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Atari XE130 faults


mjnurney

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you could ask Atarifreakz on ebay, they used to list them, or best in the US but minimum order, might not like the colour of your pants, the wind direction may be wrong etc etc.
I have read that you can make your own but never tried myself 
 

 

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On 10/4/2020 at 12:20 PM, mjnurney said:

That’s what I need, a proper ram tester.

I recommend the Syscheck, I had a 130XE with 44 out of 48 red blocks and my Syscheck V2.1 identified only 2 bad RAM chips.

The V2.1 also functions as an external OS chip(selecting from 4 different firmware), as replacement 64KB base RAM, and the V2.2 adds the ability to function as a memory expansion.

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On 10/6/2020 at 10:43 AM, shoestring said:

Mine is still far from perfect but what do ya expect for free :D . For instance it's accurate for partially bad ram, depending on where the fault is. Today I was testing some ram chips from an aux 80 col card for an Apple II, I knew one or more were bad..the built in Apple IIe diagnostic was giving me different results each time I powered up, its usually great for testing the RAM on the motherboard through.

 

After installing those two 4464s from the 80 col card into my XE, it was able to identify U9 as the culprit and did it consistently. When I swapped the two around in the XE it told me u10 was bad.

 

I wanted the ability to test 4464, 4164 ram chips easily. I also aimed at making something that would display a picture on the screen even with no RAM installed in the machine at all, as long as the vital components in the machine are OK... you should always see something.. even if the screen flickering like mad. 

 

Sys-check should be much more reliable because I believe it has it's own work ram on the cart.

 

 

Hi I’ve burnt the rom to a 27c128 but I get a red screen? Do I need to do anything special to burn the rom on a mini programmer?

 

ive burnt rev3 Atari rom - just to test it and it detects the extra ram but still cones up with red blocks. Bad ram.

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So after 2 passes by the diag rom, I’ve moved bank 0 into bank 1 and rerun the test which it passes again so all 128k is checked. 
 

just as a double check - Radeon ram check says it’s 128k and checks the ram too with no faults. 
 

I’ve put the original Rom back in and powered on to a nice blue screen with no errors.

load up stunt car racer 128k - error XE130 required!.

 

odd...

 

emmu bad ?

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After some more testing...erm playing. I think it’s working properly. The issues I have with some things not loading have disappeared when using the uno cart.

 

green beret loaded for the first time as did manic miner and jet set Willy and many more. I think the sd2sio (sdmax) has a few issues with some software titles. 

 

 

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Edited by mjnurney
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12 hours ago, mjnurney said:

So after 2 passes by the diag rom, I’ve moved bank 0 into bank 1 and rerun the test which it passes again so all 128k is checked. 
 

just as a double check - Radeon ram check says it’s 128k and checks the ram too with no faults. 
 

I’ve put the original Rom back in and powered on to a nice blue screen with no errors.

load up stunt car racer 128k - error XE130 required!.

 

odd...

 

emmu bad ?

I do plan on doing a 128kb version just for 130XEs to avoid having to switch the two banks around.

 

Shouldn't be too difficult. I just need to stop being lazy. Good to see you have it working now.

 

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A 130xe version would be helpful, perhaps if only one ram chip was bad it would be a big help in finding it. Fitting 16x sockets could be a real pain for most people and lead to damaged boards. 
 

I do like the socket being highlighted in your ROM. I had a bad chip in U16 but those were all new - old stock, I didn’t bother testing the original chips. 
 

great job with the ROM. 
 

thanks for all your help. I’m still finding my feet in the Atari world. I used an Xl back in the day very briefly but I didn’t know about the basic in rom issues and things don’t like cartridges being plugged in, some games don’t like the new XL/XE Rom and so on. Atari selling a machine with a ram check that can’t check the whole ram is kind of funny too.

 

But that’s what makes it all interesting.

 

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Yeah I can see that being a massive pain. Especially the earlier non socketed boards that used the 1bit DRAM chips.

 

I'm also kinda new, I grew up on Apple IIs, the c64 then the Amiga. The Amiga shares many things in common with the Atari 8 bit, so I like programming on these.

 

In regards to the built in ram diagnostic in the OS Rom, it's still pretty good. It can only verify 48k because 16kb of it is used up as work ram ( storing variables, setting up display ..etc ). Initially my diagnostic runs with the screen blanked out on purpose whilst checking the most critical area of memory, this is why you hear the most annoying sound for 10-15s.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well after initially thinking the Atari was fixed it continues to be a pain in the neck.

 

after half an hour of use, the screen rolls in a graphical mess with screeching audio. 
 

somethings still refuse to load and occasionally the sdmax menu has graphic errors, blocks of @ signs on it in random places. A power off sometimes fixes the issue but not always and it still sometimes boots to the Ram test screen but all my ram passes in various test programs.

 

I have just fitted the 1mb ram upgrade and I have a new EMMU, the EMMU makes no difference at all but the 1mb ram upgrade is fun to play with.

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