STICH666 Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 Hey guys, I recently found a TI-99/4A in my Grandmother's basement and after cleaning and thoroughly letting it dry, it fired right up. I played about 2 minutes of Burger Time and everything went scrambled. I restarted the system to find the screen like this and no matter what I do it won't go back to normal. Any ideas? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Austin Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 Common issue related to heating as far as I'm aware and I had the same problem with one of my units. I was going to see if putting small heat sinks on some of the chips would help, but I ended up taking the system apart incorrectly and I ended up just tossing it. Not a huge deal, I ended up getting another unit that works fine for about ten bucks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UKRetrogamer Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 You may have better results asking your question in the Ti-99/4a section of the forums, here: http://atariage.com/forums/forum/119-ti-994a-programming/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STICH666 Posted December 2, 2014 Author Share Posted December 2, 2014 Common issue related to heating as far as I'm aware and I had the same problem with one of my units. I was going to see if putting small heat sinks on some of the chips would help, but I ended up taking the system apart incorrectly and I ended up just tossing it. Not a huge deal, I ended up getting another unit that works fine for about ten bucks. Hmm that would make sense. I noticed thermal paste on one of the chips and just figured there was plenty still on the heatsink, I'm gonna put on some Arctic Silver and see how it goes. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thej Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Adding Heat sinks is not the answer (unless an originally mounted one has come off..). It is far more likely that one of the video ram chips is failing. Once it warms up it stops functioning properly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 This kind of problem comes up from time to time. In almost all the cases, (I do not remember the exceptions if any) the solution has been the F18A. You can read a little bit about this device in my blog << HERE >>. It really is an amazing gadget. If you get one, after you hook it up, you'll probably say something like, "I'm glad it failed, otherwise I never would have gotten this amazing thing!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 You could also check the video RAM to see if one of those chips went (a common problem) or one I've also seen is that the system ROM has gone a bit corrupt--either one is easily fixed if you have good soldering skills and access to an EPROM burner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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