Stargate Mandatory Replacements?

cpyne

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Hi,

I'm in the process of restoring a Stargate. It seems to start up fine, but randomly will restart here and there. Before I get too deep into troubleshooting this issue, I'm wondering if there are any "mandatory" replacements that you should always do when starting out on a game of this age? I read the capacitors on the power supply should probably be replaced. Anything else on either the game itself or the monitor?

Thanks
Charlie
 
Well yes, you should re-build the power supply (some people like putting switchers on theirs, I don't) Re-cap the monitor, Replace the battery with a coin style (kit avail) Ram upgrade if you start having ram faults. There are a ton of docs on how to do this.

The normal stuff, clean fuse holders, re-flow header pins, look for bad/cold solder joints.

Extra stuff, buttons, leaf switches, and re-build the joystick.
 
The random restarts usually indicate power supply issues. That is always step one. If you are playing it, then the monitor is probably good enough for now.

The first thing to check is the voltages on the CPU board. This is normally done at the RAM chips.

Measure the voltage at the 4 corners of one of the RAM chips.
The voltages should be
Pin 1 = -5V,
Pin 8 = +12V
Pin 9 = +5V
Pin 16 = Ground
The pins are numbered starting in the upper left corner, going counter clockwise.
If any of them are low or are fluctuating more than 0.1 V you need to check your power supply.

If the power is good, then I would check the connectors. unplug and reseat the connectors from the power to each board and between the ROM board and the CPU and the I/O board and the CPU board. Especially check the connector from the transformer to the PS board for burnt connectors and header pins.

ken
 
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