C64 Instant Repair! (by lifting it up a few inches and dropping it)

[Herbarius]

It's about my C64 again, well normally it works like a charm, but occasionally it acts up, like this:

 

When I power it on, the picture comes up almost like normal, except one of those two things:

• Each character on the screen seems to have a different color, giving me a very colorful display, but these colors are "fixed" for each character, so no matter what I try, they'll never change
  
• All over the screen (but only inside the main area, where the characters are not the border) are some dots lit up, giving a display that almost looks like RF interference (despite using S-Video), but if you look closely you see that each character square on screen has the exact same anomaly.
  

(Never had both occur at the same time, but I can't know if it is mutually exclusive.)

 

Again, it happens very rarely, and usually when I hadn't powered on the computer at all for a while (like a couple of weeks). But when it happens, it stays that way even when I power it off and then on again.

 

But, the magical fix, which always works instantly:

 

1. Power off

2. Lift the C64 by a couple of inches

3. Drop it back on the table

4. Power on

 

And Tada, everthing is fine!

 

 

I figure there are propably solder joints which are weak, but who could tell me where to look for them? I certainly do not wish to reflow the entire board

 

 

Yeah, I could always "just live with it", as rarely as it occurs and as quickly as it can be corrected, but then I don't feel comfortable with dropping the C64, even if it's only a few inches, on a semi-regular basis, and also from my experience with electronic equipment of all kinds is that those kinds of "quick and easy fixes" tend to make the original problem even worse in the long run

Edited June 13, 2010 by Herbarius

[Nesbroslash]

No offense, but this is kind of funny. Sorry, just the fact that dropping old hardware fixes it is what gets me. Not a bad idea though, since old computers sometimes need tough love.

[+remowilliams]

What you probably need to do is open it up and clean and reseat the socketed chips.

[Herbarius]

What you probably need to do is open it up and clean and reseat the socketed chips.

 

And now I feel stupid for not thinking of that myself...

 

Thank you!

Edited June 13, 2010 by Herbarius

[nathanallan]

This is known as the Atari Drop since that is exactly what went wrong with some ST computers. The real fix is to reseat the chips exactly as described by remowilliams.

Edited June 13, 2010 by nathanallan

[madmax2069]

What i did was clean the contacts and found a way to keep the chips in their socket (something that wont keep you from removing the chip from the socket). like using 3m double sided tape (between the chip and the socket) or maybe a dab of hot glue. got to love chip creep.

[JamesD]

The Apple III was prone to spitting out it's chips and lifting it and dropping it 3 inches was the official repair practice.

That's if lifting it didn't give you a hernia and it didn't crush your desk. (ok... so it wasn't THAT heavy)

[madmax2069]

The Apple III was prone to spitting out it's chips and lifting it and dropping it 3 inches was the official repair practice.

That's if lifting it didn't give you a hernia and it didn't crush your desk. (ok... so it wasn't THAT heavy)

 

LMAO

[Rockin' Kat]

The Apple III was prone to spitting out it's chips and lifting it and dropping it 3 inches was the official repair practice.

That's if lifting it didn't give you a hernia and it didn't crush your desk. (ok... so it wasn't THAT heavy)

 

From what I've read this was mainly an issue in the first ones. Later revisions fixed this... but it's image had already been stained and this is what it's most remembered for.