Missile Command Troubleshooting

HMOON

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I'm working on a Missile Command and am having some issues with what iIbelieve to be the pcb.

I replaced the power switch that was shattered and restored power to find the monitor (G07) was dead as well. Replaced with a completely rebuilt chassis and started to focus on the AR board. This needed to be replaced because there were components missing. Now I measure 12V, 5V, and -5V on the Missile Command pcb and all voltages are correct. I am getting a blue screen on the monitor and the P1/P2 buttons are lit solid. The game doesn't react to coin switch or test mode.

Did I miss something , could this still be a power issue, or is this most likely a board problem? I will replace the Pokey, and CPU in the board tonight but just wanted to get some inputs to speed up troubleshooting.
 
im not 100% shure on this but iv seen it happen to a diffren game something like this and with the other game, the problem was the eeproms on the pcb, since the eeproms hold the games software. the guy had to burn new eeproms and it fixed the problem.

but again. im not shure if this would help any since it was for a diffrent pcb
 
Usually when I see problems with Missile Command, it ends up being the crappy chip sockets to the ROMs...
 
If the voltages are good, then it could be many things including bad sockets, bad address decoder, bad DRAM, bad fragistat, etc.

I do fix these if you find you need help.
 
Thanks guys. I usually stop troubleshooting when it comes to boards as I am not setup with the test equipment to test them.

Bit_slicer,

I think I would be interested in hearing what you have to offer as far as a repair goes. I will drop you a line and see if I can get some info from you.
 
You should give a try to re-seating the eproms before sending the board off. If it's just socket issues, that might make it work for a while. If so, you may still want to have someone swap the sockets, but at least you'll know the scope of the work needed.

Also, you might want to take the board out and have a good long look at it. When I got my MC cocktail, it was intermittent on working. When I took the board out, I found that it was banged up all to heck - there were pins that were bent over and hitting traces, there was a broken trace, etc. Basically, the back side had banged against stuff when being removed.

After going over the board under a magnifier and clipping all the bent over chip leads and repairing the one trace, it works fine.
 
Sage advice. Atari did a terrible job of trimming long leads on the solder side. Also, if the board features the big green Chicklets, they get bent sometimes and their leads tend to short out important traces. Replace those with axial-leaded 0.22uF ceramic caps. New sockets fix about 50% of problems on those boards, so that's usually the first things I replace.

You should give a try to re-seating the eproms before sending the board off. If it's just socket issues, that might make it work for a while. If so, you may still want to have someone swap the sockets, but at least you'll know the scope of the work needed.

Also, you might want to take the board out and have a good long look at it. When I got my MC cocktail, it was intermittent on working. When I took the board out, I found that it was banged up all to heck - there were pins that were bent over and hitting traces, there was a broken trace, etc. Basically, the back side had banged against stuff when being removed.

After going over the board under a magnifier and clipping all the bent over chip leads and repairing the one trace, it works fine.
 
Mhkohne,

Thanks for the advice. I have reseated all IC's in sockets, and have looked over the board pretty well and haven't found any broken traces. I have no problem replacing all the sockets, but just don't have the time right now. Hopefully I get a repair log to let me know what was wrong with the board when I get it back =).
 
Mhkohne,

Thanks for the advice. I have reseated all IC's in sockets, and have looked over the board pretty well and haven't found any broken traces. I have no problem replacing all the sockets, but just don't have the time right now. Hopefully I get a repair log to let me know what was wrong with the board when I get it back =).

It was definitely worth the attempt - now you KNOW it needs real attention.

Good luck!
 
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