SMS outputs messed up video - colors wrong/inverted

[csciacchitano]

Hey guys - I recently purchased a SMS off of ebay, and it turns on and outputs sounds okay, but the video output (through both RF & RCA) is all messed up. Here are some pictures so you can see what I mean:









If you want to see more, I have some other pictures, but you guys probably get the idea. Since it's having the same problems with both types of video output, I'm guessing it's something on the motherboard, like a video card connection? Any ideas if this is fixable? The seller is giving me a refund, so I'm willing to mess around and see if I can get it to work. I really appreciate any help that you guys can offer.

Thanks!!

[SpoonyBard]

Is that on an HDTV?

[csciacchitano]

Is that on an HDTV?

Yes. But I've used other retro systems, like an NES, and even an Atari 800XL, on the same TV and they've worked fine. Not as crisp as a CRT obviously, but they don't exhibit the kind of issues that the SMS is having.

[SpoonyBard]

I had several retro systems hooked up to my HDTV and had no problems - until I tried my AES. I got all sorts of wrong colors and other problems. Hooked it up to a CRT and it worked just fine. Might be worth a shot.

[csciacchitano]

I had several retro systems hooked up to my HDTV and had no problems - until I tried my AES. I got all sorts of wrong colors and other problems. Hooked it up to a CRT and it worked just fine. Might be worth a shot.

Yeah, I'm pretty much out of other options, so I guess I'll try and track down a CRT and give it a shot. Thanks!

[theclaw]

Another option is try an RGB converter box. Help narrow down whether video encoding is a problem.

[J_Wil]

I may have some help for you on this. I bought an SMS in a lot from a guy on Craig's List a couple of months back and had a very similar issue. The colors were oversaturated and the video just looked like sh*t. I took some pics (below) and I was going to post them in the forum and ask for some help but I did some internet digging first to see if this was a common problem. I found a single YouTube video that was of some help ( (skip to 9:00)) I flipped the board over and noticed some problems.

PB010011a.jpg (290.04 KiB) Viewed 621 times

There seems to be some deterioration and it's possible someone had jacked up some resoldering in the past. There are some awful looking joints here. At the time I had a soldering iron but didn't know anything about how to solder/desolder but since I had another SMS I decided to see what I could do on my own. There was a joint that seemed to be deteriorated/poorly soldered. I added some solder to reconnect the joint at it actually fixed the problem. I hadn't looked at the board since I "fixed" it and even my resolder looks like sh*t but everything seems to work fine. I have gotten significantly better at soldering and diagnosing issues since and fixed a bunch of broken consoles I had lying around. I'm going to have to do some more work on this now that I have an idea of what I'm doing. I don't know if you have any experience with soldering but I had never done anything prior to this so if a loose joint is the problem, even as a novice I'm sure you can fix it without too much trouble. Please note I got the same results on a CRT and HDTV.

Before:

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P9150010a.jpg (196.17 KiB) Viewed 621 times

After:

P9150011a.jpg (198.95 KiB) Viewed 621 times

If you can't identify the problem post some clear pics and I'll see if I can help.

[J_Wil]

I hope this helps.

More pics of the board-

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