GameGear Tails Adventure faulty cart

[xsq]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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


This one:

 

[segasonicfan]

Have you tried reflowing the IC? dont throw the cart away Those are getting hard to come by.