Repairing a 32X cartridge

[megasdkirby]

I recently purchased Virtua Fighter for the 32X, and the game does not work properly.

The game and console are thoroughly cleaned.

I placed the cartridge on the console. When the SEGA logo appears, I hear a very loud and garbled SCREECH during the SEGA intro music. It then proceeds to the Virtua Fighter title screen. When I press down or up to select an option from the menu, I hear that same screeching sound. I press start to go to the character select screen. The music is extremely garbled and "screechy". I choose a character and when I begin the game, the graphics are extremely glitchy and I keep getting the "RING OUT" message even though the characters are on the center of the screen.

This renders the game unplayable.

Can I repair this? Can it be a leaky capacitor? IC?

[77punk]

Make sure the pins are clean in the genny and the 32x system, since the 32x fits in like a cart. I use duster to get out the dust and such and then use a cheap cart with some rubbing alcohol on it to clean the pins inside. Just a guess. Does this happen with other games? Have you opened the cart yet to see if anything looks distroyed?

[MrSparkle]

wow thats an interesting set of errors your getting there. as the previous post stressed you have a great many pines to deal with in this set up so check that the cart 32x top and bottom pin sets and genesis pin sets are all clean. if you have any other 32x carts test it out with them do they work? If not try a few regular genesis carts if they all work fine it could be a problem with the 32x, or possibly the virtua fighter cart itself. when i pulled my 32x out of the basement i had to take it open it up and pretty much clean the whole pcb off to get it working. There are also 2 ribbon cables inside that can get unseated over time though i dont know if it would cause this set of errors. When i get a chance ill search for a few threads detailing the problem and post them here.

[megasdkirby]

Thanks for all the suggestions!

I tried "deep cleaning" the cart...no improvement.

Then i decided to check the "innards" using a multimeter...opened the cart up and found that the big ass capacitor had weird readings...too many fluctuations for me to approve of.

So I went to Forest Hill's Electronics (a store near where I live), purchased a replacement.

Then spent a while taking out the old one and soldering the one one. Burned my fingers a bit.

And it worked! WOOO!!!!

So my guess is that these capacitors do die out after some time? Or was this a fluke?

Still, I am very happy!!!!

[jb143]

Yup, the juices in electrolytic caps do eventually dry up, leak, or explode. Depending on the quality sometimes it happes much sooner than it should.

[FABombjoy]

post hoc, ergo propter hoc

Typically you need a cap meter to detect anything useful. The resistance will change when measuring a cap as it begins to charge. Seeing 0 ohms or infinite would be a sign of trouble. What kinds of readings were you taking?

[megasdkirby]

It just kept fluctuating. I don't remember the numbers exactly, but I can give an example. For instance, when I read it it said 10. Then five second later I tested it and it gave 28. Tested it again, different number. Over and over again.

These numbers are just an example, not actual numbers.