though fault finding could possibly be more expensive than buying a new motherboard and having Steve a new booster for you right from the start.

Dan1975 wrote: 20 May 2020 22:34 Yeah is the soldered one. Have put on hold for now as can't see anything obvious and don't have the test equipment (or knowhow :oops:) to check properly :(

I'm in the west midlands if you want me to have a look at it. PM me if you like.

Thank you. PM sent