This was an unusual fix using a technique I learned about only recently.
Problem:
My Outzone board had a sprite problem. Bits of sprites were being drawn all over the screen making a complete mess. Everything else was working fine. Flexing the board either made the problem worse or sometimes the problem went away completely. Clearly there was a bad connection somewhere.
Solution:
I tried reseating the ROMs. No Change. I suspected some of the legs on one of the surface mounted chips had come loose. They looked fine to the naked eye but I know that its often impossible to spot loose legs on surface mounts. I took a needle and applied gentle pressure to the side of each leg on the surface mounts. I found 3 legs which wobbled slightly on the surface mount marked FCU-2. I resoldered these legs (which was tricky) and the sprites were then displaying fine but I could still see some problems when I flexed the board. The loose legs were all in the same area so I resoldered the neighbouring legs too. The board was then working 100% even when flexed.
Problem:
My Outzone board had a sprite problem. Bits of sprites were being drawn all over the screen making a complete mess. Everything else was working fine. Flexing the board either made the problem worse or sometimes the problem went away completely. Clearly there was a bad connection somewhere.
Solution:
I tried reseating the ROMs. No Change. I suspected some of the legs on one of the surface mounted chips had come loose. They looked fine to the naked eye but I know that its often impossible to spot loose legs on surface mounts. I took a needle and applied gentle pressure to the side of each leg on the surface mounts. I found 3 legs which wobbled slightly on the surface mount marked FCU-2. I resoldered these legs (which was tricky) and the sprites were then displaying fine but I could still see some problems when I flexed the board. The loose legs were all in the same area so I resoldered the neighbouring legs too. The board was then working 100% even when flexed.
