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[Peppe021203]

Hello again, it's been a while. I spoke in a thread well over 2 years ago about my faulty doctor v64 and the problems it had (black screen and nothing working other than the cd drive) and it was attributed to a bad power supply. After a long search i managed to track down a replacement and after testing it out, the same problem was still there. After looking a bit online, it seems that the BIOS may be at fault, having been corrupted and what not. The problem is, since the doctor refuses to work i can't update the BIOS via CD or via cable. Bung's FAQ page suggests to just buy a new flash ROM but considering finding one is simply impossible, i think it'd be best to just program the chip myself. So how should i go about flashing the BIOS? I know what the chip to program is and the hardware needed to do it but how exactly do i go from there?

[CZroe]

After reassembling recently my disc drive would power up but I got nothing on the screen. It was not a BIOS issue.

I triple-checked all power connections with a meter and they were good. Somehow, it’s the connection to the red wire where the switch connects to the board because moving that wire back and forth causes the unit to power up/boot (on screen menu). It was clearly sensitive to touch so I added fresh solder and dielectric grease but it was not improved.

I removed the pin from the connector block to make sure it was crimped properly with no internal breaks. This also let me inspect to contact surfaces. Everything looks great. I literally have these pins and the tool to crimp them but I can already tell that there is no flaky connection from moving the wire.

Since I know the connection on the other side of the board is good, that leaves a possible bad connection under the connector block. Perhaps it’s intermittently grounding out 5v when the pin is moved, which might explain why my PSU was so hot even with the V64 switched off all night.

I reassembled it while the pin was positioned to work and used it just fine for a couple days and now I suddenly have the opposite problem: Just before leaving this morning I realized the CD-ROM was not powering up. I’ll have to diagnose that later but perhaps the PSU died on the 12v side. We’ll see. Maybe I’ve got two flaky contacts on that connector.

So, yeah, I don’t think your problem is the BIOS since it’s entirely possible to power up the CD side without the mainboard. I could be wrong, of course. Is the TV even syncing when you get a blank screen?