Drat! No power! When I hit the power on button the monitor reacted and made a slight buzz sound but the power indicator on the C64 wouldn’t illuminate and nothing appeared on screen. Time for research!
I found quite a few links for “C64 not powering on”, and found this video that really explained a lot. It was the first time I took a C64 apart, something I never would have done as a teenager in the 80s!
I physically checked the chips and there was no obvious burns or broken soldering so it looked like the circuitry was okay. Then they cracked out a multimeter and tested the DC voltage (among other voltages across the motherboard).
Since I didn’t have a multimeter, I really debated how much I wanted to take this. But a multimeter isn’t a bad thing to have for a geek, so I bought one.
After it arrived a few days later, I rewatched the video where they tested the DC input on the C64, so I followed suit. Sure enough, there was low voltage. about 4.1 V DC. I have a bad power supply (PS)! Looking online apparently this was a common problem with original Commodore PS units.
I figured PS for these would be cheap, and lo and behold the cheapest one I could find was over $70! Now I’m stumped. Do I shell out $70 for a PS only to find the rest of the computer doesn’t really work?
After reading the order form it looked like I could return the PS so it was worth a gamble. I splurged and paid for the PS, anxiously awaiting its arrival. It arrived and I rushed to the garage, connected the PS, and turned it on.
Success!! The C64 powered on!! Nice!! I started hitting the keys and realized half of the keys don’t work. Drat!! All this way for a computer that’s not very usable!
Back to YouTube for help on keyboards……