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RAM Error and Picture Scrambled
Repair of: Stargate(Williams / Vid Kidz 1981)
Repair Type: PCB
Status: Broken
Contributed by: Arcadenut
Symptom:
Screen had no Sync and get a RAM error 1-2-5.
   
Solution:
Replaced bad RAM.  Still need to fix Sync Issue.

Diagnostic/Repair Steps

 
The following steps were taken to either diagnose or to repair the PCB/Part/Game: 
RAM Error!
10/18/2004 12:35:00 AM
Well, when you get a RAM error on a Williams PCB, one of two things is generally wrong (but it could be worse).
 
1. You have a bad power supply and the RAM chips are not getting +5V. This is pretty common, however, in this case, it's not an issue because I have a Switching Power supply in the game.
 
2. The RAM chip is acutaly bad.
 
The easiest way to make sure that it actually IS a bad RAM chip and not something like a bad power supply, defective socket, or something else is to swap the RAM chip with the one next to it.
 
If you look at the picture, you'll see that the RAM is in the upper right of the board (if the batteries are in the lower right). There are three rows of 8 chips. If you look at the ROM board, you should see the LED flash 3 numbers. In my case it flashed a 1 - 2 - 5.
 
The first number indicates the type of problem the board is having. In my case the 1 means a RAM error. The numbers following that indicate additional information. In the case of RAM errors, it indicates ROW number then CHIP number. So as you can see, it thinks I have a bad RAM chip in ROW 2, Chip #5.
 
So what I did, is I powered the game down and swapped Chip #5 with Chip #6 in Row 2. Then powered the game up. If the chip is really bad, the error code will follow the chip. In this case it did. The LED now read 1-2-6. Now just to make sure, I swapped #6 with #8. Sure enough, the LED then read 1-2-8.
 
I replaced the chip (4116 RAM) with a good one and the LED read 0, which means it didn't detect any errors.
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Parts Replaced

 
The following parts were replaced:
Part Name 
Part Location 
Original Part Number 
Price Paid 
Substitution Parts 
Reason For Replacement 
 
Expand4116 RAM1-2-54116$0.00 Defective
    Sum=$0.00  
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Other Repair Logs

 
These repair logs are related to this repair log.
Title 
Symptom 
Solution 
Status 
Bad Rug Pattern As you can see the Rug Pattern has what is basically a solid line through it. This is the first time I've ever seen the Rug Pattern look any different than what everyone is accustomed to seeing.

The real odd thing, is the LED reads 0 as if everything is ok. Maybe the RAM is good, but something else is not. (DUH!)

Broken
Double Image

Double images don't make the game twice as fun, unfortunately.

As you can see, the image displayed is doubled up. Not sure what the problem is yet, will have to research this issue.

Broken
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