The sand paper worked. The fan spins freely and 99.999% noise free. Mostly I took a small square of sand paper, folded it in 1/2 and wedged it between the fan and housing. I rotated the fan around and around, It would stick in a tight spot, which I'm guessing was where the fan was sticking too. Eventually it loosened up enough the push the fan back and forth in the tight area. This also made it easy to find which blade(s) were doing the rubbing and so I worked a little on those blades. All in all it took about 20 - 30 minutes. Thank you again for finding this issue for us and offering this solution. Happy Nabu Year!

Really great tips on what to check for before a first boot on a new NABU. Keep those NABU videos coming, especially if you sort the video color output issues.

This is just so very cool,thanx so very much !

great video. i'm a little late to the party but excited to watch the next video where you fix the washed out color. i am also a new subscriber! hello!

One more thing I should mention: I did not have to do the sand paper thing and I suspect no one else might have to. My fan was stuck as well but it seems to be due to the fact that the screw holes are too tight as in not exactly aligned. I simply loosened the 3 screws that held it in and re-tightened them just snugly but not overly and it let the fan run freely with no noticeable noise other than the air flow itself.

Thank you very much for this, John. I have a whole stack of em in much worse condition, and I'll probably have to do it many times.

Greatly appreciate your list of things to look for. As for the washed-out colors, I get the same thing with other vintage computers. However, if I use a computer monitor it's fine. I'm assuming it's the video capture device that is causing the problem. Thanks for sharing

My fan needs a push start to get spinning noisily. Thank you! It probably would have been a while before I noticed that the fan was not spinning, if I not seen this video. Thank you! I'm deciding on my course of action; either your solutions or what? Easiest is a replacement fan, but I have a museum and I'm a purest, so I might choose your solution of sanding down the blades or housing.

I ended up putting a 1K pot between the COMP out and the base of the transistor on the TMS9918A's analog circuit on my 6502 build. This gave me the ability to play with the video signal amplitude. I was able to almost get it to proper NTSC levels. Emphasis on the word almost. Also, keep in mind that LCDs (and capture devices) have a hard time to correctly display a TMS VDP image. I read somewhere it's because the video signal does not fully comply with the NTSC standard. CRTs are slightly more forgiving in that regard. I also bought a Nabu, but I haven't received it yet. I'll let you know if I get washed-out colors.

Thanks for VALUABLE tips!! As far as video quality mine is as washed out as yours is. Recovery ckts is a good idea!. I also noticed that the 180ohm impedance that they have seems to be a bit higher than the classic recommendation of 75 ohms as well. Maybe a better matching here as well as a limit with a fast Schottky diode too could help.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. And have a Happy New Year. My NABU Saga: I haven’t been able to keep up with or appreciate “NABU Fever”. For the past 6 weeks my life has been hijacked. The reason is simple, my life was consumed by handling, testing, and shipping NABU items. This includes countless hours of warehouse management (of my NABU Stack). In that time period I shipped 578 orders (671 packages). I dedicated all my time to getting all the orders out as soon as possible. (I apologize for the delays.) I shipped on average over 100 items a week. I could do no more. My account had been suspended by eBay because of the (unusual?) circumstances surrounding it. So currently I cannot list my items on eBay and eBay owes me a lot of money. I shipped the last of the orders (from Adrian’s 2-day order surge) on Friday (12/30/22). That was the highlight of the day. A day to celebrate - so I thought. So that Friday I called eBay to see when I can relist my NABU items and when I can get the money that they owe me. eBay’s Response: My account will be suspended until “all” the orders have been “delivered”. Wow! Approximately 35% of my sales are out of the country (USA). So, it will be weeks before all those orders are delivered. So, it looks like I am going to be in "eBay Jail" for a while. Oh yes, so for the rest of that Friday, I was outside from 8:00 PM to 4:00 AM on “warehouse management duties”. And I moved 125 NABU Computers and 20 Adaptors into the house. (Ready for testing.) Hopefully, I don’t sound like I’m complaining. I just wanted to explain why you haven’t heard from me. I am very happy that the NABU Computers are selling and all the activity (read enjoyment) that is surrounding them. Also, this was a test, and my 68-year-old body has passed it with flying colors. Tired - yes; sore - yes; but 8 lbs. lighter and stronger than last year. Ha! Epilogue: Don’t worry. When my account is restored, I will have plenty of NABU Computers to sell. At that point I will moderate the listed amounts so I can process the orders in a timely manner. Now excuse me, I have to catch up with 6-weeks of phone calls and emails. There will be many apologies. In the meantime, I am considering selling the NABU Computers on another platform. I feel that I am being treated unfairly by eBay. I am open to suggestions for alternate selling platforms. Any ideas? PellMill, LLC

1000 Apologies. Yes, I understand that there is a fan/shroud issue in many units. If I fixed the fans myself, two things would happen. 1.) Over 1/2 of you, who have your NABU Computers, wouldn’t have them yet (because of all the time spent fixing fans). 2.) The price of the computers would double to $120.00 to justify all the time spent fixing fans. It was a simple executive decision. Get them out there “cheap” and get them out there “quick”. I appreciate your feedback. I hope you understand my position.

The drop down resistor is there to warm up the insides of the case to cater for the cold Canadian climate. 🤣 I'd replace it with a 9V LDO regulator.

Mine also has washed out image. I have got to stage of programming the VDP to display tiles correctly and sprites are next.

HI John, was watching your video here and noticed you mention the high DC offset. My nabu seems to work on my samsung LED TV with a bit of the top of the screen cut off as if the vertical is stretched a bit..... but when I use one of the RCA to USB capture devices, I get what looks like it has a horizontal sync issue. I've measured all the clocks and they seem to be dead on... could that DC offset be giving the capture device problems I described? I'd like to stream some games from Nabu on my Twitch channel but as I've stated the capture looks like the old TV horizontal hold if off.... what do you think? And yes... I do have a high DC offset as well.

Since the NABU has the same video-chip as the MSX-1 you cold copy a part of the MSX schematics if the output signal of the NABU is not what modern days video-monitors need.

I haven't seen or made any comparisons with the home computers it would be competing with at the time, so is it possible to make or say things like 'graphically superior to the Commodore 64 ' or will give the ' Spectrum a run for its money ' I presume it would be aimed at the gaming enthusiacs ? I could be wrong but was there anything mainstream in that era that it could be fairly compared with please ?...cheers.

"don't ask me how I figured out" ... always look on the bright side of live?

Have you got terminal unit that uses a NAGRAVISION CAM module and matching NAGRAVISION Viewing Card as you are going to need the unit any to get the most out of your NABU Personal Computer.

Thanks for the tips! I finally heard back from the Ebay seller, and as we both suspected, they got swamped and had to temporarily suspend orders while they finish fulfilling the avalanche of orders they received; they said they hope to have their order queue cleared in 2-3 weeks (although with Christmas holiday familial obligations, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if the auction doesn't come back until early next year.) Anyway I am hoping to get ahold of one when sales resume. Kinda bummed that I am missing out on all the early hacking that's going on right now, but what can you do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This thing looks ALOT like an MSX machine on the inside. You think MSX was the base. You think it can run MSX software on it with a little modifcation?

What's the appeal of these NABU computers? They're so old if you get one you don't know what state it's going to be in and you there don't appear to be a lot of reasources out there on restoring these.

damned be all breaking parts (especially fans), lol

Iv been building a clone pcb. Currently waiting courier collection (having new pcbs spun)