In this new episode from Jan Beta, he is repairing a Commodore 64 “short board” that displays a black screen and doesn’t start up.
The Commodore 64 appears to be from late 1988, with most of the chips on the board showing date codes from around the 40th to 45th week of that year. The VIC-2 chip has a date code from the third week of 1989, indicating it was replaced at some point. Aside from a missing SID chip and likely a missing VIC-2 when he received it, the board was in relatively good condition. The fuse was also missing but has already been replaced. Upon initial inspection, there were no visible issues such as burnt components, missing parts, or cut traces.
He had written “RAM?” on the board, suggesting that there might be a RAM issue, but he planned to investigate further using his full toolkit. Unfortunately, he couldn’t remember who sent the board, but he knew it came from a viewer of the channel. He apologized for not noting down the name and invited the sender to comment so he could thank them properly.
There was some solder residue on the backside of the board, particularly around the crystal, which is common on many C64 boards. It could be due to hand-soldered components at the factory, where the flux wasn’t removed.
When powered on, the board displayed only a blank black screen, which is the most common issue with Commodore 64s and can be caused by nearly any component failing. Jan Beta planned to go through the board step by step to identify the fault.
