Defender Ram Failure can it be this easy?

gatordad

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 29, 2007
Messages
1,853
Reaction score
79
Location
Illinois
I was having intermittent issues with the famous ram failure on startup on my defender but it would allow you to play so no big deal right.

Till this past weekend would not play at all.

So I carefully pressed on both the top and bottom portion of each ram chip, I heard a creak on 2 or 3 of them and now it boots fine with no more failure message.

Hmmm can I really be that lucky?
 
It's not lucky, you just dislodged some of the corrosion on the legs of the RAM chips. If you want to be really lucky (and not have to do it before every party), pop the RAM chips one at a time and clean the legs and put them back. Just make sure the notches line up with all of the other chips (which is why you do it one chip at a time...:D).

ken
 
"slap, slap, slap" What the hell is wrong with you? "slap, slap, slap" :D

[derail]

Not to turn this into a big debate or anything, but while I'd never sincerely suggest converting a working classic into a MAME machine, there are a lot of benefits to running MAME over the old hardware. Questions of authenticity and legality aside, they are, in my experience, a lot easier to maintain, and easier to find replacement parts for if they do need repairing. Plus, while a lot of the folks on this board are super knowledgeable on the subject of repairing classics, there are probably a thousandfold more available resources on repairing PCs.

That said, I have a lot of respect for someone who collects, restores and repairs the classics in their original form. I've only got three cabinets, all JAMMA, one running MAME and the other two swapping out JAMMA boards as whimsy strikes me, and I enjoy maintaining, repairing, and upgrading them... I can imagine the same enjoyment applies to the classics.

[/derail]
 
Guess what happened again?
Ram failure on startup but allows you to play again.

Been wanting to do a multiwilliams, Now to dig out my jrok board and build a new control panel.

Multiwilliams here I come.

Anyone need Defender boards? It's probably a loose wire :)
 
PM me with a price + shipping to 77396. I'll see what's left in the hobby budget after the car gets fixed tomorrow.

ken
 
PM me with a price + shipping to 77396. I'll see what's left in the hobby budget after the car gets fixed tomorrow.

ken

I will try to pull the ram and clean em up this weekend and see what happens

I have no interest in doing a ram upgrade at all, with the jrok board itching to get installed

If your really interested LMK, I won't have any use for the origional boards after I jrok it.

I don't even know what to ask for them.
I know in the past these boards would easily reach 200+
I also realize they are not worth anywhere near that anymore maybe half that, fully working
I would guess shipping to TX would be about 15 or 20 bucks

Let me try to get it working 100 % by cleaning up the ram first, If I run out of time or can't get it stable I let the whole stack go for 80 shipped.
 
"slap, slap, slap" What the hell is wrong with you? "slap, slap, slap" :D

+1

Even I wouldnt do that and I've put plenty of classics to death in my time.

To the OP. If it works dont fix it. If it craps out again and you see it fit to replace sockets/RAM IC's replace the sockets as mentioned and install 6164's. Dont forget to do the voltage mod.

Matt
 
Well I pulled all the ram cleaned and reseated them

All systems go

I guess I can still play while I build a new cp for the eventual jrok treatment.
 
Back
Top Bottom