Atari2600Lives Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 (edited) I tried the search results but had trouble finding this issue. Lately when I play Kaboom the green background of the game suddenly goes red, this happens randomly and sometimes stays and sometimes shutting the unit on or off several times or flicking the color siwtch to black and white several times clears the problem (then again the problem might just be going away randomly on its own as I try what I just mentioned). What is wrong with unit? Any ideas? Edited June 10, 2010 by Atari2600Lives Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JingleJoe Posted June 10, 2010 Share Posted June 10, 2010 Have a look inside, sometimes you can easily see that a component that is faulty. If not I'd think it's one of the chips. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.J. Franzman Posted June 11, 2010 Share Posted June 11, 2010 (edited) If that particular color is the only one that changes, I'd suspect the TIA chip. However, if all or nearly all the colors shift to some degree, it's more likely a bad chroma adjustment pot. Do you experience any color changes in any other games when you play them for the same amount of time? Another possibility is bad RAM, if the game happens to store that color in RAM (I don't think Kaboom does that though). Edited June 11, 2010 by A.J. Franzman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spirantho Posted July 28, 2010 Share Posted July 28, 2010 My H6er has the same problem. I think I tried replacing the chips, no difference. Sometimes it changes quickly, sometimes after a long time. I think it's one of the capacitors, probably.. that's what I'm going to try replacing next, anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari2600Lives Posted July 28, 2010 Author Share Posted July 28, 2010 My H6er has the same problem. I think I tried replacing the chips, no difference. Sometimes it changes quickly, sometimes after a long time. I think it's one of the capacitors, probably.. that's what I'm going to try replacing next, anyway. Spiranthos let me know how that goes, you could be saving me a lot of trouble and time if it works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.J. Franzman Posted July 29, 2010 Share Posted July 29, 2010 Have you tried twaeking the adjustment pot yet? I can't think of any way that a bad capacitor would cause the symptom you described. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spirantho Posted July 29, 2010 Share Posted July 29, 2010 (edited) Have you tried twaeking the adjustment pot yet? I can't think of any way that a bad capacitor would cause the symptom you described. I've tried all sorts of things. Even changing all the chips. I think I may have changed the regulator too but I'm not sure. You can actually see the effect if you watch my Quadrun video, incidentally (the one on YouTube), I did that on the H6er. From memory I tried changing all the ICs I could, as like you I suspected the TIA at first, and it still happened, so it must be something else, and capacitors are the usual suspects.... Edit: The video is at and the colour shift happens at 5:43. Edited July 29, 2010 by Spirantho Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.J. Franzman Posted July 30, 2010 Share Posted July 30, 2010 IMO Quadrun isn't exactly the best game for providing an example of a color shift. All I noticed was your score went from orangish to pinkish. On a PAL console, there are more factors that come into play, specifically there's an extra quartz crystal and associated transistor(s?) and capacitor(s?) which are only there for the PAL color signal generation. I would check or swap those parts if the adjustment pot seems to be OK. Unfortunately, if your unit's problem does turn out to lie in that area, the diagnosis doesn't help Atari2600Lives with his problem, as he's most likely got an NTSC console which doesn't have those parts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spirantho Posted July 30, 2010 Share Posted July 30, 2010 IMO Quadrun isn't exactly the best game for providing an example of a color shift. All I noticed was your score went from orangish to pinkish. On a PAL console, there are more factors that come into play, specifically there's an extra quartz crystal and associated transistor(s?) and capacitor(s?) which are only there for the PAL color signal generation. I would check or swap those parts if the adjustment pot seems to be OK. Unfortunately, if your unit's problem does turn out to lie in that area, the diagnosis doesn't help Atari2600Lives with his problem, as he's most likely got an NTSC console which doesn't have those parts. Who said my machine was PAL? It's an NTSC H6 just like his..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.J. Franzman Posted July 31, 2010 Share Posted July 31, 2010 Please forgive the assumption. I'm sure you understand it was based on your profile location info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spirantho Posted August 1, 2010 Share Posted August 1, 2010 Please forgive the assumption. I'm sure you understand it was based on your profile location info. I figured as much. But if it had been PAL the colour palette would have been completely wrong on my Quadrun (which is NTSC only) video I'm about to have a hack at my H6er now, I'll let anyone know if I find out anything... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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