this video<\/a> 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!<\/p>\nI 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).<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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)!\u00a0 Looking online apparently this was a common problem with original Commodore PS units.<\/p>\n
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?<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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!<\/p>\n
Back to YouTube for help on keyboards……<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “My Commodore 64 restoration journey \u2013 Part II”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,28,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commodore","category-retro-computing","category-retro-gaming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/japanobserver.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/japanobserver.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/japanobserver.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/japanobserver.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/japanobserver.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/japanobserver.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216,"href":"https:\/\/japanobserver.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions\/216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/japanobserver.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/japanobserver.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/japanobserver.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}