Has anyone else ever witnessed a cart die?

[Vectorman0]

(I don't mean actually seeing it "show" visible signs of death other than the fact it won't work.)


I traded for a New/sealed Bump 'n Jump (M-Network) for the Atari 2600 a little over a month ago. All was well, I opened it (and found two manuals - cool!), played it and like the game quite a bit. A week later I went to play it again and it was fine. A few hours later I attempted to play it again to show a friend who was interested in it, but I couldn't get it to work. I cleaned the contacts (it was new though, remember?), tried it on a different system, and even tried it on a Colecovision with expansion module. At that point I officially had to declare it deceased. At least it died peacefully, not while being played.

Has anyone else had a cart go on them like this? Any ideas on what killed it? Old age and just coincidence that I happened to be playing it? Static? A power surge from the Atari?

[Atarileaf]

Bit rot most likely. Even sealed and new, its 25+ years old.

[Pezcore343]

Bet you wish you left it sealed now huh? =P

Sorry had to go there. I've been very lucky with my cartridges and even the ones that I've had since I was a kid (NES and Genesis carts) are still going strong. I haven't even had a single cart battery die yet. Of course I'm just waiting for the day when they all go at once so don't feel too bad.

[zektor]

I have had two carts in my lifetime of collection that were completely dead. Once a Genesis game, and more recently a C64 cart. But they came to me dead, so no, I cannot say that I have ever had a cart that worked then later die on me. Very odd.

[Videogamerdaryll]

Well maybe not dead but go bad within a week/day after playing it.

It worked perfectly then it started to jam-get stuck in the intro..

Zelda

To me it's dead as it no longer works properly..(and imo is worthless like it is.
Theres a topic somewhere that stated what the issue might be.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/Chris1/MISC%20PICTURES%202/th_ZELDANESLOCKINGUP015.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v21/Chris1/MISC%20PICTURES%202/?action=view&current=ZELDANESLOCKINGUP015.flv)

[Bratwurst]

Bit rot most likely. Even sealed and new, its 25+ years old.

Mask roms don't suffer from bit rot, that's an eeprom thing, and when that happens they can always be refreshed with a new write session.

[Vectorman0]

Bet you wish you left it sealed now huh? =P

Sorry had to go there. I've been very lucky with my cartridges and even the ones that I've had since I was a kid (NES and Genesis carts) are still going strong. I haven't even had a single cart battery die yet. Of course I'm just waiting for the day when they all go at once so don't feel too bad.

Heh, the sealed part doesn't really bother me. I'm just upset I can't play it and need a replacement cart! If I had payed full price and and it was a $100+ sealed game, I probably would be more upset.


I have had two carts in my lifetime of collection that were completely dead. Once a Genesis game, and more recently a C64 cart. But they came to me dead, so no, I cannot say that I have ever had a cart that worked then later die on me. Very odd.

I've had probably over 10 dead atari carts over the past few years. MASH, Missile Command, and some other Atari brand games. This is the first time I've ever seen it happen though. It makes me wonder how long it is until this is more commonplace.


Well maybe not dead but go bad within a week/day after playing it.

It worked perfectly then it started to jam-get stuck in the intro..

Zelda

To me it's dead as it no longer works properly..(and imo is worthless like it is.
Theres a topic somewhere that stated what the issue might be.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/Chris1/MISC%20PICTURES%202/th_ZELDANESLOCKINGUP015.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v21/Chris1/MISC%20PICTURES%202/?action=view&current=ZELDANESLOCKINGUP015.flv)

That's an interesting case.

[rbudrick]

I had a Genesis Thunderforce III cart die on me. It was because I was looking for cheats via the pull-the-cart-out-of-the-system method. I was getting some weird results that began to look promising when the cart stopped working for good. It was a rental, so like a jerk, I returned it.

-Rob

[Greg2600]

So far, three games. Rad Racer NES, Mortal Kombat Genesis, and my early childhood original 2600 Donkey Kong (:().

[A Black Falcon]

I have three Genesis carts that I got used and do not work, and one GBC game that failed on me some years ago, but I originally got new and worked fine for several years. I still have all four cartridges though, maybe in hopes they can somehow be fixed or something...

GBC: Super Mario Bros. Deluxe. When you turn the game on, you just ge a screen full of corrupted graphics, nothing else. The one time I got past that screen since the cart failed the graphics were so corrupted you couldn't get much farther. This is the only cartridge I have had that once worked but now doesn't.

Genesis: Vectorman 2, Sonic 3, and World Heroes. (Note -- I later got second copies of Vectorman 2 and Sonic 3, that do work.) I got them and as I said, nothing worked.

World Heroes: Turn it on and the Sega CD simply boots -- it doesn't even recognize the cart.

Sonic 3: The "SEGA" logo appears, then a black screen. Nothing more. Interestingly, this is a Sonic 3 cart with standard Phillips screws on the back ("Made in Mexico" location, re-release cart I believe), instead of Gamebit screws, so I could open it up. I tried cleaning it a bit, but that didn't make any noticeable difference.

Vectorman 2: I forget.. don't have it here to check. It may just blackscreen and crash there.

What would cause a cartridge like these to fail?

(Oh, I also have a dead Genesis, but like the carts, that came broken... you turn it on and the power light comes on and you hear static through the speakers or headphones, but nothing else happens. Oh well, I have another working one... and it was well worth buying because the Genesis came with a Sega CD, which works perfectly and is my Sega CD. :))

[p_b]

Mask roms don't suffer from bit rot, that's an eeprom thing, and when that happens they can always be refreshed with a new write session.

EEPROM! Or turn up the contrast :D

[Sonicwolf]

While playing gameshark with Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo 64, the Gameshark sparked violently and never worked again. Who knows why, it just happened. Fortunately the system and game were unaffected. Those gamesharks were made of crap, played like crap and never did work properly. I have went through 4 of them since 2001. Ridiculous. Its not really a game cart dieing but it was a cart death nonetheless.

[Push Upstairs]

I once shot a cart just to watch it die.

[sidnotcrazy]

I've had probably over 10 dead atari carts over the past few years. MASH, Missile Command, and some other Atari brand games. This is the first time I've ever seen it happen though. It makes me wonder how long it is until this is more commonplace.


Hey, it has happened to me back in the day. I saved up my money and got Burgertime by M-Network for Atari 2600, and the same thing happened. I was really upset too. I paid $30.00 for that game. Back in 1983 that was a lot to pay for a single cart. So I feel your pain.

I really haven't had many carts die on me. I think it might have more to do with manufacturing. I don't have any proof to back that up, but I can't see a connection in age, system, or any other area to make a conclusive idea of why this happens. It just sucks!

[A Black Falcon]

EPROMs are the ones that get bit rot actually, not EEPROMs. EEPROMs are masked, rewritable rom chips used for saving data. EPROMs and EEPROMs are completely different things... :)

Many cartridge-based systems have used EEPROMs for their save-chips, if they don't use battery-backed SRAM chip saving. They can erase themselves if you leave the cart unused for many years without ever plugging it in, but other than that should last as long as they have writes remaining (like Flash RAM the chips are write-limited).

EPROMs, however, are only very rarely used in game carts... though I have heard that some early, pre-crash games do use them (I don't know of any post-crash console games that use EPROMs, apart from some homebrew and pirate carts), and EPROMs supposedly have a ~25 year life, so it is possible that some dying Atari carts are because they use EPROMs inside. As I don't have pre-crash systems myself, though, I can't be certain about this.

As for N64 Gamesharks, yeah, they're just built badly and break really easily.

[1989LSC]

I had a genesis vectorman go bad after owning it a week, and I bought it new. Thats the only game I ever saw fail other than when the battery leaked in my warioland for the virtual boy and it wouldn't get past the title screen.

[Gameguy]

I've come across dead carts, but I don't think any of the ones I bought working died on me. An NES system started having graphic glitches, but that's not a game. Maybe they just have bad solder joints or the traces on the board go bad.

[RASK1904]

Only one has died in my possesion. I have a Chavez II that died. I swear. I got it at the swapmeet this sumer and brought it home cleaned it. Played it. Then becuase it's rare I put it in one of those clear snap shut cases and put it on a shelf to display. Then about a month ago my friend wanted to check it out so I got it out. Put it in and it doesn't work any more? I cleaned it. Opened it up and cleaned it and cleaned it again. It still wont work. I thought the case killed it becuase of the heat(I live in San Diego) but everyone on here doesn't think thats it. Someone said cheap parts. Maybe. I realy don't know what happened.

On another note. I've had probably 1500+ games and only a handfull I couldn't get to work.

Thanx RASK1904:sob:

[Atarileaf]

I've had probably had at least a couple of thousand carts pass through my collection in my years of collecting and I'd say out of all of those, perhaps 4 or 5 were completely dead and out of those 2 were Atari and 3 were Colecovision. The Atari ones were just dead, nothing on the screen. Colecovision ones are harder to diagnose since you'd get the blue select screen and then nothing, it would just freeze or reset to the title screen after pressing a button. No amount of cleaning would get them to work. Just dead.

But I think thats a pretty good ratio of good carts to dead carts.

[tubeway]

I shot a cartridge in reno just to watch it die.

[Thrillo]

The only dead cart I have is a Super Famicom game which refuses to boot no matter how much I clean it and the console; I dunno what the title is.
The first Super Famicom system that I bought worked fine...except that the graphics RAM was wonky and all games would come up with corrupt graphics, very similar to how dirty NES games look. Again, no amount of cleaning could fix it and I was feeling kinda bummed because I found it at a US thrift store, making it a relatively rare find...until I got the idea to transplant my trusty SNES's mobo into it and turn it into a SFES (Super Famicom Entertainment System). It fit just fine and I used it until I got stationed in Japan, where SFCs are more common than dirt.

[Vectorman0]

I cracked open Bump 'N Jump last night. Sadly, there were no signs of anything wrong. I guess the chips are officially dead. (It has the cheap kind inside a blob of epoxy or something) I think I may use it to make a Rocky and Bullwinkle reproduction. It is so minty fresh though, I can't bring myself to do it.

[Night Driver]

I had a copy of Dragster (2600) croak on me. Worked fine one day, dead the next.

[Vectorman0]

My bad luck continues. I bought a complete in box (not new) Kool-Aid Man a couple weeks ago. I just tried to play it, only to find it is dead. Some graphics appear, though a section is garbled. Buttons don't do anything.

I really have terrible luck with M-Network games.

[zektor]

My bad luck continues. I bought a complete in box (not new) Kool-Aid Man a couple weeks ago. I just tried to play it, only to find it is dead. Some graphics appear, though a section is garbled. Buttons don't do anything.

I really have terrible luck with M-Network games.

I saw a show recently with some womand who actually made her appliances go "dead" for no reason. She'd go through stereo's, microwaves...etc over and over. Some sort of odd energy emitting from her body was destroying her electronics. Maybe you have something similar :)

[squirrelnut]

it wasnt jubilee from the x-men was it?

[alxbly]

I got Donkey Kong Country for the SNES from a relative and it had died. I tried cleaning it, I tried opening it up to look for any obvious problems but alas... the cart had died.

[Flippy8490]

Personally, Ive never had a cart actually die on me. Nothing that cleaning the connectors wouldn't fix..but i have had friends who have had carts die. Usually really old ones and/or third party ones. I've seen the best performance out of SNES carts..like freakin' indestructible! lol

[Ed Oscuro]

At least it died peacefully, not while being played.
Not a very Viking-like death. Now see, that's what I thought this topic was going to be about: A cartridge exploding while being played, or otherwise frying. Anybody seen THAT, outside of playing in a thunderstorm?

[Daria]

I saw a show recently with some womand who actually made her appliances go "dead" for no reason. She'd go through stereo's, microwaves...etc over and over. Some sort of odd energy emitting from her body was destroying her electronics. Maybe you have something similar :)

I have that effect on keyboards. :/

[hellfire]

I have that effect on keyboards. :/

I have that effect on vcr's. when I was younger I went through 4 of them in 3 months