Console Repair

564 readers

1 users here now

Anything and everything about retro and modern console repair.

If you've got a broken gaming console you are trying to fix, come here to talk about it. If you want to flex about a repair, post here. If you or your console's last lover did a non-destructive electronic mod to their console, or have a question about the options available or how to do it, you are welcome to post here.

If you suck at soldering, we still love you, but we might roast you.

If you did an extreme modification such as turning one of the few Nintendo Playstations into a Rubik's Cube, flex elsewhere. If you're trying to FIX a Nintendo Playstation that someone turned into a Rubik's Cube, post away!

Other great places:

Console Repair Discord

[email protected]

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

DarthBueller

v1605

[Solved] Repairing a Sega Mega Drive (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/consolerepair

10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi there, first post here.

I found a Sega Mega Drive in our basement and am working on restoring it. It turns on, but I have no audio or video.

I never used a cartridge-driven console before, so I want to make sure this is not user error. I need to plug in the cartridge before turning on the console, and then there should be a boot screen and eventually the game.

Is it possible for the contacts to be too dirty to allow reading the cartridges?

And then lastly, I had a peek into the maintenance manual I may need to exchange hardware parts. Should I need to; do you know any trustworthy sellers in the EU that could have parts compatible with the Mega Drive? I have been looking for a 53.2034 MHz +/-20ppm oscillater since it could be faulty, but couldn't find any shop that had one with that odd of a MHz frequency.

Any advice is appreciated. :)

Edit: Thank you all for your comments. On further inspection the contacts on the Mega Drive's cartridge-slot were oxidized. A little bit of sand paper did the trick. :)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] thallamabond 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Probably would not hurt to pop it open and look for obvious problems. Capacitors can bulge on top or leak electrolytic fluid on the circuit board.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor?origin=serp_auto

Look for cracks in the motherboard under where the plugs go in on the back, or any parts where somebody might push into.

Also if there's a bunch of crud in there you can clean it out.

Edit: yes you are doing it right. Put the cartridge in, turn it on.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The capacitors look okay, and I can't see any cracks (yet). The board and part of it's shroud are however hotglued in place 🎉 so it's hard to tell atm. Can hot glue mess with the conductivity of the board? Because there is one nice blob right on the PCB

[–] thallamabond 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Hot glue is non conductive so it should not mess anything up. Out of curiosity, what game did you try?

Edit: also if you don't mind what method are you using to connect it to the television?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

NHL 95 and Sonic. Will clean the contacts soon, then try again. As for the connection to my pc monitor, I am using RCA, run it into a RCA to HDMI converter and then into my monitor