davekre

Now that you point out the notch as the orientation indicator it seems obvious. But it wasn't to a novice like me so THANKS. I tested it - very worried about whether my soldering job would work... and it did!!! I now have a working XE game system!! I am super excited and very grateful for your help. The advice about it being a problem with the OS chip was right on! Once that was replaced it works very well - with nice crisp graphics and clear sound. The keyboard when plugged in enables BASIC. So it seems to be working perfectly! The suggestion to cut the pins on the bad chip was good advice to help avoid damaging the board itself when desoldering. I had all sorts of issues desoldering it so I'm glad I could work on one part at a time and ease it out piece by piece. I am really appreciative for all of your help and especially to Nezgar for the replacement OS chip at such a reasonable price! Thanks, David

So I was able to remove the old chip and solder in the new socket. I want to test it but I am not sure which way to put the new chip I got from Nezgar in. I am concerned if I put it in "backwards" it could damage something - the chip itself or other parts of the computer. Can anyone tell me, looking at the attached pictures, which is the right way to insert the new chip. And if it doesn't matter - let me know as well. David

Thanks for your help! So it seem like from what you and Stickjock are saying the OS chip is likely bad. In the attached picture I believe that is the chip labeled AMI 8727MAA. Is that correct? I pressed "option" on startup and did get 48 RAM blocks. You are correct that the chip is soldered to the board. I do not do a lot of soldering but would be willing to try with a new chip. How do I arrange to get the replacement chip and socket and what is the approximate cost? David

I recently bought an Atari XE game system. When I turn it on it goes right into self test. The result of the self-test is that the ROM 'slot' on the left side of the screen is green (good) but the ROM 'slot' on the right is bad (red). All of the RAM blocks show up as good (though interestingly only 40 blocks show up whereas I think it should have 48K of RAM?). I get this same result every time I turn it on or reset it. I have tried starting the computer while holding 'Select' and the exact same thing happens. I am confident the power supply is good. I am actually using a 5V power supply for an Atari 800XL I have and it works for the XL just fine. I took the motherboard out of the case and can see no obvious damage (I am not an electronics or computer person by training however). I booted the computer while out of the case and it still goes right to self test. I tried numerous games and none worked except one (see next paragraph). I know the games are good because they work on my XL. The one game that does work is Star Raiders. I saw something online about how this has some special testing (?) component but I do not understand the implication of this. Can someone explain this to me? I have the keyboard piece and it seems to work as I can use it to do various things when playing Star Raiders. But pressing the 'Help' button on the keyboard during the self test does nothing. The XE boots exactly the same (to the self test) with or without the keyboard attached. I've left the computer on for maybe 15 minutes as it repeatedly goes through the self test and some of the chips get warm but not particularly hot. Can anyone help me get this to boot correctly? I would love to get this working! Thanks, David K

I'm interested in buying a screen. Hopefully the install will be straight-forward. Thanks for doing this. David