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Bad Cartridge


Intellfan

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I have seen this happen with the occasional cart on various systems - say 1 in 100? These carts are getting to be 30=35 years old, and I suppose there can be might flaws or oxidation somewhere inside the cart's components.

I suppose as time goes by will see more of this. I just bought a Jaguar Wolfenstein 3D that won't do saves no matter what. I imagine something has gone haywire with the chip inside that does saves.

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Extremely rare when I've run across bad carts. Out of the hundreds or thousands handled throughout the decades, *maybe* a half a dozen to a dozen that were *truly* bad?

 

More likely that carts go bad due to poor handling practices. We already know about the perils of blowing into cartridges to get the "dust" out and the havoc it wreaks on the edge connectors, but then there's static electricity and the accidental insertion of a game cart while a system is turned on. Perhaps some cartridges have gone bad when a game system blows up and its power supply sends the wrong voltage to it - essentially frying the thing.

 

Besides a game ROM, some cartridge boards have components such as diodes, resistors, capacitors and various I.C.'s. Anyone ever resurrect a game cartridge by replacing a bad component? Tantalum caps are notorious for going bad any 'ol time they feel like it. :(

Edited by save2600
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I've got maybe a half dozen dead carts as well (Atari VCS and Intellivision), and haven't been able to resurrect them. Have not gone the route of removing the ROM from one board to put it on another to see if it's the chip, cracked solder, or bad components. Some of those carts do have a diode and / or cap or two on them.

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  • 1 year later...

So my second smaller INTV lot was sort of a "barn find." It all cleaned up very nicely with some TLC but even after a cleaning with some 90% ISO, 8 of the 16 games wouldn't boot (cleaned the console as well.) Cleaned them each several more times and got 6 of those 8 carts working reliably.

 

2 still will not boot, after 4 cleanings with 90% ISO.

 

Is it possible they are dead? Any suggestions? I was thinking of unscrewing them and hitting the contact points with an eraser.

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So my second smaller INTV lot was sort of a "barn find." It all cleaned up very nicely with some TLC but even after a cleaning with some 90% ISO, 8 of the 16 games wouldn't boot (cleaned the console as well.) Cleaned them each several more times and got 6 of those 8 carts working reliably.

 

2 still will not boot, after 4 cleanings with 90% ISO.

 

Is it possible they are dead? Any suggestions? I was thinking of unscrewing them and hitting the contact points with an eraser.

not all carts work shoved all the way in. Need to pull them out a little bit at a time to find their sweet spot. Also games that dont boot right up migh need you to press the reset button after you power on the system. Intellivision has these weird little qwirks.
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not all carts work shoved all the way in. Need to pull them out a little bit at a time to find their sweet spot. Also games that dont boot right up migh need you to press the reset button after you power on the system. Intellivision has these weird little qwirks.

 

I have many old system so always good to familiarize myself with the quirks of each.. a question or two:

 

-I have tried hitting reset, I get a green screen for one game, which slowly changes colors, and just black on the other.

 

-Do you pull the game slowly out with the power on? Or turn off, pull, and then turn back on?

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I have many old system so always good to familiarize myself with the quirks of each.. a question or two:

 

-I have tried hitting reset, I get a green screen for one game, which slowly changes colors, and just black on the other.

 

-Do you pull the game slowly out with the power on? Or turn off, pull, and then turn back on?

with the power off you pull them out slight bit. Then power on, press reset if nothing. If nothing still, power off and pull out a little bit more. Etc. etc. also some mattel carts have a dont insert past this line, line on the carts. Edited by pimpmaul69
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I have only repaired Sega Genesis carts, but with those it usually is a bad cap (rare) or resistor (more rare) if the contacts or cart slot on the console is not dirty or bad. I did have one Michael Jackson Moonwalker cart that was fried from the previous owner. The IC was completely scorched. That was a "save cart shell with sticker and insert different PCB" solution. Case by case basis I suppose. Are Intellivision cart shells glued together?

Edited by LiqMat
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For me it is a SNAFU and a Lock N' Chase, both Mattel carts. I will try "the pull out method" tonight.

Another thing you could try, if you have an Intellivoice, is to plug the Intellivoice into the Intellivision and the game into the Intellivoice. Even if it's not an Intellivoice game, it should still play through. The cart might sit in the Intellivoice a bit differently than the actual console port. It would at least let you know if the cart is working. I like to open my carts (when possible) to inspect the inner workings. If it's pretty corroded in there, it makes more sense that it might be dead.

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Hover Force is known for working on some systems and not others. I don't think the reason has ever been explained -- could be a ROM variant, could be a cart hardware or Intellivision hardware issue -- but if you have a "dead" Hover Force, it may not actually be dead.

 

Other than that, I've had a dead Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack, Frogger, and white-label Space Battle.

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I have come across two bad carts: a Dracula and a CBS Lady Bug.

 

I purchased Dracula back in the days and it worked perfectly until a day when it stopped. I opened the shell but everything looked alright.

 

I've found the bad CBS Lady Bug 10 years ago.

Rev, I hope one day that shell can be used for a re-reissue of Mouse Trap :)

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When I got my Intellivision for Christmas 1980, it had a Checkers cartridge. It would go CRAZY and start throwing checkers all over the board randomly. Eventually, we figured out that it must be the cartridge. My dad took the whole package and it was replaced. I was a bit disappointed because we got a copy of the game with monochrome instructions compared to the full colour one we had.

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