cart has garbled graphics... any advice?

hey guys
I went to test out my baseball stars professional and Nam 1975 cart and it boots up normally but on the neo-geo splash screen it is just solid graphic blocks. Sound is competely fine and even the "how to play" screen is fine, but everything else is just blocks of solid color and not many of them either.

The carts are both US region and I am testing them on a MV1A motherboard with japanese bios (I believe)... other carts work just fine but these two are exhibiting identical problems as each other.

Cleaned the carts and motherboard contacts thoroughly as per the normal method and still nothing. I want to believe it is a BIOS issue but I just dont know enough about it honestly. If the carts were dead though wouldnt they would be just that, dead?

Both of the PCBs look very, very clean with no damaged/broken traces or bad solder joints.

thanks for the help guys!

Is the battery still okay... not leaking at all is it?

Could always reset the backup ram for giggles since you've already thoroughly cleaned them.... but were they working before and just started doing this?

Check your traces from the cart slot for the CHA possibly row B around 12-16. The older games use those pins while the newer games use other pins. I had the same problem on my MV-1F. I think it was B13.

right now are james! B15-26 are unused ... how would I go about fixing this? Do I make a bridge to another point? Will that effect other games from working properly?

Good news is that it means the carts are probably working then eh? Awesome!

@xiao.. thanks for the tips man... this is actually my buddies motherboard I borrowed to test these carts on as I lent my motheboard out.

I think you are looking at the wrong slot.

Here's my thread:

http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=198657

oh really?

Should I be checking the traces on the smaller PCB behind the slot connector or on the actual motherboard then?

Thanks man!

That guy in that thread certainly knows his broken traces.