Hello, all. Long time lurker, first time poster! To the point, I think my Framemeister is starting to give up. Recently, from time to time when I turn it on, the Framemeister won't get a signal. And what I mean by that is, the blue screen thing won't even appear. I have to turn it off and on and then sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn't. The lights on the front would only show one green light by the power when this happens. When it finally works, all green lights show as normal.
Lately, when playing my Mega CD, I noticed that the colours were all washed out. At first, I thought this was my RGB Scart cable (I buy all of mine from retrogamingcables and get the Packapunch ones) or the GSCARTSW being slightly loose or a broken cable. But after making sure they're all in correctly, and swapping the cables around, it was still persisting. I checked the other consoles and they were too washed out. My consoles go from RGB Scart to the GScart, then there's two outputs. One to my Framemeister and one to my PVM. My PVM is showing outstanding colours whereas my Framemeister is not. I changed the cables around and it still shows great colours on my PVM and not so on my Framemeister so it's not the RGB cables.
How it should look: (Taken before it all started going wrong)
Spoiler
Spoiler
It was then when I noticed the blue screen or the blue menu from the Framemeister isn't as blue as it usually is, meaning now I'm 100% sure none of my RGB cables are at fault. Just in case, I tried changing source and used my PS2 from component and that looks odd too. This has to be a digital issue.
I have my Framemeister going into an auto-switcher (holding the PS4, Switch, Framemeister), which then goes into a 4-way splitter (splits to the Capture card, PC monitor, TV, [empty]). All 4K60P compliant (even the cables). When I try my PS4 or Switch, it all looks fantastic, so the switchers and cables aren't at fault. So, maybe the HDMI cable from the Framemeister? I tried 4 different HDMI cables and the issue still persists. I tried going from the Framemeister straight to my capture card and/or to the TV; bypassing the switchers and splitters, issue is still there. It has to be the Framemeister itself now. I tried turning Deep Colour on and off, no difference. Checked the R G and B values, all still at 50).
But then, it got worse. I turned it on yesterday and I got these vertical lines trailing down (not jail bars).
Spoiler
After turning it off and on again, it started working but again with washed out colours. This had to do. This couldn't have come at a worse time. This week is the Sonic Hacking Contest and I'm one of the Media panellists. I like to play people's work on real hardware. For Day One, I managed to get it working for the most part but with washed out colours. Look how pale Sonic is at this point (I was looking at my PVM at the same time and he looked great there). Timestamped for your convenience (and I even mention the fault at this point):
https://youtu.be/8rpfBuU3-FU?t=2h27m13s
After the stream, I tried playing with the cable again and turning the Framemeister back on... and then suddenly:
Spoiler
I am using the latest 2.04 firmware but I have tried downgrading to 2.03a, but that doesn't help either. Whatever the result I get after turning it on, it will stay this way until I turn it off again. Fiddling with any cable during power doesn't change it (unless I unplug the HDMI of course but re-plugging it back in results the exact same condition). I'm kinda hoping there's an obvious answer here but I'm not holding my breath. I hope I haven't got an expensive paper weight now! I don't really want to resort to using an emulator for the rest of this week's event but it may have to be that way.
Any help or advice I would greatly appreciate. Thanks for your time
EDIT: I've put the images in spoiler tags; I didn't realise how big they were!