Astrocade screen rolling

[BassGuitari]

Hi all,

 

I just got another Bally system. It was advertised as working, and it does...mostly. Everything seems fine, but the picture rolls, like the vertical hold is off or something. Being the relatively fastidious Astrocade owner that I am (however, I was a fastidious Astrocade owner before, and my other one STILL died on me), I opened 'er up and A.) removed all the RF shielding (top AND bottom), B.) futzed with the RF unit a little...jiggling it a little, swapping out different cords, etc., to see if anything helped. So far, as you've probably surmised by now, no dice.

 

I figured I'd ask for advice on how/if this can be remedied, as long as I'm under the hood, before I send the seller a bitchy email.

 

(In case it's relevant, the first few times I started it up, I'd just get a black screen with static lines...it progressed to the rolling "normal" screen after a few Off/On switches.)

 

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer!

[STICH666]

Did you try messing with any pots? I'm not sure if the Astrocade has them.

[BassGuitari]

Did you try messing with any pots? I'm not sure if the Astrocade has them.

 

I looked for some, but I didn't see any. However, there is a little covered box behind/under the keypad, next to the RF box, that I noticed as I was putting everything away for the evening (too late/tired to work on it any more tonight). I think I'll open up my dead Bally tomorrow and see if I can get that little box open and see what's inside, instead of risking making my new one worse. I'm not expecting anything helpful, but who knows? (well, I'm sure there are several people that do...just not me. )

[holygrailvideogames.com]

Have you tried it on more than one TV? I have owned probably 50+ Astrocade's through the years. I never had one with a rolling screen.

[BassGuitari]

Have you tried it on more than one TV? I have owned probably 50+ Astrocade's through the years. I never had one with a rolling screen.

 

Well, that doesn't bode well for me, does it?

 

No, I've only tried it with one TV set. I'm 99% certain that the television isn't the problem, though; I've had probably a dozen different systems and computers hooked up to it in the last month, with no issues whatsoever (except for my TI-99 4/a, which would only work on Channel 4 for some reason...whatever, at least it works!).

 

I do have an older television with adjustable v-hold, though, that I may try with it. If I could at least sync it up with the Bally, that'd be good enough for me; it'd be out of sync with anything else, but then, I probably wouldn't use it for anything else anyway.

[BassGuitari]

Okay, I set up the Bally on an old 9" inch B/W and tweaked the vertical hold a little, and that seems to more or less cure the screen rolling problem.

 

But (there's always a "but", isn't there?)...

 

Now I'm noticing a line (probably a black line...but the television is B/W, so I dunno) that appears across the center of the screen after a few seconds. A few seconds after that, the system freezes.