You guys, lets face it - its a BIG pain in the ass to get cartridges to play sometimes. Today was the worst I've ever seen it - I musta spent half an hour getting sonic + knuckles + sonic 3 to play, and I still haven't succeeded. What can I do to fix this? I'm open to modding solutions, because I know my genesis well from overclocking it. Oh by the way, it is a Genesis 1.
Help - Stupid old cartridges
- Thread starter Peyn
- Start date
lordofduct
Established Member
The only Genesis Cart I've had go bad on me is Sonic 1, back in 1992 not even a year after I bought it. Damn sledgehammers... who'da thunk that would break my game?
Strangely though... My Genesis stopped working like last week though. That pissed me off, and I don't feel like fixing it right now. I guess I'm going with out my genny for a while out of pure procrastination.
Strangely though... My Genesis stopped working like last week though. That pissed me off, and I don't feel like fixing it right now. I guess I'm going with out my genny for a while out of pure procrastination.
Amon
Staff member
Only genesis I had on me break was when i fried it by plugging in the wrong power cord into it. My bad... only cart I have that has gone bad on me is sonic 3... it wont save anymore. I managed to open it up thinking it was a battery issue but couldnt find a battery (heard that was the case).
All cartridge-based systems are just like that - you learn to live with it.
about:
5% of Atarti 2600 games
95% of NES games
80% of Genesis games
30% of SNES games
will not play without being cleaned first (isopropyl alcohol solution). And I don't just mean they won't play the first time, and then they always play after they're cleaned. I mean every single time you pop the game in, whether it's been played recently or not, those stats apply (and I have over 100 games for each system, and more than one of each system, so the stats are fairly reliable).
They also have those special cleaning cartridges that you can use to clean the system-side of the contacts with. They're quite a bit of manual labor to perform the cleaning though, and I've found that they usually don't help much anyway. Usually games still won't play, you have to use the isopropyl alcohol.
They do have replacement cartridge slots that you can buy for most systems, and the pins are much tighter on them, which helps reduce this problem.
The problem is simple oxidation. Even if you don't play the game, just sitting on the shelf, the metal layers oxidize. And when you play the game, they oxidize faster due to the ionization from the current going through the contacts.
If the oxidation is really bad, and a cartridge won't play even after cleaning, you can use an eraser to really rub the heck out of the contacts until it will play.
In rare cases, I've found cartridges that actually died. So far:
3 atari 2600
1 Genesis
1 SNES
I haven't had a system die yet, but I have several Genesii were the power and antennae inputs have been loosened from being yanked by careless previous owners, and now will reset if you touch the cord (FYI, these ones were not put up for sale).
about:
5% of Atarti 2600 games
95% of NES games
80% of Genesis games
30% of SNES games
will not play without being cleaned first (isopropyl alcohol solution). And I don't just mean they won't play the first time, and then they always play after they're cleaned. I mean every single time you pop the game in, whether it's been played recently or not, those stats apply (and I have over 100 games for each system, and more than one of each system, so the stats are fairly reliable).
They also have those special cleaning cartridges that you can use to clean the system-side of the contacts with. They're quite a bit of manual labor to perform the cleaning though, and I've found that they usually don't help much anyway. Usually games still won't play, you have to use the isopropyl alcohol.
They do have replacement cartridge slots that you can buy for most systems, and the pins are much tighter on them, which helps reduce this problem.
The problem is simple oxidation. Even if you don't play the game, just sitting on the shelf, the metal layers oxidize. And when you play the game, they oxidize faster due to the ionization from the current going through the contacts.
If the oxidation is really bad, and a cartridge won't play even after cleaning, you can use an eraser to really rub the heck out of the contacts until it will play.
In rare cases, I've found cartridges that actually died. So far:
3 atari 2600
1 Genesis
1 SNES
I haven't had a system die yet, but I have several Genesii were the power and antennae inputs have been loosened from being yanked by careless previous owners, and now will reset if you touch the cord (FYI, these ones were not put up for sale).
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