Atari XEGS repair
28 March 2021
"Black screen fix" biscuit
5 May 2021
Do you also have on 1 or both dsplay lines and / or glitches of various kinds? The culprit as you may already know having googled the problem is in the flat connector of the LED displays, one for each eye, equipped with an ancient glue anchoring system (like the first DMG game boy I suppose)! After reading various methods with more or less obvious risks (putting in the oven, soldering the terminal directly with flux, etc.) I wanted to experiment with a safer technique even if perhaps not permanent and definitive: the iron!
Fortunately the console is quite easy to open, just remove the plastic + neoprene cover (it connects / detaches by interlocking), the 6 screws for the connection of the pedestal (purple in the photo) and the 6 screws of the closure of the lower part with the upper (red in the photo - remember that for all 12 you need a "gamebit" type screwdriver with a large diameter (4.5mm) with a metal shaft outside the handle LONG AT LEAST 7.5-8 cm otherwise you won’t reach the deepest screws 🙁
Reconnect the displays and screw them back in place and test before closing the body (remember that you need to insert a cartridge to see something on the screen): if before you had lines and / or glitches, now there should be no more (I had frightening glitches on a display and lines like those in the photo above on the other and I solved it totally).
As I said, the solution may not be definitive (maybe in 5, 10 or 20 years it will come back) but rearranging it takes a maximum of 45 minutes and is pretty safe.
