Console jumping to F18A title page and locking up

[aftyde]

Hey All,

 

I have an intermittent problem - I'll be using a cart based program and all of a sudden the screen blanks and I'm at the F18 V1.6 Title Screen with Tursi's name on it. Is my F18 failing?

 

Cheers, Arthur...

[Tursi]

I suspect it's not my name on it... it should look like this:

 

 

( assuming 1.8 ). Matt is not Tursi, Matt is Matt. Anything Tursi puts his name on that he actually got a say in says Tursi, so it's easy.

 

Something's triggering the reset line in your console if the F18A is going back to the splash screen - that indicates a reload of the bitstream from EEPROM. Failing power supply maybe?

Edited October 8, 2016 by Tursi

[Tursi]

(Ah, you said 1.6, so it'll look a little different... either way... the F18A is resetting and the rest of the system is locking up, since it's not sending any data to initialize the VDP).

[aftyde]

hahahaha - OK, I have some extra power supplies (both internal and external - I'll swap them out at the next opportunity). I did slap the top of the computer with my hand - and that seems to have temporarily fixed the problem.

[matthew180]

Ah yes, the cure-all miracle slap. :-)

 

The V1.8 firmware updated the screen to what Tursi posted above. Previously it was a "green screen", i.e. black background with green text. If you see that screen it means the F18A is powered up and working, but the host system has not sent any commands to the VDP. So your system is in reset (but the F18A is not being held in reset or the screen would be blank), or some part of the host system is not working.