Screen artifacting/interference

[Bucket Brigadier]

Hello, all,

 

I'm running into an issue with one of my Heavy Six VCSs and I was looking for some guidance. I've started to get some strange artifacting on the screen with some of the games in my library, but not all of them. Picture below shows what I'm seeing on Private Eye:

 

 

This started recently, but I have noticed some of the games in my library are drawn a little...off? It's a similar phenomenon to the above image, just not so serious/noticeable. I've noticed it on River Raid, and have actually had that game outright crash on me (screen went wonky, then to blue - this is a "newer" CRT, so no signal = blue screen, rather than static). But, other games, such as Defender and Millipede have no such artifacts on the screen (could be because they are black-background games?)

 

I have a backup VCS which I affectionately refer to as "Dash 2". That one displayed both Private Eye and River Raid perfectly.

 

What I'm wondering is, does anyone have experience with what might cause this? I did do a search but haven't seen quite this exact situation, so as I understand it, it could be a capacitor dying, could be the 6532, or could be the RF out.

 

Thanks in advance for anything you can tell me!

 

-BB

 

 

[Bucket Brigadier]

So, just to note, I found the problem was with the cartridges themselves, rather than the system. It turned out that the connectors were in need of cleaning beyond rubbing alcohol - out of simple curiosity, I took baking soda and water and cleaned the connectors with this solution and a toothbrush. After drying the board and cleaning out all of the remaining baking soda particulates, I plugged Private Eye into my VCS and HAZAAA! The artifacting was gone, nothing but a clear picture! Did the same on River Raid and got the same results. I'm just glad the main problem wasn't the console; though "Dash 2" ran the games better, so I might still clean the cartridge port in "Dash 1" anyway.

Edited March 1, 2019 by Bucket Brigadier