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C64 Blackscreen

Posted: Mon May 15, 2017 3:15 pm
by BooX_X
Some days ago I started my C64 and it ran just fine. Some time later I decided to change to my color display. After that I got a screen full of colorful garbage, so I started it again and it just displayed a black screen (or white, depending on the screen brightness). I measured the power supply and it's all right. I think it's probably the PLA chip, because I read that problems like this often point towards a bad one, but I'm not sure. Is there a way to test the PLA chip or could it possibly be something else?

Re: C64 Blackscreen

Posted: Fri May 19, 2017 1:35 am
by eslapion
The black screen of death can be caused by all sorts of things. DRAM damage is often caused by faulty PSUs, the original Commdore PLA heats a lot so it fails often but I've even once seen a SID which was choking the databus.

Faulty kernal or BASIC ROM chips can cause it too.

Re: C64 Blackscreen

Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2021 3:20 pm
by Lenkapo
Are there any chips that run particularly hot? If so they are mostly faulty. This doesn't include the VIC II or the SID they run hot because they use additional 12V (At least on the "long boards"). Which revision of Commodore 64 is it?