Atari 65XE General Maintenance
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Preventive maintenance for the Atari 65XE. The cleaning, power-supply, connector, keyboard and colour-adjustment procedures are the same across the whole XE line and are set out in full on the Atari 130XE General Maintenance page. This page covers what is specific to the 65XE.
Figures come from Atari's field service manual for the XE line[1] and its parts list.[2]
Which board have you got
| Assembly | RAM | Atari figure | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| CO70025 | 8 × 4164 (64K × 1) at U9–U16 | 2-7 | The original board. C22 is not fitted |
| CA20097 | 8 × 4164 at U9–U16 | 2-9 | Atari labels this one "65XEN" |
| CA200519 / C103579-001 | 2 × 4464 (64K × 4) at U9 and U10 | 2-11 | Cost-reduced board, shared with the 800XE. Atari's own sheet is titled "65XE/800XE" |
The board matters for two things: the number of RAM devices you will be probing, and whether C22 exists. It changes nothing else.
Power supply
The 65XE takes +5 V DC from an external brick through a 7-pin DIN socket, J7 (Atari part C061838) — pins 1, 4 and 6 are +5 V, pins 3, 5 and 7 are ground, pin 2 is the shield.[1][2] It is not a barrel jack, and there is no rectifier, regulator or 7805 on the motherboard: those are inside the brick. Atari rates the brick's output at 5 V ±5 %, 1.5 A maximum, so 4.75–5.25 V is healthy.[1]
Measure the brick before connecting it, every time you bring an unknown machine into service, and if a brick has failed, test the computer for a short between pins 3 and 1 of J7 with the power switch on before fitting a replacement. Full procedure, including the brick's own internal schematic and capacitors, on Atari 130XE General Maintenance#Power supply.
Never fit a Commodore supply: the connector, the pin assignment and the output all differ.
Opening the machine
Four screws in the bottom cover; disconnect the keyboard cable and the LED connector; seven screws hold the shielded PCB; seven tabs hold the RF shields together.[1] Full sequence on Atari 130XE General Maintenance#Opening the machine.
Capacitors
Eleven electrolytics — ten on a CO70025 board, which does not carry C22. Complete list with values, ratings and Atari part numbers: Atari 65XE Capacitor Replacement Guide. Nothing on the board is larger than C1 at 470 µF.
Inspect C1, C2 and C3 behind the power switch first; they sit on the incoming rail and are the ones most likely to have weeped.
Self test
With no cartridge fitted, switch on and press HELP while the power-on logo is on screen. The menu offers MEMORY, AUDIO VISUAL, KEYBOARD and ALL TESTS; SELECT moves the bar, START runs the test, SYSTEM RESET exits.[1] Holding OPTION at power-on disconnects internal BASIC, and with no disk drive attached that also drops the machine into the self test.[1]
The memory test shows two long bars for the two 8K halves of ROM and three rows of sixteen one-kilobyte blocks for RAM: white while testing, light green for pass, red for fail. A 65XE has no extended memory, so there are no extra bank bars to look for.[1]
Do not leave a self-test screen up on a CRT. The self test deliberately does not enter attract mode and will burn the phosphor.[1]
Colour adjustment
The colour control is R38, a 500 kΩ preset (Atari C023030-04), reachable through a hole in the bottom cover without opening the machine.[2][1] Adjust it before suspecting GTIA for a colour fault.
Related pages
- Atari 65XE
- Atari 65XE Capacitor Replacement Guide
- Atari 65XE Troubleshooting Guide
- Atari 130XE General Maintenance
- Atari 800XE General Maintenance
- Recommended Tools
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Atari, 130XE Personal Computer Field Service Manual, Section 1 (power supply and connector pinouts), Section 2 figures 2-7, 2-9 and 2-11 (the three 65XE board assemblies), Section 4 (disassembly and colour adjustment). Hosted on this wiki: File:Atari 130XE Field Service Manual.pdf. Its Section 2 carries the 65XE schematics; the manual is titled for the 130XE but covers the 65XE, 800XE and XE Game System as well.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Atari (U.S.) Corp., 130XE Parts List, 25 June 1985. Hosted on this wiki: File:Atari 130XE Parts List and Production Test Instructions.pdf. Source of the connector, switch and colour-control part numbers, which are shared across the XE line.