GameGear Tails Adventure faulty cart

xsq · Jun 7, 2016

Does anyone have experience troubleshooting Game Gear carts?

I received a beat up Tails Adventure a couple of days ago, but it won't play. I treated the contacts with a good contact cleaner and checked the connections between the chip and the cart edge with a multimeter.

Could the chip be dead? What to do?

bustedstr8 · Jun 7, 2016

If all the traces and contacts check out you need to see what type of cart it is.

If it's a Mapper IC and Rom cart, it is repairable.

If it uses a custom Sega Rom with integrated mapper your fooked.

xsq · Jun 7, 2016

I'm a super noob when it comes to this, but it seems to me the Rom is custom... so I'm fucked, right?

Apocalypse · Jun 7, 2016

xsq said:
Could the chip be dead? What to do?

I'm sorry for you but I have several games of various systems where the chip just suddenly died.
Most of the time when I try to dump them my programmer returns a loose pin error (floating pin, probably no connection between the leg and the die)...

bustedstr8 · Jun 7, 2016

xsq said:
I'm a super noob when it comes to this, but it seems to me the Rom is custom... so I'm fucked, right?

boned

xsq · Jun 8, 2016

Thanks for your help guys. I'll source another cart.

This one:

segasonicfan · Jul 19, 2016

Have you tried reflowing the IC? dont throw the cart away

Those are getting hard to come by.

GameGear Tails Adventure faulty cart

xsq

Thou Shalt Not, Question Rot.,

bustedstr8

Trollbox Trade Federation,

xsq

Thou Shalt Not, Question Rot.,

Apocalypse

Edo Express Delivery Guy

bustedstr8

Trollbox Trade Federation,

xsq

Thou Shalt Not, Question Rot.,

segasonicfan

Camel Slug