TI-83/84 Troubleshooting (2024)

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Summary:Some common problems on the TI-83 or TI-84 calculator lookintimidating because the messages are strange, but they’re easy tofix. This page helps you with the TI-83, TI-83 Plus, TI-83 Plus SilverEdition, TI-84 Plus, and TI-84 Plus Silver Edition.

Seealso:Texas Instruments pages on theTI-83 plusandTI-84 plusfamilies (accessed 2021-11-19).

Error Messages

General advice: Most messages giveyou a choice of Quit and Goto. If it’savailable, always pick Goto: the TI-83/84 will show you theexact spot where it found something wrong. That’s usually enough of aclue that you can figure out what’s wrong.

“Syntax”

Press [2] for Goto and recheck yourequation on the Y= screen.

Make sure you pressed the[X,T,θ,n] key for x and not the [×]times key. Also, make sure you distinguished between the minus key[−] and the change sign key [(-)]: thechange sign key makes a shorter minus sign than the minus key.

“Window Range”

Press [1] for Quit and then press[WINDOW].

Make sure your Xmax is greater thanXmin and Ymax is greater thanYmin.

“Dim Mismatch”

Are you doing a scatterplot?

Press [Y=] and check thatonly one of Plot1, Plot2, Plot3is highlighted.

Then press [2nd] [STATPLOT] followedby the number of the active plot. ([STATPLOT] isthe shifted [Y=] key.)Check which list numbers are mentioned.

Press [STAT] [ENTER] and make sure that you have equalnumbers of entries in the two lists.

Are you doing regression analysis?

Note the two lists mentioned in your regression command,LinReg(ax+b) or similar. Press [STAT] [ENTER]and make sure that you have the same number of entries in the twolists, at least two rows.

Are you doing anything else?

Press [1] for Quit and then press[Y=].Make sure that there are no highlights on Plot1 Plot2Plot3 at the top of the screen. If one is highlighted, cursorto it and press [ENTER] to deactivate it.

“Invalid Dim”

This message has several possible causes.

• If you get this when making some kind of plot, you probablyforgot that you have one of Plot1 Plot2 Plot3 turned on,and it refers to two lists that don’t have the same length. The cureis to press [Y=] and turn off the unwanted plot.
• If you’re actually doing something that needs lists, such asa regression, but your lists don’t have the same length, you getthis message. Press [STAT] [1] and checkyour lists.
• You also get this message when you give the TI-83 a list ormatrix where it expected a variable or number, or vice versa. For instance, on the STAT PLOT screen, you may mean to press[2nd] [L1] but if you miss the[2nd] you actually type a Y. In the same way you mighttype a Z where you intend to type L2.
• Karl Wein offers another possibility. You cancreate a list called L1, but that is not the same as thepredefined list called L1 (note thesmall-capital L), and of course similarly for lists 2 through 6. Ifyou accidentally delete a predefined list from the editor, make sureto bring it back with the SetUpEditorcommand.

In general, when you see this message you need to check carefullythrough what you’ve done to make sure that you used lists whereyou were supposed to, and nowhere else.

“ERR:Version”

A TI-83 (not Plus or Silver) is trying to receive something that itcan’t handle. If what you’re trying to transfer is a program, thesefeatures work in the TI-83 Plus and all later TI-83s and TI-84s, but notin the original TI-83:

• archiving operations
• two-character labels that start with a letter
• any lower-case text in strings
• the Greek letters ρ (rho) andσ (sigma) in strings, but the statistics variableσx can be used

“ERR:DOMAIN”

You’ve passed an incorrect argument to a function, suchas cos^-1(2) or pxl-on(160,160).

List Troubles

I’ve lost a list from the STAT EDIT screen.

It’s easy to hide one without intending to, just by pressing the[DEL] key while positioned on a column head.

To bring back L1 through L6 in that order, press[STAT] [5] [ENTER]. This runsthe SetUpEditor command; you will not lose any numbersfrom any lists.

I can’t clear the numbers from a list.

Use the arrow keys to move to the column heading, not thefirst number of the list. Then press [CLEAR][ENTER]. All the numbers from the list will be erased,and the cursor will move to the first row so that you can beginentering numbers.

I left out a number from my list.

No, you don’t have to re-enter the whole list. Use the arrow keysto move to the number just after where the missing numbershould go. Press [2nd] [INS] (the shifted[DEL] key) and a space will open up in the list.

Graphing Troubles

My screen is blank, except maybe for the axesand thegrid.

Are you plotting specific points?

Press [ZOOM] [9], which is ZoomStat. Thattells the TI-83/84 to adjust the window to show your points or histogramwith maximum detail.

Are you plotting one or more functions?

If you don’t see your function graph anywhere, your window is probablyset to a region of the xy plane the graph just doesn’thappen to go through. Depending on the function, one of thesetechniques will work:

• ZoomFit is a good first try. Press the [ZOOM]button, then [0] (zero).(Thanks to Marilyn Webb for this suggestion.)
• You can try to zoom out (like going higher to see more of the plane) bypressing [ZOOM] [3] [ENTER]. If you need to, press [ENTER] again tozoom out further.
• Finally, you can directly adjust the window to select aspecific region. Set Xmin and Xmax so thatthey include the x domain you’re interested in, andYmin and Ymax to include the y rangeyou want to see.

Are you plotting a histogram?

Press [WINDOW]. Set the X’s in terms of yourclass limits, as follows:

• Xmin = one class width less thanthe smallest class mark
• Xmax = one class width morethan the largest class mark
• Xscl = the class width

Set the Y’s in terms of your frequencies,namely:

• Ymin = 0
• Ymax = the highest frequency (if it’s arelative frequency histogram, you can use 1)
• Yscl = someconvenient fraction of Ymax

Are you plotting a distribution using ShadeNorm?

Please see that section of this page.

My screen is covered with horizontal or verticallines.

This sometimes happens after zooming, or if you manually alter somewindow parameters. What happens is that the tick marks are so closelyspaced that they merge together visually.

Press [WINDOW] and adjust theXscl or Yscl or both.Tick marks will appear every Xscl units left and right,and you want that to be a reasonable fraction of the range betweenXmin and Xmax.Tick marks will appear every Yscl units up and down, andyou want that to be a reasonable fraction of the range betweenYmin and Ymax.

My screen is completely dark, every pixel filledin.

This means both your Xscl andYscl valuesare too small. Fix this on the WINDOW screen, asexplained above, underMy screen is covered with horizontal or vertical lines.

There are no tick marks on mygraph.

Is your grid turned on?

Press [2nd] [FORMAT] (the shifted [ZOOM]key) and verify that GridOn is highlighted. If not,cursor to it and press [ENTER].

Check your X and Y scales.

Press [WINDOW] and look at Xscl. Itshould be greater than 0 and less than the range fromXmin to Xmax. For instance, ifXmin is −20 and Xmax is 20, the range is 40and you might want Xscl to be 2, 5, or 10.

Also on the WINDOW screen, look at Yscl.It should be greater than 0 and less than the range fromYmin to Ymax. For instance, ifYmin is −10 and Ymax is 10, the range is 20and you might want Yscl to be 1 or 5.

An extra line or curve appears onmygraph.

Press [Y=]. Look at Y1=, Y2=,and so on. Cursor to the equal sign for each unwanted function,and press [ENTER]. You’ll need to cursor down to examineY8=, Y9=, and Y0=, because theY= screen shows only seven functions at a time.

Press [GRAPH] to redraw the graph.

I can’t graph more than one equation at a time.

Are there funny arrows at the left of your Y= screen?

The illustration and solution are courtesy ofJesse Phillips, who citesa pagefrom the Texas Instrumentssupport site that hassince been removed by TI for some reason:

In order to select additional graphs, the Transformation Graphing Appwill need to be uninstalled from the TI-83 Plus Family and TI-84 PlusFamily. Uninstalling the App does not erase it from the calculator, itdisables it from interfering with the normal graphing modes. Below arethe steps to successfully uninstall the App.

• Press [APPS] key
• Select Transfrm from the menu
• Press 1:Uninstall

My normal distribution from ShadeNormlookswrong.

Is too much shaded in for the limits you set?

You need to clear each drawing before making the next.Locate DRAW as the shifted [PRGM] key nearthe middle of the keyboard. Press [2nd] [DRAW], then[1] to paste ClrDraw to the home screen,then [ENTER].

Repeat your ShadeNorm command.

Does the distribution not appear at all, or only in part?

You need to set your window parameters. Press [WINDOW]and then set them as follows. (The numbers in parentheses are for astandard normal distribution, with mean=0 and standard deviation=1,where you specify only two parameters to ShadeNorm.)

• Xmin = mean minus 4 standard deviations (Forstandard ND, use -4.)
• Xmax = mean plus 4 standard deviations (Forstandard ND, use 4.)
• Xscl = standard deviation (For standard ND, use 1.)
• Ymin = 0
• Ymax = 0.4 divided by standard deviation—rememberyou can enter the expression and let the TI-83/84 do the arithmetic foryou (For standard ND, use 0.4)
• Yscl = 0.1 divided by standard deviation (Forstandard ND, use 0.1)

After setting the window parameters, press [2nd][QUIT]to return to the home screen, then [2nd] [ENTER] [ENTER]to re-execute the ShadeNorm command.

Other Troubles

My screen is too light or too dark.

Many TI-83/84 owners don’t realize that thecontrast is adjustable.Here’s how:

1. Press and release the gold [2nd] button. Verify thatthe blinking up arrow appears in the display.
2. Press and hold the blue up or down arrow key to increaseor decrease contrast, until the display is to your liking. Be alert:the display will change quickly.

The calculator will remember your contrast setting; you don’t haveto adjust it every time you turn the calculator on.

Where’s the correlation coefficient?

You’ve executed a regression from the STATCALCmenu. You get theslope and intercept all right, but where are r and r²?

For some reason, your TI-83/84 comes from the factory configurednot to display correlation coefficients. You need to make aone-time mode setting so that these are displayed in futureregressions:

1. Press [2nd] [CATALOG] (the shifted [0]key).
2. To move to the beginning of the D’s, press the[x−1] key. (A green D is printed above thatkey. Do not press the green [ALPHA] key first, becausethe CATALOG command automatically puts the TI-83/84 in alphamode.)
3. Use the arrow keys to move toDiagnosticOn.
4. Press [ENTER] to select the command,and [ENTER] again to execute it.

You don’t need to re-enter your regression command. Justpress [2nd] [ENTER] and [2nd][ENTER] againto recall it, then [ENTER] to execute it.