Geose

I haven't retried the fix. I'm kind of spooked after breaking it the first time. I'm probably going to get the adapter tested before I attempt the mod again. I'm gonna go find someone with a 2 port to test it, some shop is bound to have one. I got Centipede, Joust, missile command, jungle hunt, Qix, and digdug, They're quite an upgrade from pacman.

Replacing the ram chips fixed it. This was all a pain, since i broke it the day before my new games came in. All i had before was Pacman, so breaking it right before i got 6 new games was a huge letdown.

I checked the other chips and that one is the only one with those pins shorted, the other 3 have a lower resistance than the top 4, but that could that they're just different brands. I don't know how to look for any other issues on the board, so i'm guess that's the problem. The VCS mod seemed simple, but i followed a different guide. I'm thinking that my adapter is just broken. I got it as "Untested" I guess I'll order some replacement ram chips and see what happens from there.

I took them out and the short went away. I put them all back in one at a time and U23, seems to be causing the short. That is the 3rd from the bottom. does this mean I fried that one in particular? Or is this part of a larger problem?

I have my Atari 5200 4 port model and i was messing around with it trying to do the vcs compatibility mod. I did the mod and it didn't seem to work. I went back and checked everything, nothing seemed to add up. The 5200 was still working at this point, and would play normal carts. I then kept on messing with it, trying different types of wires (I started with small solid core wire, then i switched it over to larger multi-core wire). Still not working with the adapter, I then figured out that the adapter might be broken, and I gave up on that mod. I then with the mod in place tried to reinstall the shield and reassemble the 5200. Now I'm not getting any video other than a black screen with static, and 4 of the ram chips are heating up. I then took out the mod in a panic to see if that would fix it, and it didn't. I'm pretty sure i shorted something, and I'm not sure what. the 4 ram chips are the only things that get hot (Pictured). The chips do not heat up if there is no cartridge installed. I've also messed around with the cartridge port and tried to remove excess solder. I have gone through the cartridge port and looked for shorts. None of the pins have continuity to each-other, other than the ground pins and pin 26. Pin 26 is connected to ground, I'm not sure if it is suppose to be. Ram chip model number: HM4816AP-4 I have a multi-meter and soldering iron. I can test anything you need me to. Spicy Ram Chips

Sorry for double posting. I got impatient and just used a 12v brick. For anyone who finds this it does work and the voltage tolerance is not in the switch box on the 4 port model. A 12volt brick works fine.

I have a 5200 4 port, and i'm making a switch box. At the end of the instructions it says to use an 11.5 volt brick and suggests stepping down a 12v to 11.5v. I'm not sure if this is needed. I don't know if the switch box added some type of voltage protection, the 2 port can run off of a 12v power supply and i know that with the switch box the 4port can too.