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Author Topic: Original Defender Arcade Video Noise - Help please.  (Read 1359 times)

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m1llipede

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Original Defender Arcade Video Noise - Help please.
« on: January 06, 2026, 04:35:12 pm »
Hi, I'm hoping I post this to the right forum.

A little background on the issues so far...This thing is a beast of a repair.

I have had this I think 1978 original Defender game for a few years now. It was running perfectly then the monitor died so I recapped the CRT board and it was all perfect again for a few days. Then it went out again. I sent the motherboard and whatever other boards I was asked to send to a guy in Texas to review and fix it. I believe he swapped out a few RAM chips and replaced a connector and ribbon cable and sent it back after 4 months (ugh).

When I got it back, it worked for about an hour, then it started up with noise on screen. I tried gently reconnecting all connections and nothing. Someone recommended I replace all of the original 4064 chips with 4116 or 41256 RAM chips. I replaced them all and used a power adapter connector from Arcadeshop.com:
https://www.arcadeshop.com/i/1554/41256-ram-set-of-25.htm and https://www.arcadeshop.com/i/894/williams-4116-to-4164-power-adapter.htm

He recommended this as multiple RAM LED warning lights were on. Since replacing them, the LEDs are off, so one step closer.

I did this replacement of all chips last night and although the sound comes up and it appears that the game is running, the screen is all garbage video, but you can kind of see it working. Here's a video of it in action, since the repair.

Now I'm wondering if it's still something with the CRT board causing this or perhaps ROM chips? I'm at a total loss now. I am good at electronics, but don't have the higher end tools I may need. I'm hoping it's something simple that I missed.

Thank you for any help or advice you can offer.
Brian
« Last Edit: Today at 12:40:27 pm by m1llipede »