austodd

IT LIVES! Even though the solder joints looked OK to my novice eye, I decided to reflow the ones near the power connector anyway. And, voila! A working XF551. Except the U-shaped metal shield that sits above the drive head has come off. My understanding is that it's an important piece and must be re-connected. I've heard that using hot glue to reattach it is an option. I don't have a hot glue gun. Any other recommendations for re-attaching this thing? Thanks to everyone for taking the time to respond to my plea for help.

I did. Didn't see anything that looked bad. I've attached a picture if anyone wants to take a look and see if they notice anything I didn't.

I recently purchased an SDrive-Max with the hopes of archiving some of the data on my nearly forty year old floppy disks. Sadly, when I pulled out my XF551 and hooked it up to my 130XE, the drive didn't respond when turning on the power nor when inserting a disk and booting the 130XE. I know the power supply is fine because it powers my 1050 without any trouble. And, as far as I can remember, this drive worked perfectly fine when I put it into storage all those years ago. So I took the drive apart and measured the voltage at the molex connector, and, nothing. No 5V, no 12V. Now I'm not sure what to do. What can/should I check next? Is there something I can replace to give this awesome drive life again? And I don't know if it matters, but this drive has the "XF551 Enhancer" mod by CSS installed on it. My friend and I installed it back in the eighties. As far as I can tell, all of those solder connections look fine after all these years. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks for verifying what happens with a controller isn't plugged in, Cro§Bow. It's really interesting that the console was designed that way. Now I'm thinking that perhaps there's nothing wrong with the console at all and perhaps it's my joystick controller that has the problem. I mean, the Trak-ball works fine, after all.

Thank you so much for responding and trying to help me out. So, if you're correct that with no joystick plugged in your Missile Command the cursor stays near the middle of the screen, I wonder what's up with mine? Maybe it's more than just a loose connection. Perhaps there's a short there. Time to open up my 5200!

This is a 2 port 5200. If I connect a joystick to port 2 with nothing plugged into port 1, I get the same issue with the AtariMax cart. Just constant beeping. But I think bohoki might be on to something. If I'm reading his comment correctly, he's saying that if no controller is plugged into port one, then that is the same as sending a "right and down" signal to the 5200. I plugged a joystick in with Missile Command in the 5200, started the game by pressing start, and then I removed the joystick. When I did that, the cursor immediately moved to the lower right-hand corner of the screen. When I plugged the joystick back in and kind of jiggled the connector around a little bit, I was able to control the cursor in the game. So it looks like maybe there's a bit of a problem with controller port 1 on my console. Perhaps a loose connection, because now even with the AtariMax plugged in, if I jiggle the controller plug around and get it juuuust right, I'm able to get the beeping to go away and am able to control the menu.

Cro§Bow - I get the problem whether a joystick is plugged in or not, so it's definitely not something wrong with my joystick. I'm able to use the AtariMax menu with the Trak-ball plugged in, so at least I'll be able to run those diagnotics you've suggested. Would those help determine if the multiplexer is the problem? bohoki - All of the pins in port 1 look fine. Are you saying that if no controller is plugged in then the default action is for the player to move to the right and down?

I recently purchased an Atari 5200 with a bunch of games and (believe it or not) a couple working controllers. I'd never played the 5200 before, so I had a lot of fun trying out this system and these games over the past few weeks. Everything worked great. Until I got a Trak-ball. The Trak-ball itself works great. This thing is amazing! Maybe the best controller I've ever used on a home console. I had fun using it to play Centipede and Missile Command and Super Breakout. I then put my system away and ordered an AtariMax 5200 Ultimate SD cart. When the cart came in, I hooked my system back up, joystick plugged in, and immediately noticed a problem. The first thing I noticed is a constant beeping sound. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. Never ending. Then I noticed that I couldn't select anything on the menu. My first thought was, "Oh great, I got a bad multi-cart." But then I got the idea to remove the AtariMax cart put in a game that I knew was working before. The game I put in was Kangaroo, and as soon as I started the game, my Kangaroo started moving to the right. And yes, my joystick was centered. And not only that, but when I removed the joystick, my kangaroo would still move to the right! The same problem existed no matter what game I inserted - the player always moved to the right. I then reconnected the Trak-ball, and guess what? Everything worked great. Unplug the Trak-ball, player starts moving the right. Plug the Trak-ball back in, player stops moving to the right. Does anyone have any idea what might be happening? I'm loving this system and can't wait to try out my AtariMax cart. Thanks for any suggestions!

Thanks for your response! Using a multimeter I tested the voltage pins on the CPU, STIC, and SRAM and was able to verify that they are indeed getting power. Plus, those things get hot surprisingly fast! I just can't imagine what I must have done to both of these units to prevent them from outputting a signal. I don't even see a flicker on the TV when I switch on the power. Is it possible I managed to fry both of the RF modulators? Seems unlikely. Is there a good way to test these? Actually I was just looking through the Intellivision service manual and saw that I should be getting +6V DC to the RF modulator, and I verified that I am getting that, so power is definitely making it there. Thanks again for any suggestions.

So I have an INTV System III that started displaying garbled graphics. After doing some online research (most of it here on AtariAge) I determined that perhaps the problem was with the RA-3-9600 SRAM chip, so I figured I'd try swapping out this chip with an RA-3-9600 from another one of my working Intellivisions. I swapped the chips without too much trouble, but when I hooked everything back up and turned my System III back on, I got no signal. Just static on the TV. So I figured maybe I did something wrong, so I removed the donor RA-3-9600 and re-inserted the original one. Turned the unit back on and - static. I can see that the unit is getting power because the red power light on the System III is lit. At this point I figured that maybe this just wasn't my night so I reassembled my donor Intellivision, which was previously working just fine, hooked it back up and - nothing. Again, just static on the TV. I thought that perhaps maybe something is wrong with my RF cable, so I took the RF cable and hooked it up to yet another Intellivision, and that one outputs a signal just fine. So it's not a problem with my TV or RF setup, and I verified that all Intellivisions are set to channel 3 and so is my TV. I'm at a loss. What am I forgetting? How is it possible that I now have two Intellivisions that are not outputting a signal? What troubleshooting can I do? I'd appreciate any suggestions. I hate to think I've destroyed both of these units while trying to troubleshoot one of them! Thanks in advance.

This is a neat project! How are things looking on the Intellivision side of this project? I just ordered a Framemeister and RGB upgrades for my 2600 and NES, but what I really want is RGB output from my favorite console.

Man, somebody got LUCKY on this one. (And no, it wasn't me.) http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intellivision-Games-/271802879809?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f48b6cf41 Right place, right time, I guess.

Aw man where were you last month? I finally picked up a Sears Roulette of my own then, so I don't need one any more! It's very kind of you to do this!

Ooh there are actually I few games in there I don't have yet. Enter my name, please! And thank you!

I've always wondered how the manual and overlays were originally packaged in Activision games. Does the manual sit between the two flaps on the black insert box? Where do the overlays go? Can anyone who has opened a sealed Activision game answer this? Or better yet, is there an "unboxing" video out there somewhere?