Genesis 1 sound problem went away on its own

Well a while back i complained that after just a few minutes of playing my GEN1 i would get a solid bass sound that did not stop.


Well a week later i have not moved the system and fired it up today and have put several hours into beggar prince with no issues at all.

Strange, it sounds like my 32x :p

My Game Gear's sound starts to degrade on the rare occasion if played long enough. I'm thinking I didn't solder the sound cap well enough...

Still going strong!

I had a similar experience with my 2nd xbox, I got it 2nd hand and it worked fine after a good dvdrom cleaning.
however then out of nowhere the sound would suddenly start.. crackling?

was very weird, then one day it just disappeared, maybe the solder got hot enough and melted back in position?
No clue, but it hasn't made a crackle since then.

I think it's time for a capacitor replacement on that Genesis. If it starts having those intermittent problems, the capacitors are going bad.

Did you change power supplies when you moved it?

I had a power supply that did that. It powered up the Genesis and played just fine but there was a constant and LOUD buzzzz or hum noise in the sound. I thought it was the Genesis so I grabbed another and it was still doing it. WTF I thought. Oh it must be the RF switch duhh. So I grabbed another RF switch and it was still there. Now I was really confused!

Decided to try another PSU and the loud buzzing sound was all gone!

well i did fabricate the power cord i'm using for it (turned a Gen2 power plug into a gen1) but if that was the problem i guess the system got "used to it" now. I even left it on extra time to see if it would happen again..,.. nothing clean as a whistle.... RGB plug time!

Replacing caps didn't solve my intermittent audio issues. I think the whole capacitor issue is perhaps overblown.

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Originally Posted by Joe Redifer

I think the whole capacitor issue is perhaps overblown.

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Yeah it seems like every problem people report here will get an answer
along the lines of "it might be the capacitor!"

Truly, T'is the Sega-16 word for 2010..

CAPACITOR

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Originally Posted by Joe Redifer

Replacing caps didn't solve my intermittent audio issues. I think the whole capacitor issue is perhaps overblown.

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Me too. Almost all my old game systems still work fine including a couple of Vectrex's, some really old Atari's and a T.V from '76 and two from 1980.
I do beleive that capacitors are the problem in my Turbo Express though.
My only game systems that have any issues were made after 1985.

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Originally Posted by Ace

I think it's time for a capacitor replacement on that Genesis. If it starts having those intermittent problems, the capacitors are going bad.

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It depends the type of problem too (and it could be dielectric capacitros which may have blown or been damaged rather than leaky/drying electrolytic caps -not sure how likely bad resistors would be). I'm almost positive the sound issue on my first model 1 is due to caps (very staticky sound via mono -RF at least, haven't tested AV, albeit one Sanyo SDTV has perfect sound via RF, so I'm not sure). Plus that same genesis causes the sega CD to crash, so go figure. (and rainbow banding is definitely due to electrolytic capacitors)

As joe redifer mentioned, there are other issues as well:

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Originally Posted by Joe Redifer

My problem was that some sounds were going where they shouldn't, like over to the left speaker when they should be centered. Some sounds sounded different (such as a nice drum in Gaiares sounding more like a hit on a wet bladder) and others were accentuated (high frequencies became quite loud on some channels). The volume knob would output some slight staticy garbage out the right speaker when turned all the way down. This would begin to happen after the Genesis was powered on for 10 or more minutes. I posted about this problem and it was suggested here on this site that I should replace all the caps. I did and the problem remained. Note that I also replaced the headphone jack itself prior to replacing the caps.

So what I did was powered the Genesis on, put it in a sound test and let it go. I left it on playing the sound test for over 12 hours. The sound was perfect when I came back. I let it cool down for 12 hours and came back and played for a while and the sound is still perfect. It has not FUBAR'd again yet, hopefully it stays fine.

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Salamando, one possible issue with using a modded model 2 PSU will be limited Amperage. iirc the standard M2 supplies are 10V and .85A, early model 1s have 1.2A supplies and require close to such with the stock voltage regulators, so you unit could be power starved. (I beleive TmEE mentioned replacing the voltage regs could drop power requirements substancially)

Quick question:

The Genesis power supply is 17 watts and the Sega CD is 35 watts, correct? I just want to make sure I don't have them mixed up.

I think there might be some other parts failing on the sound circuit in Joe's Genesis. Since the electrolytic capacitors were ruled out, the next thing I'd check would be the resistors and ceramic capacitors on the sound circuit for possible damage.

People should not underestimate the Capacitors. In older computers from the time, leaking caps are common. In the early 90s, Apple started using these SMT Caps that leak goo and have a 15-20 year life span. If you dont clean up the mess as soon as it happens, the symptoms will get worse and worse and soon enough hardware damage will occur. I have a Macintosh SE that has a faulty SCSI bus due to the bad capacitors. I have not seen the goop in a genesis yet however.

Yeah bad caps can cause all kinds of issues on electronics. I've seen it many times on PC motherboards actually mostly from the P4 era! It didn't help P4's ran so hot to begin with but you'll see bulged and leaking caps on the motherboards CPU VRM and the owners wonder why the system isn't stable! I also have a few Game Gears that turn on and then shut off in 2 seconds, leave it for a second or two and turn it back on and it usually works for the rest of the duration. That is definitely the caps on the power supply I'm sure of it.

But I think under-powering is the issue here. I know the model 2 power adapter is only .85A like someone said and the early model 1 had 1.2A just like the Sega CD's. It doesn't sound like much but it makes the difference.

9V x .85A is 7.6 Watts and 9V x 1.2A is 10.8 Watts. I'm not sure where Joe got 35 Watts that seems way to high but he is still correct in noticing a difference between the power supplies at all. I've never noticed a wattage rating on the Sega plugs but I always check the amperage. I use the 1.2A plugs for the model 1 and both Sega CD's.

I tried another PSU on the model 1 that was 9VDC but only .85A and the same thing happened. The loud buzzing noise was back. So this definitely happens when you under-power them. I also noticed the picture on RF wasn't clear there was way more noise in the RF signal. Using these power supplies that are too low in wattage (amperage) seems like it could be damaging (esp to the Sega CD) and I always wondered why Sega didn't make the power supplies clearly labeled. Some of the ones for the Genesis and Sega CD look identical and most people aren't going to know to check the amperage on them. They should have made them either not fit each other or made it clear what one was for the Sega CD. That or just made them all 1.2A!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by m68k

People should not underestimate the Capacitors. In older computers from the time, leaking caps are common. In the early 90s, Apple started using these SMT Caps that leak goo and have a 15-20 year life span. If you dont clean up the mess as soon as it happens, the symptoms will get worse and worse and soon enough hardware damage will occur. I have a Macintosh SE that has a faulty SCSI bus due to the bad capacitors. I have not seen the goop in a genesis yet however.

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I think most bad caps in the Genesis are due to drying out, not bursting/leaking. (all 3 of my HDG model 1s have really visible rainbow banding, one has weird mono sound and crashes the Sega CD too, but none show visible signs of leaking capacitors)

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Originally Posted by MN12BIRD

But I think under-powering is the issue here. I know the model 2 power adapter is only .85A like someone said and the early model 1 had 1.2A just like the Sega CD's. It doesn't sound like much but it makes the difference.

9V x .85A is 7.6 Watts and 9V x 1.2A is 10.8 Watts. I'm not sure where Joe got 35 Watts that seems way to high but he is still correct in noticing a difference between the power supplies at all. I've never noticed a wattage rating on the Sega plugs but I always check the amperage. I use the 1.2A plugs for the model 1 and both Sega CD's.

I tried another PSU on the model 1 that was 9VDC but only .85A and the same thing happened. The loud buzzing noise was back. So this definitely happens when you under-power them. I also noticed the picture on RF wasn't clear there was way more noise in the RF signal. Using these power supplies that are too low in wattage (amperage) seems like it could be damaging (esp to the Sega CD) and I always wondered why Sega didn't make the power supplies clearly labeled. Some of the ones for the Genesis and Sega CD look identical and most people aren't going to know to check the amperage on them. They should have made them either not fit each other or made it clear what one was for the Sega CD. That or just made them all 1.2A!

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I think the VA7 model 1 should work fine with .85A as it's almost identical to the early model 2s internally.

Also, I beleive TmEE mentioned before that the voltage regs in the Genesis are really inefficient and replacing them with better quality modern ones would substancially reduce the power requirement. (to below .4 A iiirc) I think he mentioned that with some decent voltage regulators for the genesis, the 32x wouldn't have required a separate power supply either. (not sure about that one)