Hi there, first post here.
I found a Sega Mega Drive in our basement and am working on restoring it. It turns on, but I have no audio or video.
I never used a cartridge-driven console before, so I want to make sure this is not user error. I need to plug in the cartridge before turning on the console, and then there should be a boot screen and eventually the game.
Is it possible for the contacts to be too dirty to allow reading the cartridges?
And then lastly, I had a peek into the maintenance manual I may need to exchange hardware parts. Should I need to; do you know any trustworthy sellers in the EU that could have parts compatible with the Mega Drive? I have been looking for a 53.2034 MHz +/-20ppm oscillater since it could be faulty, but couldn't find any shop that had one with that odd of a MHz frequency.
Any advice is appreciated. :)
Edit: Thank you all for your comments. On further inspection the contacts on the Mega Drive's cartridge-slot were oxidized. A little bit of sand paper did the trick. :)

10 Comments
thallamabond@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1y
Probably would not hurt to pop it open and look for obvious problems. Capacitors can bulge on top or leak electrolytic fluid on the circuit board.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor?origin=serp_auto
Look for cracks in the motherboard under where the plugs go in on the back, or any parts where somebody might push into.
Also if there's a bunch of crud in there you can clean it out.
Edit: yes you are doing it right. Put the cartridge in, turn it on.
KokusnussRitter@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 1y
The capacitors look okay, and I can't see any cracks (yet). The board and part of it's shroud are however hotglued in place 🎉 so it's hard to tell atm. Can hot glue mess with the conductivity of the board? Because there is one nice blob right on the PCB
thallamabond@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
Hot glue is non conductive so it should not mess anything up. Out of curiosity, what game did you try?
Edit: also if you don't mind what method are you using to connect it to the television?
KokusnussRitter@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 1y
NHL 95 and Sonic. Will clean the contacts soon, then try again. As for the connection to my pc monitor, I am using RCA, run it into a RCA to HDMI converter and then into my monitor
InFerNo@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1y
Happy to see you got it fixed
viking@infosec.pub · -2 pts · 1y
kerobaros@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1y
No, the original versions of the Mega Drive had no built-in games. They will display nothing but a black screen if a) there is no cartridge inserted or b) the console can't read the cartridge.
KokusnussRitter@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 1y
So they won't even display a boot up screen?
v1605@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
No boot screen, just a black screen with no audio
JohnnyWishbone@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
The Master System had Alex Kid installed but the Mega Drive had no games
InFerNo@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1y
Master system came in many varieties with regards to bundled games.