Lynxpro Posted October 26, 2014 Share Posted October 26, 2014 Thought I'd ask. I have a first generation Genesis and I recently picked up Tengen's Dragon's Revenge for it at a used game store. It won't load. I've thoroughly cleaned it and it still won't load. On a whim, I purchased Monopoly at the same time and it too was dirty. However, after cleaning it with less gusto than what I provided to Dragon's Revenge, it now works like a champ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chilly Willy Posted October 27, 2014 Share Posted October 27, 2014 http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=339.0 You're welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Let me provide a better answer to your problem. Many Tengen games have this issue. I've had not only my mint Dragon's Revenge die like this but also a Gauntlet IV and my treasured Storm Grinder! The problem is that Tengen used crappy PCBs on the carts. The actual masked rom is good. So...here is what you do: Buy a really crappy condition Pit Fighter for the genesis loose for as cheap as possible but make sure it does indeed work. Then, you have to carefully unsolder the rom from your failed Tengen game and unsolder the rom from the Pit Fighter cart. Trash the pit fighter rom chip and resolder your awesome game rom in its place. Test and it should be good to go! Put your new donor board with good rom back into the original case for the game and play till the end of time. Myself and a few others locally have done this with several "dead" Tengen carts and Pit Fighter's PCBs always work. Best use for that game in my opinion. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 I have several Tengen games and they all work great. Pity Dragon's Revenge didn't work for you. Dragon's Revenge and Dragon's Fury are two of the best Pinballs on Genesis/MD, next to Psycho. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted November 14, 2014 Author Share Posted November 14, 2014 Let me provide a better answer to your problem. Many Tengen games have this issue. I've had not only my mint Dragon's Revenge die like this but also a Gauntlet IV and my treasured Storm Grinder! The problem is that Tengen used crappy PCBs on the carts. The actual masked rom is good. So...here is what you do: Buy a really crappy condition Pit Fighter for the genesis loose for as cheap as possible but make sure it does indeed work. Then, you have to carefully unsolder the rom from your failed Tengen game and unsolder the rom from the Pit Fighter cart. Trash the pit fighter rom chip and resolder your awesome game rom in its place. Test and it should be good to go! Put your new donor board with good rom back into the original case for the game and play till the end of time. Myself and a few others locally have done this with several "dead" Tengen carts and Pit Fighter's PCBs always work. Best use for that game in my opinion. Funny you mention that strategy because I also bought Pit Fighter and it does work like a champ. I have problems with Tengen's Ms. Pac-Man which I seem to have to wiggle the cartridge to get it to work no matter how much cleaning is done to it. The thing about Pit Fighter though is most stores around here that have them charge $5 per cartridge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 (edited) Here is the reason why Pit Fighter works like a champ. It is the only Tengen game I know of where the PCB was actually made by Sega! Yeap... the PCB has Sega all over it and is of much better quality in design etc then the Tengen ones. But for some reason Pit Fighter while being Tengen published...etc, has Sega made PCBs in them. As such the PCB appears to be universal and as I said in my remarks above, I've personally fixed 3 Tengen titles doing this and know of others who have done the same. And I'm sorry that Pit Fighter runs you $5 loose. Around here they are usually about $3 each. But for $3 or even $5 I'm willing to spend that to get a much more fun and valuable game working again. I actually have a small stock pile of Pit Fighter carts at the ready in case my Grind Stormer ever acts up again or any other Tengen game I own that hasn't yet given me problems. Edited November 15, 2014 by -^Cro§Bow^- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted November 15, 2014 Author Share Posted November 15, 2014 Here is the reason why Pit Fighter works like a champ. It is the only Tengen game I know of where the PCB was actually made by Sega! Yeap... the PCB has Sega all over it and is of much better quality in design etc then the Tengen ones. But for some reason Pit Fighter while being Tengen published...etc, has Sega made PCBs in them. As such the PCB appears to be universal and as I said in my remarks above, I've personally fixed 3 Tengen titles doing this and know of others who have done the same. And I'm sorry that Pit Fighter runs you $5 loose. Around here they are usually about $3 each. But for $3 or even $5 I'm willing to spend that to get a much more fun and valuable game working again. I actually have a small stock pile of Pit Fighter carts at the ready in case my Grind Stormer ever acts up again or any other Tengen game I own that hasn't yet given me problems. Very awesome. Do you think any other common Genesis PCBs could be used in a similar manner? Like, say, maybe some of the millions of sports cartridge PCBs that seem to be available in every thrift store in America? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted November 16, 2014 Share Posted November 16, 2014 The sports titles actually AREN'T good candidates to use as replacement PCBs for most games because many of them contain more than one rom and are just more complicated. I'm sure there are other carts out there that can be used, but Pit Fighter's PCB seems to have been made the way it was so that it was literally universal with all Tengen prorgrammed games. My Grind Stormer was one of the first to exhibit problems in that it frequently wouldn't boot up or when it did it would lock up a few min into play it. I finally got it working again by reflowing the solder and then actually using my soldering iron on the contacts themselves to burn off some additional discoloration and corrosion on the pins that normal alcohol, pink eraser, etc couldn't seem to get rid of. However, my Dragon's Revenge and Gauntlet IV carts I could never revive again until I was made aware of the Pit Fighter PCB swap out trick. Now they both work just great and unless you opened the carts up, you wouldn't know that I had swapped the roms onto different PCBs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted November 23, 2014 Share Posted November 23, 2014 Wanted to add to this that it has now been confirmed that another Dragon's Revenge cart was repaired using not a Pit Fighter! pcb as the donor, but a G-Loc pcb. So apparently that is another game that can be picked up loose on the cheap on used as donor PCB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hwj_chim Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 Wanted to add to this that it has now been confirmed that another Dragon's Revenge cart was repaired using not a Pit Fighter! pcb as the donor, but a G-Loc pcb. So apparently that is another game that can be picked up loose on the cheap on used as donor PCB. Could you please post pics. I am very interested about this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted November 26, 2014 Author Share Posted November 26, 2014 This would make for a good YouTube video series... I never see G-Loc around. So finding a common sports game that uses a Sega PCB would be ideal. I imagine the millions of EA carts wouldn't count because I'd suspect they used their own PCBs. Is this a commonly known issue discussed on the Sega boards? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted November 27, 2014 Share Posted November 27, 2014 Post pics showing what exactly? Sorry if I come off as rude on this... it is just a simple rom chip swap out. The carts from Tengen only contain just the main rom chip and a capacitor. It was originally thought the caps were the issue, but having tried several myself without success it appears to be an issue with some bit rotting occurring within the pcbs made by Tengen causing traces within to loose connectivity. Pit Fighter is a Tengen published game, but uses a Sega made pcb and is of much better quality. So..again all that is needed is some moderate soldering skills: Decent soldering iron de-solder braid or a good solder pump de-solder or clip the pins off the old rom off the donor pcb de-solder the rom off your non working game re-solder the rom from your non working game to the donor pcb taking care to orient the rom correctly. Notch side usually faces to the left and the roms are soldered on the same side of the PCB that the capacitor is on test for success Then toss the rom you removed from working pcb and your crappy pcb in the trash. Really it is a very simple process and I'm sure there are many other genesis carts that can be used as donor's but with the case of all the tengen ones I've brought back to life I always use the Pit Fighter pcb. I don't know that anyone has ever sat down and noted the pcb revisions to understand the differences between them. I know that they aren't all the same though as many will contain the pins for all connections but don't actually have traces on the board connecting them to the rom. Later carts don't even have all the connections on the edge because they didn't need those pins and the rom in use didn't use those addresses etc. So... there are differences between them. For now I can go on record and say that for sure Dragon's Revenge roms can use either a Pit Fighter or G-Loc pcb as a donor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted December 6, 2014 Author Share Posted December 6, 2014 Hmm…well if Tengen didn't do anything special with their carts - like added RAM - then practically any Sega PCB should work then. That's good news because the typical Sega sports cartridge is dirt cheap compared to Pit Fighter. Since I'm in California, I'd advise to recycle the discarded PCB since it's e-Waste which is a big problem. Are there any other publishers with non-Sega PCBs that are as bad as Tengen's? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted January 1, 2015 Share Posted January 1, 2015 Found some additional information on possible donor carts that should be usable on most Tengen games, especially Dragon's Revenge and Grind Stormer.. Here is the link to the NA forums about this. Read through and you will find a post that lists many possible donors. http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?StartRow=26&catid=8&threadid=131799 I'm about to go through my large list of cheap dupes and see if I can resurrect another mint condition but apparently completely dead Dragon's Revenge I just picked up over the Holidays... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted January 2, 2015 Share Posted January 2, 2015 (edited) Wanted to add that I was able to use a Batman Returns cart to resurrect an Dragon's Revenge last night. Also after cracking open nearly every sports game spare I have, as I stated you can't use most of them as they actually contain two masked roms or several other ICs used for saving etc. Even an old Tommy Lasortta Baseball and the very first Joe Montana Football can't be used as they are different from the standard 1mbit carts. However, it appears that an ESPN Sunday Night NFL cart has the same size rom and traces if my eyes are seeing is correctly. So might give one of those carts a shot too. It would also look like for commons that the first Ecco The Dolphin is another good candidate as a donor PCB. But I would argue that replacing Ecco with a Dragon's Revenge is not really justified... Oh.. I think I figured out what is going on with the Tengen PCBs. The Dragon's Revenge I just fixed appeared to have several traces not making contact properly. I tried to reflow the solder but that wasn't successful. I determined that what is happening is that the contact pads the rom is soldered to are in fact separating from the pcb. When I was trying to reflow them, several of the pads literally melted into the solder itself around the pins! My iron is always set to 300°F. You could repair these traces by using jumper wires from the pins and soldering directly to the contacts on the pcb edge. But it is a lot more work to troubleshoot then it would be to just desolder the rom and transplant them. My thought is that Tengen used really crappy pcbs and the traces are likely bit rotting internally. The fact that the pads just melt right with the solder goes to show how cheap everything is on these boards. Edited January 2, 2015 by -^Cro§Bow^- 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariLeaf Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 Bumping this to ask if there's a list of acceptable donor carts for dead Tengen carts. I got a CIB Grind Stormer for $5 a couple of weeks back and it's dead but this game seems to be expensive enough to try and salvage and I do love my shmups. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 Pit Fighter, G-Loc, Batman Returns,... those are some to try and use. Might look for an ESPN Sunday Night NFL cart as that looks to be the same pcb type as well. And yes Grind Stormer is totally worth the sacrifice of any of those listed to get working! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariLeaf Posted May 9, 2015 Share Posted May 9, 2015 Are those you listed all tengen carts or can they be other companys? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted May 12, 2015 Share Posted May 12, 2015 Pit-Fighter is published by Tengen, but actually made on a Sega PCB. G-Loc and Batman Returns are Sega published titles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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