duckodb

I bought one a few weeks ago from that same auction. It’s in the box and works and looks new.

I don’t understand why everybody thinks that RF/power box the 4 port uses is such a terrible thing? You plug the thing to your tv like you have to with any console then you forget about it, you don’t even have to reach back there and flip a tv/game switch like all the other Atari consoles you just turn the power on and bam the game comes on like a Nintendo or PS5 does. I personally prefer to keep all my old consoles original or it seems like it’s defeating the purpose. Seems easiest to have a 4 port 5200 and a 7800 then you can play all the Atari console games without modifying anything or using any adapters. I have a 65” Samsung 4K UHD tv and all my old consoles work fine on it unmodded. The main issue I see you having if you want a 4 port for 4 people to be able to play regularly is trying to keep that many controllers working for very long.

No more than these 5200s will ever get played I figured having 9 controllers working would end up outlasting me, 50s getting close. If they don’t last I’ll buy the new parts from Best or just buy more controllers off eBay like i did the ones I have and do the same thing again. Having barely played a 5200 back when they were new and just buying one in the past couple months and owning a 2600 and 7800 since back then I have to admit even though the 5200 controllers are basically junk, we all know they are or we wouldn’t be having this discussion, they do actually have the best feel to them in my hand of the 3 systems, the 7800 feeling the worst in my opinion. That being said though, ive still got the original controllers that came with my 2600 in 1980 and they’ve never been worked on in any way and neither have the 7800 ones. If only they could’ve made a 5200 controller with the 2600s longevity Atari would’ve really had something.

It’s sure not, ive got 2 that work perfect as long as the cable is bent over to the right where it comes out and held along the right side of the controller, ive got gorilla tape holding them in that position at the moment.

If your only getting the title screen when you put a game in and not getting past that to a preview of the game playing and giving the option to select one or two players and the difficulty level you haven’t gotten to a point where the controllers will work yet. Sometimes when the cartridges are dirty you get that title screen with different letters or numbers flashing for a few seconds then the Atari logo turns yellow and it freezes there. Try cleaning the game contacts with a qtip and alcohol. Still some of mine have to be wiggled around a certain way to work.

I’ve got 11 original controllers and 9 of them work of which 7 didn’t when I got them. I just took them apart and wiped everything with alcohol on a q-tip and ended up cutting out small squares of tin foil and putting a small dot of gorilla super glue on the trigger button dimples and glued the tin foil squares to them. Didn’t cost me anything since I had everything I used in the house already and they all work perfectly. So I’ve got 7 put away in a box with my 4 port and 2 out with my 2 port that actually gets used. 5200 controllers are a pain in the butt though.

I got the NES in early 86 and got a 7800 sometime in 88 i think from a friend of mine down the street that wanted an NES which by then I had 2 of so I traded him one that I bought off another friend down the street. After owning a NES and both Zelda games and Metroid when I hooked up the 7800 I thought well what’s the point in owning this. The couple of actual 7800 games I had , pole position II and Donkey Kong didn’t really make me wanna go out and buy more, plus I also had Donkey Kong on the NES already. I probably had 60 or 70 2600 games at that point so it was nice to be able to use it for them but my 2600 i got in 1980 worked fine, still does to this day actually, so to me the 7800 was pointless. I do still have it and it works though and over the years I’ve bought more games for it off eBay but really it’s just a collection thing, same with these dreadful 5200s I have now, whereas my old original NES from 86 is hooked up in my living room now and still gets played regularly.

Well the new RF switch and the chips from best electronics came today so first I tried the RF switch outta curiosity and that wasn’t the problem. I put the new CPU in and I had the console on for about an hour and a half and no freezing. It’s obviously fixed so now I have a working 2 port and 4 port. I guess I’ll put the nicer looking 4 port in a box on a shelf so it stays looking nice. I appreciate the help with fixing it.

I’ve got a Sunnyvale 4 port made in late 82 and a Taiwan 2 port made in January 84.

Yes that’s the other 2. The 2 port came today and I hooked up and and so far it actually works fine, it’s in rougher shape , scratched up and the controller compartment door hinges are broke but it hasn’t froze up or had any weird graphics or sound yet. Isn’t that a daisy lol?

Yep that’s the case here, I took it apart and they’re soldered. I did pull the chip outta the 5200 pretty easy though. I was gonna just buy the thing to begin with and the guy acted like he didn’t wanna sell it to me unless I knew for sure what the problem was plus it didn’t meet their minimum order amount. So he’s sending me a pokey and those other two bigger chips that look like the cpu i forget what they were called and a new power switch for my 7800, the old one has to be wiggled around sometimes . Actually all the 7800 switches even though the other 3 work fine. I figure I’ll try the cpu and if the problem persists I’ll put the other chips in one at a time and see what fixes it, if none to he suggested trying a ram chip in each slot one at a time and see if one of those is bad. Lucky these things are in sockets.

I just got off the phone with him and he said all the chips in the 5200 are tied together and an issue with any one of them sends a signal to the cpu to halt and causes that freeze up. So he told me he has them but to take the cpu out of my 7800 and put it in there and see if it fixes it, 5200 and 7800 have the exact same cpu he said. So I’m taking my 7800 apart now and may end up with a broke 7800 to go with the other one lol.

Yes that shield has already cut my finger once. When I had it apart I didn’t see the timing fix the guy in that video did but I’ll look closer next time. I emailed Best Electronics I saw they listed that chip on their website but I don’t see a simple add to cart button to buy it, i told them Synertek, no Rockwell.

Well that’s good this should be simple then.

Can you tell by looking at that picture i posted if it’s a socket?

Oh my nes only ever did that blinking red light when the cartridge was dirty, alcohol on a q-tip rubbed across it fixes that. I think twice I had it apart and cleaned the inside where the cartridge goes. I guess I’ll try to figure out where to get one of these Synertek CPUs you’re talking about and try to fix it. I guess you just turn the board over and use a soldering iron to remove the old one and solder the new one back in? I’ve never been good at soldering. The 2 ports supposed to be here tomorrow so hopefully it works but I’d still like to get the 4 working, im sure it’s in a lot better shape than the 2 . If the 2 won’t work it’s probably pointless to try to take the cpu out of it not knowing if that’s why it won’t work too. It would be nice if the new RF switch box fixes the 4 it should be here by the end of the week.

That’s what I figured, judging by the way this console and the games and everything looks they weren’t used or handled very much, and the fact that both joysticks work and knowing their history makes me think they weren’t used much. When this thing was bought new I bet early on it started giving trouble so they took it to a shop and had it looked at and either it never got fixed or so after it did this freezing issue started and they shelfed it and got something different. Say what you want to about 5200s that their issues are usually fixable and whatnot but I’ve still got my 2600 my parents bought me in 1980 and it got the crap played outta it till early 86 when I got a NES and still after that some and it’s never skipped a beat to this day, neither has my NES and I still have it hooked to my living room tv right now.

This is that service sticker.

I noticed after I posted those pictures mine says C104806 and all the other ones I’ve seen say C014806 . Does the 1 and 0 being reversed make a difference? Mine also has a round silver Atari service sticker on the back of it under the serial number. Is that something they all had or is it a sticker that may have been put on it in a shop that worked on it back in the day?

Well according to a video I found lower picture, mine in the upper picture is not one of the cpus in the serial number range of the timing problems but I assume it’s still a Rockwell since all the other numbers are the same but there’s no RC on mine so idk.

No all I’ve done is everything I posted, I don’t have voltage meters and all that and I just got this thing less than a week ago. I have bought a second 5200 and it’s a 2 port so maybe if it works ok I won’t mess with this 4 port if not maybe I’ll at least have parts for the 4 port, I didn’t pay hardly anything for the 2 port its the console only untested. Most likely it won’t work since these 5200s seem to be junk for the most part. Won’t know till it shows up though. It sounds like you had the exact same issue and I’d bet anything it’s the same problem.

It may play for ten minutes or 1 minute that varies each time. It usually slightly distorts the picture but you can still see the game, and plays the last sound it made while still playing normally solid, like an indefinite beep I guess you’d say. I took it apart and cleaned where the cartridge goes in and had the silver inside cover off and didn’t feel anything inside it getting hot, I pushed down on all the chips like somebody had said in one of these old threads and it’s still the same. The inside looks totally clean and I don’t see anything that’s looks burnt. I hope it’s just that 4 port RF switch box. This 5200 came from an estate sell with 8 boxed games and 2 controllers and it all looks practically new like it didn’t get used much but there was no power supply and no RF switch so I got both off eBay from separate people, they just said tested but as far as that goes I can turn the thing on and play it a minute and turn it off and say I tested it. Maybe they didn’t test that RF switch long enough to make it fail, idk. Both the controllers a fully functional too if that might make a difference but I can’t see where it would on the video part.

What was wrong with it? Mines doing the same thing.

I had pole position in there and when it froze I could still hear the car going it sounded like. I bought a new in the box RF switch this morning so I’ll see what that does. I don’t want to do that modification I’d prefer to keep it original if possible.

I looked for a topic on this issue and saw where somebody had the problem but never said what the solution was. My 5200 is 4 port with the original power supply and RF switch box, it powers on and everything works good but after a few minutes of gameplay, sometimes 30 seconds, the picture distorts, looks like when a Nintendo cartridge needs blown in when first turned on, and freezes with the sound still playing and I have to turn the power off and back on then it does the same thing again. Same results with every game. Both controllers function properly before this happens. Maybe RF switch box going bad? It’s hooked to a fairly new 42” flat screen tv.