Odd issue with my Atari STE

[FatSlug]

Hi guys

I have a bit of an odd issue with my STE which I have not been able to diagnose, so would be really grateful for any pointers :)

Back Story:
I have had my STE since the early 90s and (was a stock 520, which I then upgraded to 1Mb RAM). One day back then, whilst it was in use, our neighbourhood was struck by a massive bolt of lightning. Most houses in the vicinity lost VCRs, TVs etc due to this (was bad enough to make the papers!). Anyway, unfortunately even though I had my STE on an anti-surge block, it wasn't enough, and on a re-boot I was presented with the 4 bombs of doom :( Having no electronics experience, money or the internet (was pre '96), the STE went back in its box where it remained.

...until recently :)

I took it out the box and switched it on. It came on, still with the 4 bombs of doom. Now quick research on the Internet suggested this was a RAM issue. So with nothing to lose, I took it apart, pulled out the RAM, had a look at it, saw nothing untoward, put the RAM back in and switched it on. To my amazement it powered up to the desktop!!

I loaded many games etc, and all seemed to work fine with no issues. The STE was back :)

However, there is still an issue. I would say about 98% of what I have thrown at it has worked fine, but a few titles 'hang' when they have loaded (which used to work fine back in the day). Assuming I still had a RAM issue, I ran YAART, no errors. I bought a diagnostics cartridge and with what I could test with that (no loopback cables), no errors.

I then swapped the RAM out for 2 x 1Mb sticks and ran the same tests, no errors.

So I am a bit stuck on what could be wrong. The two titles that I am testing it with are 'Blood Money' (works completely fine on my STFM), but seems to crash when the 'speech synthesis' begins, and STE Music Maker, which hangs when I load a song and hit the 'play' button.

Not much to go on I'm afraid - but if this rings any bells with any of you experts out there I would be really grateful for any pointers on what might be wrong.

Many thanks!
Neil

[exxos]

So I am a bit stuck on what could be wrong. The two titles that I am testing it with are 'Blood Money' (works completely fine on my STFM), but seems to crash when the 'speech synthesis' begins

Possibly the games do not simply work on the STE ? Not all of them do. I would look on the internet for patched / adapted games to see if it solves the problem.

[rubber_jonnie]

I'd agree with @exxos that you probably only have STF/M compatible games. PPERA has a huge number of patched games over at 8bitchip.info, you might want to try there.

You could also try some alternative RAM as it might be marginal.

[Badwolf]

You'd like to hope 'STE Music Maker' would be STE compatible! :lol:

Interesting that both the example you cite involve sound, though.

Don't have much to add, unfortunately. Think you'll need to build up a list of what works, what fails and when and see if you can spot a trend.

Anything reproducible is good news for debugging.

BW

[Steve]

I'm sure the lightning bolt was just a coincidence. Honestly it's just the usual - old system, needs some love. Connections oxidise over time, it's always good to remove *all* socketed chips, spray chip & socket with contact cleaner & put back together. This is probably why your ram taking out / putting in kind of half worked. The socket probably still needs cleaning, you just kind of half fixed it.

[FatSlug]

Thanks for all the replies :)

I can confirm that 'Blood Money' (same copy) runs fine on a friend's STE.

It is a bit weird that it seems to be sound related, but only on a few titles, so that maybe a 'red herring'. I also tried with the STE only game 'Obsession', expecting it to fail, but it worked fine, so was even more confused!

I will give the RAM sockets a clean and see if that does anything :)

On a side note, I am also trying to build an ASCI2STM solution from "https://github.com/retro16/acsi2stm", but having no end of issues (could be related to the above so need to solve that first I think). Would this be the right forum to post about that? If so, I will start a new thread. I have seen a lot of info on "Atari-Forum.com", but I can't get an activation email for some reason so can't join in :(

Thanks everyone - appreciate the help

[exxos]

It is a bit weird that it seems to be sound related, but only on a few titles, so that maybe a 'red herring'. I also tried with the STE only game 'Obsession', expecting it to fail, but it worked fine, so was even more confused!

Give this a try. viewtopic.php?f=25&t=5874

On a side note, I am also trying to build an ASCI2STM solution from "https://github.com/retro16/acsi2stm", but having no end of issues (could be related to the above so need to solve that first I think). Would this be the right forum to post about that? If so, I will start a new thread.

Yeah start a new topic on different things else it will get confusing. Though for acsi2stm I half recall some others having issues.

I have seen a lot of info on "Atari-Forum.com", but I can't get an activation email for some reason so can't join in :(

I am having issues with email all the time. viewtopic.php?f=20&t=5829