ziggaboogi

So final update. I was able to get a new CPU and ram card. Turns out only the ram card was bad but now I finally have a working 400! Thanks again for all the help.

So update, I received a copy of Star Raiders but it's still only showing a black screen. As I've rearranged the ram chips, does that mean I should just bite the bullet and order a new CPU board from Best Electronics?

So I swapped around both the pokey and the gtia between the two and found no issues when booting up the 5200. But the symptoms didn't change on the 400. I've put in an order for a copy of star raiders so I can update in a few days once it shows up.

Unfortunately I don't have another 400 to swap parts for. I did see that best electronic was selling replacement daughter boards but just wanted some way to confirm if either the CPU board or the ram board is faulty before ordering replacements. I know they also sell specific chips for the 400 so narrowing it down even more would be ideal, although more difficult. I recall that the 5200 should have a compatible pokey chip, so are there any compatible gtia chips from the 5200 or 7800? As I do have working versions of those consoles. It also sounds like finding a copy of star raiders would also be a way to narrow down the issue a little.

Hello, I'm hoping someone may have an idea on what I can check next on an Atari 400 that was recently gifted to me from a friend. Here is the current rundown after some testing -booting up the first time it was successfully able to get to memopad with no catridge inserted and was able to type a few characters, but then it blanked out and now only shows a black screen when powered on -I have tried reseating every single chip, and tried cleaning every leg on the chips and the daughter board connectors -I've verified that the voltages coming from the powerboard are fine and are nice and steady Currently the only things I have for this are a cartridge of Defender and a 410 with no tapes. I'm hoping that someone could help me figure out what I should check next.

Yeah the other one most likely needs a new cord. I'll get around to it but it's not as urgent seeing as I'd have to convince a second person to actually play the jag just to need it lol.

It was mostly a product of laziness and convenience. I didn't realize the solder wick I had was really poor quality which did not help at all when trying to remove the original chips. Because of that I just opted to cut off the original chips, bend the pins on the replacements and install from the bottom. You can imagine my surprise when somehow I managed to recreate the exact same symptoms of the up/*/0/# buttons not working, which caused me to rule out the initial chip installation as the cause. Anyways, I went out and got proper wick and a second set of replacement chips, got all the first replacement chips and the original pins removed, installed the new chips, reconnected any traces that came off during the process, and here we are with a working pro controller! So like my old boss always said "the lazy one always has to work twice."

SUCCESS! So it turns out that after everything it was in fact the ICs, it turns out when I did my janky install I managed to make it somehow miss the one trace that controlled the Up button group. So now I got a set of new chips, installed it properly and left it connected for over two hours and it still works great on AvP, Zool 2 and hoverstrike! So for any future reference, try replacing the 74HC04 and 74HC14 chips if you have weird controller behavior like I did. Total cost of the project: $30 for controller and parts, several hours, part of my dignity.

Yeah basically what Stephen said. The chips were 74HC04 and 74HC14. I was able to source some very similar ones although with slightly different suffixes. At this point I'm going to do a bit more testing and try to see if I can source the original/better replacement chips and replacement cable cords from Best Electronics. I'll report back in a few days.

Okay so I managed to find a copy of Zool 2 today and tested the controllers out on the second port. 3 button controller: sames issues as when plugged into first port - up button only works when the connector is pushed down while connected to port 6 button: up button is not responsive at all Is it fair to rule out the ports themselves if the controllers behave the same on both? This is probably the first time I've ever used the second port. For the 3 button controller is the issue that a pin is out of alignment or something or would it be advised to try swapping out the cable itself? Same with the cable on the 6 button?

Thanks, the reason why I'm so intent on trying to fix it is that I got it for $20 from a retro game store that didn't know about the pro controllers, so they sold it as a regular controller. Obviously I can't just return it and ask for a replacement and $20 is still worth it even for a broken pro controller. As for updates, now I'm having similar but slightly different issues with my 3 button controller as well. I need to press the connector on the port down for it to register the up button and the three number buttons, while the pro controller's up button does not respond at all same as before. So now I'm even more confused if this is an issue with the pro controller, the controller port or both controllers (this one being the least likely.) Does anyone have a good suggestion for a multiplayer game that uses most of the buttons so I can do more testing with the second controller port as well? Attached are some pics of the boards on the pro controller. Some notes about the pics are that D11, and the two ICs are on the opposite side of the board from when I did a janky install. However these have not affected the rest of the controller buttons and it continues to show the same symptoms. At this point I'm debating if it would be worth trying to get a pcb from a regular 3 button controller and just rigging it up into the shell of the pro controller and wiring up the extra buttons accordingly.

Okay so some updates on the repair, I've done the following, 1. replaced both ICs on the board - this time the up button and the bottom row of the numkey is comepletely unresponsive - all other buttons work fine 2. swapped out controller cord with working one from a 3 button controller - no change 3. double checked that all traces had continuity for the up/3 button line At this point the only thing left would be to replace the two disk capacitors on the board. Would anyone happen to know the specs of them or have the schematic for this controller?

So it turns out the *, 0, and the # buttons do not work and I did not notice it as on AvP they aren't used but they are on Hoverstrike. Which of the two chips is the buffer chip? I actually got replacements for both so am ready to try swapping out the buffer chip.

I've already tested out the port with my regular 3 button controller, left it connected for an hour and no issues with any of the buttons - so ruling the port out for now.