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/vr/ - Retro Games

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8995272 No.8995272 [Reply] [Original]

My beloved Commodore 64 Breadbin's video chip is probably dead / dying judging from the troubleshooting guides I've read, and after having replaced several other chips without fully resolving the problem. Problem is I'm an American and the NTSC VIC-II chips are about 3 to 4 times more expensive than the PAL equivalents. Should I drop $80 on a replacement video chip that could end up dying in a few years, or hold out for the Kawari FPGA replacement chip? That thing will last pretty much forever and comes with some nice additional video out options, but will probably be much more expensive, and there's not even a ballpark estimate on when it'll be for sale because it's still in beta.

Should I just bite the bullet, order a replacement old stock chip and hope that by the time it fails the Kawari is out, or should I just box the old girl up and wait? I really don't want to wait that long, but the only real third option is to buy an Ultimate 64 board which will be many times more expensive, and if I built an Ultimate 64 I'd want it to be in a brand new case with a new mechanical keyboard and all that nice stuff. I just want to rehab my breadbin, especially with all the work I've already done on the board over the years.

>> No.8995296 [DELETED] 

>>8995272
1. You'd be better served asking on Lemon64 than here and 2. You write like a woman

Also, you did heat sink it and are not still using the original power brick, right?

>> No.8995305 [DELETED] 

>oi... cough cough... me... commie...

>> No.8995347

>>8995296
Yeah, all my stuff has heatsinks and I am using a rebuilt PSU with all new internals.

>> No.8995402 [DELETED] 

>>8995296
Fuck face

>> No.8995420

OP's symptoms are too vague to be very useful (what exactly is happening to lead him to believe he had a bad VIC-II?). I do agree that Lemon64 would be a better place to ask than here.

>> No.8995431

>>8995272
>Should I drop $80 on a replacement video chip that could end up dying in a few years, or hold out for the Kawari FPGA replacement chip?

That effectively makes your c64 into a cyborg. Might as well get one of those commodore 64 Linux environments and run it off a pi

>> No.8995470

>>8995431
If they did an exact circuit level recreation of the VIC-II then no.

>That thing will last pretty much forever and comes with some nice additional video out options
That however makes me unnerved. They'd better not have included HDMI or anything but the original composite/S-video because that would be extremely wrong and gay.

>> No.8995519

>>8995420
the problem could be something as simple as the VIC being loose in its socket and needing to be reseated.

>and after having replaced several other chips without fully resolving the problem.
or perhaps he fucked something up while doing these repair attempts

>> No.8995726 [DELETED] 

>>8995296
>You write like a redditard
ftfym

>> No.8995730

Are there any good resource sites which tell me what should I do if I want to start up C64 which wasn't used for at least 10-15 years?

>> No.8996176

>>8995730
Lemon64. Also I remember a guy on here who claimed to have fucked up his C64 because he had a damaged video cable and shorted something (?) Is OP the same guy? It had better not be.

>> No.8996426 [DELETED] 

>>8995726
Yes that too.

>> No.8996534

Me, I'd prefer a C64C or C128 as they're much more reliable than breadbins.

>> No.8996649

>>8995272
The fpga should allow running pal and ntsc. An nos chip could still malfunction a few months later. Just play amiga until the Kawari comes out.
The c65 looked pretty cool but I was shocked at the price.

>>8995470
It might be just too hard to get a sid and vic 2 soon so better than nothing, HDMI is very lame for retro. If its good I don't mind but stuff like pi storm has big incompatibilities. I feel better at least if the mod just has one job instead of just emulating the whole thing. Its getting to the point where stuff like at games consoles are now retro and they feel retro even if its just software emulation.

>> No.8996693

VIC-IIs can sometimes get hot and glitch out. I've heard of people putting freeze spray on them to cool them off which gets the chip working again for a while.

>> No.8996968

>>8995272
earlier C64 board revisions from 1982-83 are not so reliable

>> No.8997147

>>8995431
Kawari is uses an FPGA, not emulation.

>> No.8997161

>>8997147
FPGA is emulation for all practical purposes unless you decap the chip and recreate it at the circuit level.

>> No.8997197

>>8997161
That would be an ASIC not an FPGA

>> No.8997596

>>8997161
not really

>> No.8998156

Reseat all socketed chips.

>> No.8998203 [DELETED] 

This is really more of a reddit kind of question.
Do you honestly think the troglodytes who spend 30 hours a day here have limpwristed slapfights about lcds vs crts vs shaders are going to understand how to fix a 40 year old computer?

>> No.8998382 [DELETED] 
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8998382

>>8998203
>>8995296

>> No.9000140

>>8998203
that's what i told them

>> No.9000142

A bad chip should be hot to the touch (I think anyway). Like scalding hot.

>> No.9000149

>>8995272
do both

more importantly i think you should poke around with a multimeter and look for fuckups within your unit

maybe there is a reason shit failed
like my arcade boards where the sound is "bad" there is usually a culprit - damaged trace bad caps etc

>> No.9000157

>>9000149
VIC-IIs do get rather hot as part of their normal operating characteristics but he did heat sink it (supposedly) and there may well be other problems like bad traces or a chip loose in the socket.

>> No.9000164

>>9000157
one bad cap or rectifier could cause intermittent voltage spikes and damage over the course of a few weeks

im autistic about powersoaking though

>> No.9000176

the most likely cause of a bad VIC-II is one of the internal bonding wires breaking from thermal stress because the chip naturally runs hot and the heating and cooling from being powered on and off could eventually cause one of those to fail. the idea of heat sinking the chip is to reduce the amount of thermal expansion and contraction on it between power cycles.

>> No.9000186

i should add C64Cs are much more reliable for this reason. they use modernized HMOS chips which run a lot cooler and have less thermal stress on them than the original NMOS ones.

>> No.9000215

>>9000176
SIDs seem more likely to fail in my experience and because they're more easily damaged from doing dumb shit like plugging the A/V cable directly into a stereo amp. However it's usually not the chip die itself but the analog filters that get zapped.

>> No.9000431 [DELETED] 

>>8995272
>Should I drop $80 on a replacement video chip that could end up dying in a few years
yes
>or hold out for the Kawari FPGA replacement chip?
get a real vic chip

>>8995347
>Yeah, all my stuff has heatsinks
c64 doesn't need heatsinks. they do nothing to prolong life of chips that are 4 decades old. the only commodore machine that actually benefited from heatsinks was the plus/4 line. the ted chip is well known for cooking itself. if you put heatsinks on every chip in a c64 then you are a brain damaged monkey.

>>8996176
lemon64 is an appalling resource full of compulsive lying morons and idiots that know less about the c64 that /vr/'s resident failures of society.

>> No.9000435

>>8995272
>Should I drop $80 on a replacement video chip that could end up dying in a few years
yes
>or hold out for the Kawari FPGA replacement chip?
get a real vic chip

>>8995347
>Yeah, all my stuff has heatsinks
c64 doesn't need heatsinks. they do nothing to prolong life of chips that are 4 decades old. the only commodore machine that actually benefited from heatsinks was the plus/4 line. the ted chip is well known for cooking itself. if you put heatsinks on every chip in a c64 then you are a brain damaged monkey.

>>8996176
lemon64 is an appalling resource full of compulsive lying morons and idiots that know less about the c64 than /vr/'s resident failures of society.

>> No.9000537

The TED had problems because it was one of the first HMOS chips Commodore did and they had trouble getting it to work (the PLA was failure-prone for same reason). I've also heard that the Plus/4's case was really bad from a thermal standpoint as it lacked any vent holes to allow air to circulate through the case and keep the PCB from overheating.

>> No.9000765

>>8996693
>I've heard of people putting freeze spray on them to cool them off which gets the chip working again for a while.

That's from the C128 development story. The guy developing CP/M could achieve an hour of work per ice cube put on the chips.

>>8996968
If any of them are still working today, 40 years after release, then you don't have to worry about them not being reliable.

>> No.9000773

>>9000215
>doing dumb shit like plugging the A/V cable directly into a stereo amp.

wait what? Could you elaborate on this?
How would I go about connecting my C64 to my amplifier with this in mind?

>> No.9000903

>>9000765
the VDU chip in C128 was HMOS and they had problems with prototypes self-destructing. the initial 2-3 batches of them made had a 70% defect rate.

>> No.9000940

>>9000903
They had more than just that one problem with the C128. Apparently the texan chip developers thought that their chip does not need an interrupt pin because you can just call the chip any time you want to ask if it's done yet or not. Like, you don't need a ringer on the telephone because you can just sit there and pick it up any time you want to check if there's a call.

It's a really good story by the way, and a great read.
http://home.datacomm.ch/fmeyer/c64/c128_story.html

>Our story opens as Rev 0 of the chip.... (whats that..... doesn't work.... OK,) Our story opens as Rev 1 of the chip makes its debut and ......(pardon me a moment.....) Our story opens as Rev 2 of the chip makes it debut.....

>> No.9000948

C128s are remarkably reliable though considering what a spaghetti mess the architecture is.

>> No.9000965

i agree the C64C is less failure-prone than breadbins but not as common in NTSC form

>> No.9001057

>>9000940
That killed the Sega CD. There was no fucking IRQ line which made interfacing it with the Mega Drive a major PITA.

>> No.9001594

>>9000215
SID and the CIAs mostly because they're easily exposed to ESD or other damage from doing retarded stuff.

>> No.9001713

>>9000903
>>9000537
MOS was still using barbaric outdated 1970s processes at their fab. Most semiconductor fabs had transitioned to HMOS in the late 70s and didn't take three years of defective chips to figure it out.

>> No.9001813

>>9000157
Keep in mind I have only owned this unit for 5 years or so. It's not my childhood unit and I know at some point before I acquired it, someone had been using it without a heatsink and with the shitty old PSU.

>> No.9001885

>>8997147
May as well just use a MiSTer at that point

>> No.9001898

>>9001885
I want to use my C64 though, not a hacked together shitbox in a 3d printed case.

>> No.9002465

>>8995272
>should i ask strangers on the internet if i should buy something i can't buy?
Sounds like a brilliant idea

>>8997147
>>8997197
You're both doing a very poor job of emulating grownups. You will immediately cease and not continue to access the site if you are under the age of 18.

>> No.9002878

ITT: The assembly language LARPer strikes again

>> No.9003010

we still haven't substantiated exactly what the problem with OP's computer is, so...

>> No.9003252

Bad RAM chip? Sometimes that can produce garbled graphics that can be mistaken for a VIC-II problem.

>> No.9003541

>>9003252
maybe the color RAM?

>> No.9004437

>>9003541
could be

>> No.9004846

A heat sink is definitely a good idea, Bil Herd said it wasn't heat that kills chips in of itself (a VIC-II has a 6 micrometer die, that's quite large and can take a rather high operating temperature) but thermal expansion/contraction from being power cycled. The heat sink reduces this expansion/contraction and prevents internal failure of the chip due to stress fractures.

>> No.9006342

>>8996649
>The fpga should allow running pal and ntsc
seriously though if they have this thing output HDMI i'm going to break something

>> No.9007065

>>9004846
The chip die itself is made primarily of silicon and aluminum which can take high temperatures, what's more likely to fail are the bonding wires as those are gold and have a lower melting point.

>> No.9007082

>>9007065
you sure? I thought aluminum had a lower melting point than gold but it's been a while so i don't remember high school science that well.

>> No.9007093

>>9007082
Aluminum melts at 1200F gold at 1900F. By the 2000s semiconductor manufacturing had to switch to copper interconnects as dies were getting ever smaller and aluminum was unsuitable due to electromigration issues. Production ICs did not begin using copper interconnects until 2003 so literally everything on /vr/ used the older aluminum ones, even the chips in 6th gen consoles.

>> No.9007107

the VIC-II used a 6 μm process. that's a big die by modern standards--if you looked at it with a magnifying glass you could make out individual details. by the time they began using copper interconnects chips were being made in 90 micrometer which is the maximum limit aluminum is still viable.

>> No.9007116

>>9007107
I think the VIC used 5 μm.

>> No.9007721

>>9002878
got any other /vr/ boogeymen?

>> No.9008480

>>9007065
If your chip is getting hot enough to melt gold, or even aluminum, no heat sink is gonna save it bucko.

>> No.9008504

figured it might be worth asking this here:
where in the god damn can i acquire the c64 maxi for a reasonable price if at all?
i know it's not original hardware, but as evidenced by this thread, 40 years just makes things more difficult to maintain towards the end, and from the footage i've seen about the maxi, the product is very much enticing.

>> No.9008693

>>9008480
1. who is "bucko?"
2. no you don't need to get hot enough to melt something you just need to warm it enough to cause electron migration from molecules drifting out of place (re: the "jet fuel can't melt steel beams maymay")

>> No.9008897

>>9008504
C64Cs are much less likely to cause you problems than breadbins.

>> No.9008963

>>9008693
Bucko is the tard who was learning us all how it works because gold has a lower melting point than aluminum.

>> No.9008992

>>8995272
How much is a C64 nowadays?

>> No.9008998

>>9008992
in the Netherlands you can find plenty of them used or in classified ads for €30

>> No.9009157

As others have said a C64C or C128 is a better choice than a breadbin and a lot more reliable on average.

>> No.9009284

>>9008998
>€30
That price for a model with essential peripherals?
Fucking hell, stateside, a model goes for $100+ for one with a power supply, oh and don't forget
>Untested
For fuck sake, Billy Bob, test the damn thing before slapping it up online for over a hundred dollars you fucking shitbag.
It's not sealed, in-box, so there's no excuse for shit like that.
Oh, and good luck finding one locally.
>Captcha: MADH8
heh

>> No.9009293

>>9009284
"Essential peripherals" usually just means a joystick and Datasette.

>> No.9009306

>>9009293
In my mind, logically, I regard cords for power and video as objective essentials.
I've already got a joystick in my britches, so I couldn't care less about muh games

>> No.9009316

>>9009293
meaning in Europe where they just used C64 as a game console. in the US they'd be used as an actual computer so a disk drive, printer, modem, etc would be included in essential peripherals.

>> No.9009335

you can use a Mega Drive A/V cable for C64 but the plugs aren't in the same place so you will have to use a multimeter to find out where everything goes and label them properly

>> No.9009460

>>9009284
as well as most US C64s are older and less reliable breadbins

>> No.9009856

>>9009306
>stock C64 PSU
oh no what are you doing?

>> No.9010950

OP here, I ordered the chip a few days ago. My biggest fear is not actually that the new chip will fail, but if it turns out it was a RAM problem and not the video chip at all. I'll find out when it arrives, at least.

If it turns out that the system is still fucked after replacing the video chip, I'll do what I probably should have done before and play musical chairs with the RAM chips to see what might have gone wrong. The good news is that I socketed all of my RAM chips so I probably won't need a dead test cartridge, and I have a few more RAM chips left from when I initially repaired the system. I didn't replace all of the RAM chips IIRC so there could be an old one in there that's finally gone bad.

If it turns out I didn't need the VIC2 chip I'll just hang onto it in case I find another C64 that needs some love in the future, or sell it to come C64 friend who needs one.

>> No.9011617

>>9010950
RAM (meaning the main system RAM) doesn't usually fail on its own, most often due to a fucked PSU (unless it's Micron chips which are occasionally found in C64s--those are trash). The 2114 SRAM used for the color memory could perhaps also fail.

>> No.9012032

>>9011617
My C64 did have bad ram chips when I bought it, but like I said I can't remember if I replaced them. I think there are cracked traces in the RAM area too becuase sometimes I'd get glitches and freeze ups when the board got too warm. The solution I went with was to just stick a piece of plastic behind the board to keep it straight but it's entirely possible that all I really did was kick the failure can down the road.

Hypothetically, I would like to eventually bridge those broken traces, but actually identifying them by eye would be a huge pain in the ass which is why I've never actually tried. On the other hand I don't want to rebuild everything on a new PCB because that would be an absolute mountain of soldering to do with a whole host of new things that could go wrong, not to mention all the resistors and caps I'd have to hunt down and buy. That idea just seems like a nightmare to me so I'm not even entertaining it.

>> No.9012140

Bad RAM usually causes garbage characters and often at power on you get a RAM count less than the normal 38911 bytes.

>> No.9012529

>>9011617
those fucking Micron MT4264s that show up in a lot of mid-80s computers. they have a failure rate of 1 million.