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Recapped Game Gear does not boot games, glitched TMSS


Norrecito

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Hi all,

 

TL;DR;
I have re-capped Game Gear did not boots into games and now has a glitched license screen at start and I would really like to know what is the problem.

 

A few day ago I bought a faulty Game Gear hoping that I could fix it. There was battery leak in the left battery holder and the previous person did a terrible re-cap attempt (cold solder joints everywhere, some of the capacitors already fell off). It was a VA1 (Europe). Both pads of C55 were missing but everything else seemed to be in good shape on the motherboard. I connected the negative leg of C55 into R45 and the positive leg to the farthest leg of Q9. I also made a jumper wire from Q8 to the positive leg of C55. The rest of the re-cap was straightforward. Once I turned on the Game Gear with a game, it come up with a white screen and the contrast wheel was also working. I thought that my job (with the motherboard) was done but when I put in a game, it never passed the license screen ("Produced by or under license from Sega Enterprises LTD.") even after I cleaned the game with isopropyl alcohol and re-inserted it a bunch of times. (I have tested multiple games.) I have never seen this issue before.

 

I have checked the board for corrosion thinking that the battery leak might has caused some problem but the only thing I found was something that looked like flux residue between the legs of IC3. (MB8464A-10L) I have cleaned it and resoldered each leg anyway. I have also checked for broken traces in this area but found none.

 

My next idea was that there might be a cold solder joint for one of the legs of the cartridge connector. I have checked each leg and found nothing on the visual inspection. I have reflowed each leg just to be sure and this is where things went from bad to worse. The license screen was still showing up as before but now it is glitched. I have reflowed each leg again but nothing changed. Another wierd thing I noticed is sometimes when I turn the Game Gear on without any game in it, the license screen still appears but is much smaller. Like when you are playing Master System games though a Master Gear Converter on your Game Gear.

 

I was a little desparate at this point and used sandpaper to "clean" the cartridge connector but it did not help. I also looked for bent pins inside the cartridge connector but as far I can see, all of them are alright. (I only have a cheap chinese USB microscope and looking into the cartridge connector is not an easy task so I would not bet my live on it)

 

My final idea was that I might have screwed up the cartridge connector somehow (I feel stupid) so maybe I could just replace it with another one from one of the dead Game Gears I have. I only have VA0 (Europe) Game Gears for spares but the cartridge connector looked like it might fit however once I desoldered all of the legs I have realized that it is also fixed with rivets to the motherboard so removing it is not that easy.

 

I kind of clueless about what I should do next. I really appreciate any help you can provide.

 

UPDATE:

This is exactly the same issue I was having before screwing with the cartridge connector:

The Game Gear now shows a glitched license screen (or TMSS screen if you will) and starts in Master System mode even without any game inserted which is weird.

 

I don't own a working Game Gear with TMSS but I am assuming that it should come up with a white screen when turned on without a game.

I am wondering what could make it think that there is a game inserted that requires Master System mode.

 

I have also checked all traces under IC3 in case what I have found was not flux residue but corrosion but none of them is broken.

 

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Alright, now I am getting somewhere :)

 

I have reflowed all legs of both IC1 and IC2 but it didn't change a thing.

 

After that I got an idea that maybe the remains of cold solder joints are still around the motherboard and connecting something that should not be connected. (The Game Gear already had a recap attempt before it got to me and some capacitors fell off because of the cold solder joints)

 

I don't have any compressed air however I do have a trusty compressor in the garage so I used that one to get rid of debris that might be left in the motherboard.

 

To me surprise, the Game Gear no longer displayed the glitched license screen when turned on without a game, it showed a simple white screen.

 

I can now get a perfectly fine Game Gear license screen most of the time when I insert a game however it either goes to a white screen or a screen of solid red or blue. That is, it never boots the game. I guess I am back to problem one.

20200917_165029.jpg

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FIXED!!! :)

It was a broken trace between the cartridge slot and IC1.

The Game Gear VA1 service guide has a diagram that shows how the data and address pins of the cartridge slot are connected to IC1. I have started checking each connection with the multimeter and found that the trace between pin 29 (address 11) and IC1 is broken. After soldering in a wire, the Game Gear works perfectly.

Very interesting, I hope my findings could help out someone else in the future :)

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  • 1 year later...
23 hours ago, reggieyeah31 said:

I have same problem but I don't know how to check the pin connection.  I have read the service manual but there are many line.  I don't how to start and check

In the Game Gear VA1 service manual there are schematics of the main board in the "5-1. Main Circuit Board-1" chapter.

 

There is IC1 in the middle (it's the biggest IC in the main board so you can't miss it) and to the left of it is CN1 which is the cartridge connector.

 

Each line of the CN1 and IC1 is labeled. Address lines as labeled as A<number> while Data lines as labeled as D<number>.

 

What you want to do is to find which pin of CN1 maps to which pin of IC1, then using a Multimeter, check for continuity between them. If you got no continuity where there suppose to be one, then you got a broken trace :) 

 

I would check all paths of CN1, not just the ones that go to IC1 because any of them can be broken.

 

This of course only helps if you have a VA1 revision motherboard :) 

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On 9/18/2020 at 11:00 PM, Norrecito said:

FIXED!!! :)

It was a broken trace between the cartridge slot and IC1.

The Game Gear VA1 service guide has a diagram that shows how the data and address pins of the cartridge slot are connected to IC1. I have started checking each connection with the multimeter and found that the trace between pin 29 (address 11) and IC1 is broken. After soldering in a wire, the Game Gear works perfectly.

Very interesting, I hope my findings could help out someone else in the future :)

Any chance you can post some pictures of the successful repair? Mainly would like to see the soldering job.

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  • 2 months later...

Sorry for replying so late.

 

I no longer have that Game Gear so I cannot post any pictures but there wouldn't be much to see:

One end of the wire was soldered to pin 29 of the cartridge slot (from the underside of the cartridge slot) while the other to the first VIA the path went to.

I've used kapton tape to secure the wire to the PCB.

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