One of the things that can often go wrong with an Atari are the switches. This is often the case on the 4 and 6 switch models. There are two types of switches, the Toggle Slide Switch (Power, Color/BW, and A/B Difficulty) and the Momentary Switch (Reset and Select Switches). The difference between the two is that the toggle switches are more narrow and can work in either direction while the momentary is wider and is spring loaded. You have a number of different options for repairing/cleaning these. They will be listed below in the order that you should try them.
Here are some of the tools you tools you will need, it will vary depending on the method used:
- Needle Nose Pliers
- Small Flathead Screwdriver
- Soldering Iron and Solder
- De-soldering tool (De-soldering Iron, Vacuum, Bulb, Braid)
- Electronics Cleaner (Such as Radioshack Part #64-4345)
- Q-tip
- Rubbing Alcohol
- Multimeter(Or any meter to test for continuity)