John's Arcade Forum - Classic Arcade and Pinball Collecting and Restoring Discussion Forum - RETRO MAME - Nintendo Vs Forum

This is probably a stupid question, but the monitor on my Asteroids cabinet isn't coming on. I get sound and I can tell the buttons and controls work because I can hear it shooting, etc. I just got it and the owner said it didn't work. I looked inside and everything inside this machine is SUPER clean. This thing must've been professionally cared for since 79. The side art is immaculate as well. Just a nice solid (though extremely effing heavy) cabinet.

Any ideas? Should I change out the old Big Blue capacitor? I hear those are problematic with this machine.

I hear the usual monitors in Atari Asteroids are the Electrohome G05's. Look at the monitor and see if there is neck glow when the game is on. If there isn't any, the monitor isn't turning on at all. If the neck is glowing, the video from Asteroids is not getting to the monitor. If there is no glow then you are probably going to have to buy a cap kit with xsistors. These are available at Bob Roberts. One thing you will have to check is the model number. You need to see if the model number on the monitor is the G05-801 (most likely), or the G05-802. From, there on you can buy the kit specified for your monitor with xsistors.  ;)

If the game board isn't producing a proper video signal the monitor will turn on its spot killer circuit which will result in no picture (look for a  lit RED LED on the monitor chassis.)

There is a TERRIFIC document about the B&W X/Y monitors here:

http://www.arcade-museum.com/manuals-monitors/FAQ%20Black%20and%20White%20XY%20Version%201.1%20dated%207%20Feb%2002.pdf

ALso, great documentation here:

http://www.ionpool.net/arcade/asteroidtech/asteroidsrepair.html

First things first though...

Check voltages! Is the PCB getting power? Is the monitor getting power? Check your fuses! Always do the simple stuff first. If the PCB or monitor is not getting proper power then nothing is going to work!

Sounds like a game that will worth the effort. Don't give up! Good luck!

There is a red light lit up on the PCB board. So I think your suggestion may be the fix I need. The owner said that her son was able to get it working before, but when I talked to him he didn't recall what he did to get it to work. Either way, the owner gave me both this and Stargate for for free because they weren't working and she's getting divorced so she didn't want them anyway. It's a great score no matter what.

Hooray for divorce!

Upon further inspection, it appears that the D507 light on the monitor board (I think) is lighting up. I'm assuming this is the monitor board. My experience with monitor boards stems from Donkey Kong boards mostly. With these vector monitors, I assume it's a little different. Good thing I'm familiar with soldering.

So does the D507 light figure out my problem? According to the manual about BW monitors linked above (page 46), I should be checking components D504, D505, D506 and C510 for shorts. I'm not sure what or where those are.

sadly the light is pretty much a false hope. That light just tells you something is wrong, not what is wrong. THere are literally a dozen things that can cause that light to come on. I would make sure your game is producing vectors first by putting your meter to on the video signals and look for something that isn't zero. after that try checking the transistors and probably the power supply. read those docs!

yeah, what Ian said. On vector games, very often what appears to be a monitor problem is in fact a game PCB problem.