I've got a glitch - help plz!

[Hank]

I just got my first 800XL. I set it up today and it seems to have a weird problem and I'm looking for advice from experienced users.

 

A little background: First I installed an old 5 1/4 floppy in my PIII and copied Windows XP Server Enterprise Edition onto about 800 floppies. I just can't get it to install properly.. Ok just kidding. Here's the real problem:

 

This computer boots and plays all of my cartridges (like 4) no problem. I booted to the ROM Basic no problem and wrote a simple program like

 

10 X=1

20 print x

30 x=x+1

40 goto 20

 

and several variations thereof, each which would execute for say 80-120 cycles and then the computer would crash in a variety of ways - screen would wig out, lock up, error msg, etc etc. I could always hit reset and run it again, but always got the same or similar crash/crap out/ glitch.

 

All I can imagine doing is dismantling it and re-seating everything that's not soldered in. Anything I should look for??

 

Thanks much,

Hank

[Hank]

Everyone's pretty quiet... hmm not good.

 

Here's one thing I noticed: If I turn the power off and on, type in that same little program and run it it will make it much further the first time - maybe to 1500 or 2000. After I reset it and run it it will only make it too 100 or so. Usually 1/2 way to 100 it will spit out some bogus numbers

 

72

73

89.0909809

74

 

etc

 

Weird huh

 

Any advice?

[atarifan49]

Now that's a strange problem. And I wouldn't quite know what to suspect yet. Maybe some faulty RAM or OS chip?

 

Have you ran the internal diagnostic RAM test to see what results happen?

 

Without setting the computer up on a 8bit diagnostic equipment, could take guesses all day.