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Commodore 64 Breadbin Orange screen of death

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 11:04 pm
by radron5809
Did anyone ever have a breadbin with long board just display solid orange screen when turned on? Looks like all chips are soldered except the sid, video, and 2 very small chips. Found a match on google from 2014, but never had a resolution. Tried other known good power supplies, tried removing the sid chip, no help. Just picked this one up today, along with 2 working units. Didn't start feeling chips yet to see if they warm up or not. PLA they say is a high risk failure chip. I know the other guy who had problem in 2014 did try another video chip and didn't help. Sucks that most the chips are soldered, both CIAs are soldered along with the CPU. Just hope someone else had solid orange screen and actually got to the bottom of it. Gonna get a Deadtest cartridge but don't know how far it'll get since it flashes the screen to look up what it thinks is faulty. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks. Ron

Re: Commodore 64 Breadbin Orange screen of death

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 11:22 pm
by eslapion
I've had that with board long and short board C64 with the PLA missing.

Re: Commodore 64 Breadbin Orange screen of death

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 2:31 am
by radron5809
Okay, an update on my orange screen breadbox commodore 64. Got deadtest cartridge, with it I get garbage on the screen, but it goes through the tests, I can hear it do the sound test at the end. I read in a forum that if the ROM or Character set, some cartridges will still work because they have their own character set or own boot ROM. I popped my battlezone cartridge in and it works, no garbage on screen or anything. Without cartridge just solid orange screen. Could this still be the PLA? I did also swap the two ls257 chips, somebody in another forum mentioned trying that to see if one is bad. Any ideas? I have attached a picture of deadtest cartridge running, never mind the screen refresh lines, but notice the garbage on the screen.
Image

Re: Commodore 64 Breadbin Orange screen of death

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 2:41 am
by radron5809
First time I tried the Battlezone cartridge it played the demo, had sound and movement. Tried the cartridge again and seems to lock up, won't play the demo, just sits at screen sitting in the tank. Also, can hit F1 to play game, but can't move / play, seems locked up. With Epyx fast load cartridge, get black screen. Some other cartridges still display solid orange screen, some display black screen.

Re: Commodore 64 Breadbin Orange screen of death

Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2018 2:56 pm
by eslapion
radron5809 wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 2:41 am First time I tried the Battlezone cartridge it played the demo, had sound and movement. Tried the cartridge again and seems to lock up, won't play the demo, just sits at screen sitting in the tank. Also, can hit F1 to play game, but can't move / play, seems locked up. With Epyx fast load cartridge, get black screen. Some other cartridges still display solid orange screen, some display black screen.
One of the CIAs controls VIC-II access lines VA14 and VA15 through PA0 and PA1.

Re: Commodore 64 Breadbin Orange screen of death

Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2018 11:56 pm
by radron5809
So, are you suspecting the PLA is the issue for the solid orange screen and CIA for the Battlezone displaying okay but can't do anything?

Re: Commodore 64 Breadbin Orange screen of death

Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2018 9:18 pm
by 486junkie
That's a possibility. My one breadbin C64 lost the RF modulator on account of leaked and dried up electrolytic capacitors. I have another one that works, but the video cable I made isn't working very well (close but no cigar).