Q610 VRAM issue

iigs123

New Tinkerer
Oct 13, 2025
12
5
3
(I posted over on 68kmla too, but thought i'd try here in case anyone has ideas)

I have a Q610 whose lower video is corrupt when running in thousands of colors. Interestingly, dragging a window from the bottom to the top brings some of the corruption with it.

Screenshot 2025-10-22 084722.png



Screenshot 2025-10-22 084739.png



Screenshot 2025-10-22 084758.png


Here is what I've tried in the last few weeks:

1. Different VRAM - no change. I even bought new "purple" VRAM.
2. Continuity checks for VRAM SIMMs and chips - nothing broken. I checked between VRAM and CLUT, VRAM and djMEMC and the bus transceivers U20, U23, U24, U25.
3. I got a cheap USB 24mHz 8 channel logic analyzer, so I hooked it up to all pins on the VRAM SIMMs. All +5V and grounds are working, and the rest have changing signals. I also hooked it up to the CLUT and the PD pins all have signals on them. I suspect my logic analyzer may not be fast and big enough to a useful, decodable signal but I'm new to logic analyzers so I'm not completely sure. I saw enough to see changes in signals everywhere however.
4. MacTest shows onboard VRAM is fine - when testing with no SIMMs. The VRAM test fails with SIMMs.

With SIMMS:

Video RAM Failure at address $F9080200!
Failed data pattern = $FF0000!

The only thing left I can think of is that U25 - which I had to replace because it was taken out with a cap - is somehow out of spec. But since the machine otherwise boots and operates normally I'm thinking this probably isn't the case. If I'm not mistaken it handles D0-D7.

Does anyone have pointers on what else I could try to fix this issue?
 

joevt

Tinkerer
Mar 5, 2023
193
74
28
Does this GPU have a black and white mode? That may help identify what bits or bytes or words are bad.
 

iigs123

New Tinkerer
Oct 13, 2025
12
5
3
It does have B&W mode, but fortunately (or unfortunately) the video is perfect until I switch to Thousands of colors. The size of the screen doesn't seem to matter either.
 

iigs123

New Tinkerer
Oct 13, 2025
12
5
3
I see in other threads you talk about a screen shot - I finally understood what you meant - not a "phone camera" picture but an acutal shift-cmd-3 screen shot on the computer! doh!

The image has the corruption in it, so it looks to be the "data in" side of things.

Screenshot 2025-10-31 at 8.24.52 AM.png


thanks for the pointer!
 

iigs123

New Tinkerer
Oct 13, 2025
12
5
3
The screen shot I posted was captured on the Q610, then displayed on my macbook. I couldn't save as JPG or something else, so I took a screen shot of that screen shot. :/