What makes a cartridge stop working?

[Mamejay]

Brasso all the way!!!!
out of 70 games only 1 i could not get working. Will try and replace the cap. Never thought of that.

As for all cleaning Brasso is the absolute only thing I use for all my carts on all consoles.

[Televator]

You know, it's starting to crush me a little to think of how many carts have ended up in landfills because their owners thought they were dead...

[JDB]

putting cartridges in the toaster makes them stop working

[The Coop]

You know, it's starting to crush me a little to think of how many carts have ended up in landfills because their owners thought they were dead...

How do you think the carts feel when they reach the compactor?

[evildragon]

Can't use too much solder either, otherwise you'll damage your cart slot.

Correct. The thickness will go up if you use too much. You gotta make it literally a tin plating, not a solder blob.

[bohokii]

Correct. The thickness will go up if you use too much. You gotta make it literally a tin plating, not a solder blob.

i would not recomend tining

but if you do careful not to use to hot a soldering iron get a little on there then wipe it quickly with a dry paper towel waded up

you do each contact individualy

[Royce]

i would not recomend tining

but if you do careful not to use to hot a soldering iron get a little on there then wipe it quickly with a dry paper towel waded up

you do each contact individualy

I'm definitely not going to try this since it is my first time soldering. I think I will just replace the capacitor. That seems easy enough.

[tz101]

Tinning of the contacts after sanding and polishing is not a requirement, only a preference of some.

Every cartridge in my collection gets sanded and polished before I put it into one of my clean consoles. If I had to re-tin each one after sanding, it would be a full time job. Each of my cartridges plays on the first insertion.

[carlsson]

Out of curiosity, did replacing the capacitor work? I happen to have two copies of Sonic 1 of which none boots. Then my copy of Super Monaco GP all of a sudden also is all black. The contacts are reasonably clean, at least as much as I can polish them with a rubber eraser. While I might try some other polish like Brasso, I also think the electrolyte capacitor - a 47 uF 16V on all three boards - could be the cause of sudden death. After all, capacitors go bad in all sorts of electronics that is 15-20 years old or older. Fortunately I have the soldering skills, so as soon as I find a fresh capacitor I will try to replace one. It should be noted though that electrolytes have a + and a - side, indicated on the component and the board. One should be careful to not solder it in place backwards, it would be very risky and might lead to a bang.

The other component apart from the ROM itself is a resistor (22 kOhm I believe), but those usually will last forever unless they suffer very high voltages or so. If that happened inside a Megadrive cartridge, chances is both the cartridge and console would have gone up in flames anyway.

[carlsson]

Replying to my own post...

I found a 47 uF 25V electrolyte in a bag of supposedly "NOS" capacitors. I replaced the cap on one of the Sonic boards, but it made absolutely no difference. I might scrub on the connector until the sunrise, but it probably would make no difference. I have tested these carts both in my MD 1 and my Mega PC, and also all my other MD games work in both so probably it is not a console issue. Indeed I don't know a good way to function test capacitors - my multimeter does volts, amperes, ohms and transistors but not capacitivity. I might try another capacitor, but I'm afraid the problem really lies in a zapped ROM chip.

[goombakid]

Weimans glass cooktop cleaner works for me. Opening up the cart works the best, but you should be able to put a bit of the cleaner on a cotton swab and scrub the contacts without opening it. Use the other side of the cotton swab to clean up the residue, then use some alcohol for a really good cleanse. Works for me on ALL my cartridges. All the games that wouldn't run works perfectly after cleaning up the contacts.