Response from Jonathan: Alfred,

The cost to repair this is really going to depend on how comfortable you are working on electronics. This problem looks like either a monitor chassis issue or a board issue. We’re definitely leaning more towards a board issue in this particular case.

If it is a problem with your board, it’s probably going to be in the chips that hold the color maps (2E and 2F on the 2 board set, 2K and 2J on the 4 board set). It could be that these chips simply need to be replaced or it could be some other problems with the board such as broken traces, bad chip sockets, etc. We have a post on Inspecting An Arcade Board that walks through some simple procedures to help you repair board issues such as this but there’s still a possibility that this particular issue could be tough to track down.

If it’s a monitor chassis issue, you might take a look at some of our posts on monitor repair. We have one on Checking A Monitor Tube that deals specifically with color issues. Check out this post and see if you would be comfortable doing this type of repair on your own. Again, definitely leaning more towards a board issue so make sure you check that first before suspecting your monitor chassis.

Now, lets talk about cost. If you do the work yourself, it should be relatively cheap (less than $50 or so). Board and monitor repair can be time consuming but, if you have the patience, you can save yourself a lot of money if you do it yourself. If you need to send the board or monitor chassis off for repair, you’re probably looking around $150 depending on the type of repair. Hopefully that gives you some idea of what you’re getting into. Please let us know if you have any additional question and we’ll try to help you out.

Hope that helps. Thank you for your question and good luck with your future repairs.