Hey, I've just signed up today in the hopes that someone more knowledgeable can help me out.
I recently acquired a Disk System with the RAM adaptor and when I boot it, the music plays and sounds great. I can make everything out as Mario and Luigi fight over the light-switch, but everything is covered in glitchy, vertical lines.
I've just tried the self-test and I get "PRAM CRAM 00FFH" and the 'PORT' section underneath does its little cycle.
I can't try out any disks yet though, since the drive has its own problems, but this whole issue still occurs whether the drive is connected or not.
I can confirm that other cartridges work perfectly, the cartridge input is totally clean and the RAM adaptor pins are all making a good connection too.
The Famicom itself is an original, un-modded system.
If I need to, I can de-solder and re-install chips.
Thanks in advance for any help, tips and/or suggestions.
Another thing I forgot to mention is that sometimes when I boot it, the snare drum goes a little nuts and keeps playing for a bit after the music is meant to stop.
Also, in case you're curious, it's a 'verion 2' BIOS.
UPDATE: I replaced the belt and the drive works really well. Playing Super Mario Bros. 1 & 2 completely fine, but all the vertical glitchy-ness is still present.
Once again I appreciate any sort of feedback.
Sounds like something is wrong indeed. I guess you could try reflowing the chips and expansion connector and see if you still get errors in the RAM test.
Some RAM-adapters are prone to strange glitches in games, but it usually doesn't cause any errors in the self-test. In those cases, people have fixed it by adding pull-down resistors (not sure about the values) on the data lines.