Gawk @ my eBay Game Gear disaster (also hlp pls!)

[ASDR]

A while ago I bought GG on eBay in seemingly good condition with ceramic replacement caps. When I got I immediately opened it and inspected the mod work. Kinda crappy, but the unit worked. Here:



Modder had used lead free solder and no flux and the joints were not fully cleaned so a lot of the solder blobs were clearly a mix of leaded and unleaded solder. The DC jack was corroded and needed some scraping and cleaning.

Here are pictures of the initial partial teardown I did:

Spoiler

I didn't mind so much as the unit worked fine and I could always clean this up later. I didn't actually use the GG much aside from a couple of hours of testing and from occasionally checking carts I collected. Reason was that there were a lot of scratches on the lens, dust behind the lens, on the polarizer and debris between the diffusor and LCD.

Last week I finally found time and motivation to fix the unit up. I replaced the screen lens, managed to remove most of the dust from the housing and screen, but failed to fix the diffusor debris. As I fully disassembled I noticed the previous owner had broken quite a few screw posts, like one of the cartridge slot screws was just held in by electrical tape. Kinda worried that cart insertions will put strain on the mainboard :/ One of the screw posts for the diffusor / LCD mounting bracket was broken and there was a hairline crack in the diffusor. I couldn't get the dirt out the way it got between the LCD and diffusor and I didn't want to separate it from the LCD as it seemed like it might fall apart. Guess I could always remove it and install an LED back light.

Here are some more pictures of the case damage and a front shot of the motherboard:

Spoiler

Ah well. In any case, after that I played a fair amount on the system, tried like ~20 or so games, 10h+. Then, this week, the console started failing. I had a resets/reboots mid-game and then I started to have power failures on boot. Like, I'd turn the console on and only the screen backlight would come on for a second, power LED never lit. Initially just once or twice but then I needed a dozen tries to get the system to boot into a game.

I could reproduce the issue with different games, no game, official PSU and batteries, so nothing external was causing this.

I asked and googled around for troubleshooting steps and decided to start with the power board. I took it out and poured IPA into the switch and moved it around a few dozes times, repeated that cycled a few times. Switch got a lot stiffer to actuate for some reason. It is next to the corroded DC jack, reasonable to assume it also has some corrosion. The switched measured <1 Ohm for closed positions and >2 MO for open, seems good. I also replaced the solder on the replacement capacitor joints. I measured all caps with an in-circuit ESR meter. Looked all good in terms of capacity & ESR, just the largest cap had a capacity reading an order of magnitude too high. These in-circuit meters are not reliable anyway, I guess. I checked all the voltage rails without a load, looked good to me.

Initially it seemed like I fixed it, didn't get anymore boot failures but after ~15min of testing I had console resets again. Next step was re-doing the crappy solder work on the re-cap job:



Here are full pictures:

Spoiler

Not saying I did an amazing job, simply removed the old solder with a desoldering gun, scraped the pad a bit if it seemed corroded and replaced everything with some decent leaded solder. Looks better than before and I did a continuity test for each cap terminal to at least one other via/pad. Quick test with the ESR meter also shows everything seemingly Ok.

I again though that I fixed it but after ~10min or so I again had in-game resets and then repeated power on failures. This time I noticed the power LED was blinking. Never seen that before, apparently that's the GG signal for low battery, so voltage must've dropped.

At this point I'm not sure what to do. The issue seems to be that either that the power board can only barely deliver what is needed and the console eventually shuts off due to some kind of low-voltage brown-out protection or there's something on the main board failing causing excessive power consumption and triggering a fuse or some other kind of over current protection.

Thanks for reading all this, I wanted to include all details. If you got any idea how to fix or diagnose this, please share.

[Kez]

Personally I am not really sold on those ceramic cap kits. Electrolytic and ceramic caps are not equivalent - I would recommend getting an electrolytic GG cap kit and replacing them as a starting point.

If you think power may be the issue, some places do make and sell complete replacement boards so could be worth going down that route.

[ASDR]

Sure, ceramic and electrolytic caps are not the same, but would it matter for how these capacitors are used in a game gear? I'd assume it's all some form of decoupling / power filtering, not some delicate RF circuit where minute differences in capacitor performance really matter. Not an EE, might be talking out of my ass, of course :/ The console was working fine for quite some time, so I suspect something else broke. It also seems like the system works Ok initially and maybe gets less stable as it heats up? There's quite some heat coming from the backlight.

I looked at the power replacement boards from RetroSix and either the local option or the import+customs options costs about as much as I paid for the entire GG, I don't really want to invest that much in a part that might not even fix my issue.

My issue is that I lack the electronics skills to figure out where the problem lies. If the thing just wouldn't work at all I could look on which power rail the short is and then investigate which component is causing it, but since the failures are intermittent and the system sometimes works fine for ~15min I'm a bit at a loss how to figure out what is the issue. Like I said in the OP, could be the power board failing to deliver, could be anything on the main board tripping a fuse or other protection circuit. So could be anything

[Kez]

Yeah I don't know enough of the details one way or the other to be confident about it, but it is certainly a point of contention in the community. Electrolytic caps tend to have higher ESR and are more stable at higher voltages, and I think the tolerances of the ceramics can be a bit wider.

Of course many people use ceramics and have no problems, but if I had a unit with ceramics that was misbehaving, swapping in electrolytics would be the first thing I tried! As you say the caps are used for mostly power filtering and decoupling - but your problem very much seems like it could be related to power.

[ASDR]

If the GG never worked, I would absolutely replace the caps. But it worked for quite some time, so something must've changed, something must've broken. And I think it's pretty unlikely that the ceramic caps broke. I mean the different characteristics like lower ESR or less capacity near the voltage rating might have damaged something else, but I don't think it's likely that a ceramic capacitor would break where an electrolytic one worked. The other way around I could imagine since now you're using a polarized cap in a spot where an unpolarized one was and the higher ESR means it might not be able to deal with ripple current that was fine before etc. So I'd still need to figure out what actually broke on the GG, even if I replaced all caps.

I read somewhere that a dying tube can cause overcurrent events, but mine is neither flickering nor does it have diminished brightness and there doesn't seem to be a correlation between the system stability and the backlight brightness like others have reported.

I have the worst luck with GGs, these things just break left and right and all in tricky to figure out ways. Just about the only good thing I managed to do with this one is finish Hally Wars



At least one shmup finished before this shoddy thing died again.

[jd213]

Yeah, Game Gears being a PITA to fix is pretty much a meme by this point. Neither of the two "junk" ones I got in Japan came fully back to life after recaps, they both just power down immediately after turning on.
There's these replacement motherboards that might work, but as you said, they cost much more than a used Game Gear already:

https://syf.nl/

I'll probably get one eventually, as my Game Gears are cosmetically in great condition and one has the box, and it would probably be a fun soldering project. But going to wait for now.

[BazookaBen]

I got a game gear from Goodwill for $4 years ago. Still haven’t really played it, I never found out what games are good on the system

[bobrocks95]

How much is an electrolytic cap kit, $10-15? I agree that it wouldn't quite make sense that that would fix it but it's all a crapshoot at this point it seems like.

Have you been able to leave it on long enough for problems to start, while having access to probe voltages and see if they changed?

[jd213]

I got a game gear from Goodwill for $4 years ago. Still haven’t really played it, I never found out what games are good on the system

There's the GG Aleste and Shinobi games, although I dunno if you'd want to actually play them on a Game Gear... probably not on one with the original screen, at least

[ASDR]

Yeah, Game Gears being a PITA to fix is pretty much a meme by this point. Neither of the two "junk" ones I got in Japan came fully back to life after recaps, they both just power down immediately after turning on.
There's these replacement motherboards that might work, but as you said, they cost much more than a used Game Gear already:

https://syf.nl/

I'll probably get one eventually, as my Game Gears are cosmetically in great condition and one has the box, and it would probably be a fun soldering project. But going to wait for now.

I was looking at replacement power board, trying to find a EU supplier since Retro6 is in the UK found this:
https://retroreiz.de/shop/werkstatt/bat ... game-gear/
70EUR, yikes. Not worth it for me.

One issue I have is simply buying a good GG as a starting point. I always see broken or recapped ones. The broken ones might have a mangled / busted screen and who knows how much the electrolyte has eaten away at the system, and the recapped ones are always done by people with zero soldering skill.

I got a game gear from Goodwill for $4 years ago. Still haven’t really played it, I never found out what games are good on the system

GG is a tough sell since ~90% of the library is shared with the Master System. There are only a few exclusive games and some of the games that share a name with the MS version are actually totally different games. I have a MS and a backwards compatible MD, both with Everdrives, so I already played most of the library. For the exclusive games there are even GG->MS conversion ROMs available.

There's the GG Aleste and Shinobi games, although I dunno if you'd want to actually play them on a Game Gear... probably not on one with the original screen, at least

Call me crazy, but the original screen is the main reason I want am actual GG. Otherwise I might as well go MiSTer/Retroarch. Issue is the screens are so terribly designed and fragile. The front polarizer is unprotected and scratches super easy, can't even wipe or touch the screen. Replacing it is possible but an insane PITA. Then the gasket around the screen is poor and dust always gets in, often settling on the screen so you can't just blow it away. Further, there are small gaps between the diffusor and the screen, meaning debris can get in there. It looks like dead pixels but 99% it's just dust. Getting it out of there can be a pain. And then dirt between the backlight and the diffusor also shows up as splotches. New dirt can always get into the case through various ingress points.

GG Aleste and PowerStrike 2 (different than the MS version!) are really good. Halley Wars is fun. Shinobi II. There are some exclusive RPGs (often no English releases, need ROM cart).

How much is an electrolytic cap kit, $10-15? I agree that it wouldn't quite make sense that that would fix it but it's all a crapshoot at this point it seems like.

Have you been able to leave it on long enough for problems to start, while having access to probe voltages and see if they changed?

I've been looking at Console5's cap maps, and there's only three high voltage caps on the main board:

C35 4.7uF 35V
C44 0.47uF 50V
C45 0.47uF 50V

Thinking about electrolytic vs ceramic, one issue with ceramics is apparently they drop capacitance close to their voltage rating. Could very well be that the ones I got on there are just 50V (or worse). Maybe first try to just replace these three? I checked and I have a full kit of 50V electrolytic caps around...

I can get the system to run for a few minutes usually, but I haven't tried to see what's going on when it shuts down. Would be nice to know which voltage rail is the culprit. I have a clamp DMM with mA range, but I doubt it's fast enough to detect which of the lines coming from the power board draws enough current for a fuse to trip etc.

[ASDR]

Interesting read:

https://www.retrosix.wiki/getting-to-re ... -game-gear
https://8bithardware.wixsite.com/websit ... -game-gear

Something I've been wondering about is that with my Sega PSU the VBat is 12V and not 9V. It's a 10V PSU, but it outputs ~13V without load and ~12V with a load. I've seen people mention elsewhere that their PSUs output 12V as well and that their VBat is also 12V, I guess the regulator should be able to take take it. Hope that didn't fry anything :/

[bobrocks95]

The regulator looks to be rated up to 18V so should be fine there- https://datasheetspdf.com/pdf-file/5028 ... u/MB3775/1

I think the RetroSix product you actually want is the CleanPower board- https://www.silentmodding.com/en/game-g ... power.html (I don't know if that store's reputable, just one I saw in Euros)

EDIT: Did you see that RetroSix had just a repair kit? https://retrosix.co.uk/Game-Gear-Power- ... p187708393

[ASDR]

Oh, that IC repair kit is indeed neat:

https://www.silentmodding.com/de/game-g ... r-kit.html

Looks like the regulator IC is just a cheap standard part...

Reading the material from retro6 / 8bithardware.com was interesting, the way the power on process works and how the console determines if the voltage rails are Ok, etc. But I just don't have the electronics troubleshooting skills to determine what the issue is. Could literally be anything. Broken power board, wrong/busted caps, broken ASICs, some corroded via etc. I just don't want to randomly replace capacitors and ICs and redo random solder joints, I'd need somebody to tell me what to check to know what is wrong.

[ASDR]

I did some more measurements. It's really weird, either I want the thing to turn on and can't or I want the thing to fail and it just keeps working... This morning I needed 30 tries for it to stay on for more than a second and the it runs for an hour plus before it faults...

Good case:

- Everything coming of the power board stand-alone seems on-spec (VBat, VRef, 5V, 34V)
- Connected to the console, everything from the power board is also on spec. Only difference is VBat is ~11V instead of 12V, to be expected with a load
- On the ASIC Vref ~ 1.2V, Vonf ~ 2V & Vres ~ 2.8V, all of this is perfectly normal according to https://www.retrosix.wiki/getting-to-re ... -game-gear

Now the case where the backlight shuts off and the power LED goes dark:

- When the console shuts off either during boot or after a while VBat & VRef stay Ok but the 5V and 34V rails are both ~0.5V.
- On the Asic Vref is ~ 1.27V. Then Vonf ~ 0.8V and Vres ~ 1.2V alternating with ~ 0V. I can keep my probe on those pins and the voltage is either 0.8/1.2 or very close to 0V!? I measured D4 and R50, which are directly connected to VBat and they either measure 0V or 11V. Alternating every 2-20s or so. I can keep my probe on the leg and watch it happen. WTF. VBat measured on the power board is always nominal.

The three resistors and diode involved in the voltage sensing circuit (VRes/VOnf) measure fine. All the caps on the main board measure fine save 1-2 that can't be measured in circuit. A few of them are parallel decoupling caps on the same rail, but the aggregate value seems fine. ESR is most certainly lower than the original caps.



Ideas?

[ASDR]

Seems like everybody has lost interest in this thread and my bizarre GG, but here are two weird things I noticed yesterday:


- If I measure the resistance between VBat on the power board side and the main board side I get ~10KO resistance. Between the top of D4 and the VBat pin on the power board is nothing but a wire + PCB trace. Measurement slowly creeps up, guess the DMM is charging capacitor. I have no idea how the GG could ever work with that resistance there, the values derived from VBat should all be close to zero, always

- When I touch the main board side power connector I measure ~2V potential to ground. WTF. It's plastic, obviously. Flux residue, maybe?


I've been thinking that maybe the issue is the connection between the power and main board. The readings I'm getting make no sense to me.

[jd213]

Still interested, especially if you eventually figure out the problem. I'm personally just not experienced enough post anything noteworthy here.

[ASDR]

I found a broken trace. The issue with VBat between the power and main board was not in the connector or cable, but the main board trace between VBat on the main board connector and D4/R50. I ran a bodge wire between R50 and the bottom of the connector. Now the reference voltages on the ASIC are higher (VOnf ~ 2.4V & VRes ~ 3.3V). This is higher than the Retro6 numbers, but that makes sense since he's having a VBat of 9V while I'm at 11-12V.

I think there's a good chance this board has more broken traces since there's so many broken-off screw posts and hence there's probably more flex on the board over time.

Maybe next hard wire the power board to the main board? Kinda related, why does this spot measure 1.7V? How do I explain to physics that plastic should not conduct?



I don't know what I'm doing here, please chime in...

[ASDR]

I decided to just reflow some joints around the connector and clean everything again thoroughly. Then I closed up the system and just to see how it goes now. I've been playing for two days with about a dozen games and let it run for a few more additional hours just looping at some title screen with music and so far it seems to work. Who knows when the next thing will corrode or break, but at least my fix was correct.

I also finally figured out the magic spot to blow air into to remove debris between the polarizer and LCD. Front, top, aim downwards, behind the diffusor lip. There are still two more annoying black spots left, but I just can't bring myself to do the whole disassembly again. I just hate dealing with the screen part where you quickly try to put the main board & screen into place before any specs of dust get in but also try to be careful not to damage the fragile screen. I swear the one thing I want in my house is a laminar flow cabinet.

There's lot of shit advice out there for GG repair, but the Retro Six guides are the real deal. The actual information you want about voltage rails and how the system powers on.

[jd213]

Good job, hope I can get my Game Gears working someday. Saw today that GG Aleste 3 from the Aleste Colletion was decrypted, that might be nice to play on real hardware.

[ASDR]

I'll keep my eyes open for a broken GG for cheap, don't want to spend a lot of money and would like a system that nobody else has messed with before and broken off all kinds of screw posts etc.

I'm a big fan of M2's stuff, but their Aleste collection came out at the worst possible time. I had just bought a MS, NTSC-converted it and bought a flash cart for it and played the hell out of it, including all the MS Aleste and the GG->MS Aleste conversions. So I just didn't feel like importing the M2 Aleste collection for 70EUR or whatever. GG is one of the few consoles I don't have a flash cart for. I already got one for the MS & MD and just couldn't justify the high cost of the current GG Everdrive. Never saw any cheaper / older ones on eBay either :/ But I also just learned they finally patched the GG Aleste 3 ROM to work on original hardware and normal emulators. I just copied it over to my Rpi. Got a sweet CRT RGB setup for the Pi, will be fun the play on that. Has anybody done a GG->MS conversion yet?

[DejahThoris]

GG is one of the few consoles I don't have a flash cart for. I already got one for the MS & MD and just couldn't justify the high cost of the current GG Everdrive. Never saw any cheaper / older ones on eBay either :/

There's a pretty reasonably priced older one up there right now.

[ASDR]

GG is one of the few consoles I don't have a flash cart for. I already got one for the MS & MD and just couldn't justify the high cost of the current GG Everdrive. Never saw any cheaper / older ones on eBay either :/

There's a pretty reasonably priced older one up there right now.

Maybe where you live but here eBay searches for "everdrive game gear" both currently available and recently sold yield 0 results.

[DejahThoris]

GG is one of the few consoles I don't have a flash cart for. I already got one for the MS & MD and just couldn't justify the high cost of the current GG Everdrive. Never saw any cheaper / older ones on eBay either :/

There's a pretty reasonably priced older one up there right now.

Maybe where you live but here eBay searches for "everdrive game gear" both currently available and recently sold yield 0 results.

eBay is global! Where I am or you are is not a concern in this modern technology-driven world!

[ASDR]

eBay is global! Where I am or you are is not a concern in this modern technology-driven world!

You might want to try leaving your country for a while and see how that belief holds up. Out of curiosity, what is your EPR registration number for participating EU countries and can you tell me the TARIC code for an Everdrive?

[DejahThoris]

eBay is global! Where I am or you are is not a concern in this modern technology-driven world!

You might want to try leaving your country for a while and see how that belief holds up. Out of curiosity, what is your EPR registration number for participating EU countries and can you tell me the TARIC code for an Everdrive?

How are those questions relevant? I stated there was an older/cheaper GG ED on eBay that you can buy. And there is. eBay is global whether I leave my country or not, and your ability to purchase from eBay thanks to this modern technology-driven world is also true whether I leave my country or not.

This is an EU country's eBay site (since your made up location doesn't give me the ability to put in your local eBay, but you did mention EU countries so I picked one at random), and the ED shows up just fine and is purchasable.

https://www.ebay.fr/itm/235099242734