Some Vic's are much hotter than others!!!!

Barney · Post by **Barney** » Fri Jan 08, 2010 11:31 pm

I just bought a VIC 20 recently. It is a different model than my others. This one has a huge black looking heat sync on the right side of the motherboard. I noticed that while this puppy is turned on, this heat sync gets rather hot. In addition it, all the other chips on the motherboard get noticibly hot also. Has anybody out there noticed this on this particular model?

Barney

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 6:00 am

Don't all 9VAC two-prong VIC's have this huge heat sink? The later DIN-style VIC-20CR looks different.

Richard James · Post by **Richard James** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 6:47 am

I believe the difference between the CR (DIN) models and the 2 prong models, may be that the 2 prong has part of the power supply, in the VIC20 case. Thus the need for the heatsink inside the case. Because the 2 prong only supplies 9V but the VIC20 requires 9V & 5V.

The wiki article on this is not very clear.

Barney · Post by **Barney** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 6:47 am

Does anybody know if it's necessary to install heatsinks on each chip to help cool them down?

Barney

PaulQ · Post by **PaulQ** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 7:54 am

Eslapion recommended putting a heat sink on the video chip, which I think is a good idea. My Vic is like yours. I cut a hole in the RF shield lid over the VIC chip to accommodate one of Eslapion's heat sinks:

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 8:46 am

Without these modifications, the color yellow turns grey on this computer:

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 9:00 am

I probably overdid it on the following computer, but I had resoldered the power regulator so many times that the metal began to go bad on the motherboard.

I suspect that some of these troubles comes from the fact that they have increased the power voltage here from 220v to 230-240v...

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 9:05 am

I also think that heat was something of a design fault in the 2-prong model and that this was the one of the reasons why they made the CR model...

PaulQ · Post by **PaulQ** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 9:12 am

I'm guessing they wanted to build the power supply entirely within the Vic 20 itself, to make it more like an appliance. I would imagine that a part of the power supply was moved outside of the Vic to help with overheating issues.

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 9:22 am

A funny thing is that the things left in the vic-20 seems to get a lot hotter than the PSU

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 12:25 pm

Boray wrote:I also think that heat was something of a design fault in the 2-prong model and that this was the one of the reasons why they made the CR model...

I have to admit mine has been fine since I got it from my brother's girlfriend years back. Although yeah, it does seem to get hotter than the C64...

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 12:56 pm

I have 5 working Vics 2 of which are the older 9v versions. Although they do get hotter than the 3 CR versions I find them both to be more stable and have better composite video and audio output. All in all, I think they're the better machine.

English Invader · Post by **English Invader** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 1:28 pm

Pedro Lambrini wrote:I have 5 working Vics 2 of which are the older 9v versions. Although they do get hotter than the 3 CR versions I find them both to be more stable and have better composite video and audio output. All in all, I think they're the better machine.

I second this. I only buy two-prong VIC-20s now.

It also helps with the overheating if you remove the cardboard from inside the VIC.

Barney · Post by **Barney** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 3:43 pm

That is a very interresting observation about the 2 prong vics having a better composite video sinal. I tested that out myself and I agree with you.

From my observation, I tend to find that the Cost reducted VICs look better on a color TV Set than the 2 prong VICs.

Barney

gklinger · Post by **gklinger** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 3:45 pm

Throw the S-video mod into the mix and it isn't even close.