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Hey all, longtime lurker - I've been collecting Master System for a few decades now and some of you have graciously helped me to get a mostly full set of the NA/EU/JP collection and in the last few years I've been really trying to grab and play all the SG-1000 titles now too. Part of that journey was getting the Othello Multivision and the handful of interesting games it had. My Multivision arrived and played well when first booting it up, but after a few minutes the screen would get wavy and then eventually just cut out completely. I'd switch the system on and off and it would work again, but this time even shorter than the first time before cutting out again. Each time I repeat turning it on and off it would work for a shorter period until it was basically only a few seconds before it would stop. If I left the system alone for a little while then tried to fire it up again, the system would work for longer (a few minutes) before crapping out.

Is that a capacitor problem? I'm pretty novice at circuit boards and all that stuff, but I was hoping this was something I could fix on my own since it's such an obscure and undocumented system. Any help would be appreciated, I want to give this old system a new life (and learn the intricacies of Othello while I'm at it!).

Quite likely the capacitors, yes.

Maxim wrote

Quite likely the capacitors, yes.

Appreciate the feedback, I guess I'll try to desolder the capacitors and test them out next. Pray for this board, haha.

Pulled out and tested all the electrolytic capacitors and they all seemed to read close to the expected uF values so now I don't know what to do next. Any other ideas?

Also, I have two games that will not play on any of my SG-1000 systems - STAR JACKER (which just has a black screen and a kind of garbled tone) and ORGUSS (which starts but freezes always on the first level whenever you switch from the robot guy to the space ship, I think it's hanging on a sound effect). I'm attaching pics of the two boards for each, any idea on what might be causing these to not work (the contacts are clean)?

Thanks for your time.

IMG_6366.JPG (2.42 MB)

Front

IMG_6365.JPEG (3.62 MB)

Back

Maybe a power supply issue, or a failing IC perhaps?

Replace the capacitors anyway, especially if you have already removed them from the board. Leaky caps can still give a good reading on a multi-meter.

Author	Message
grolt Joined: 18 Oct 2007 Posts: 18 Location: Canada	Othello Multivision power problems Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2020 3:41 pm
grolt Joined: 18 Oct 2007 Posts: 18 Location: Canada	Hey all, longtime lurker - I've been collecting Master System for a few decades now and some of you have graciously helped me to get a mostly full set of the NA/EU/JP collection and in the last few years I've been really trying to grab and play all the SG-1000 titles now too. Part of that journey was getting the Othello Multivision and the handful of interesting games it had. My Multivision arrived and played well when first booting it up, but after a few minutes the screen would get wavy and then eventually just cut out completely. I'd switch the system on and off and it would work again, but this time even shorter than the first time before cutting out again. Each time I repeat turning it on and off it would work for a shorter period until it was basically only a few seconds before it would stop. If I left the system alone for a little while then tried to fire it up again, the system would work for longer (a few minutes) before crapping out. Is that a capacitor problem? I'm pretty novice at circuit boards and all that stuff, but I was hoping this was something I could fix on my own since it's such an obscure and undocumented system. Any help would be appreciated, I want to give this old system a new life (and learn the intricacies of Othello while I'm at it!).

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14745 Location: London	Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2020 6:09 pm
	Quite likely the capacitors, yes.

grolt Joined: 18 Oct 2007 Posts: 18 Location: Canada	Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2020 9:53 pm
grolt Joined: 18 Oct 2007 Posts: 18 Location: Canada	Maxim wrote Quite likely the capacitors, yes. Appreciate the feedback, I guess I'll try to desolder the capacitors and test them out next. Pray for this board, haha.

grolt Joined: 18 Oct 2007 Posts: 18 Location: Canada	Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2020 1:53 am
grolt Joined: 18 Oct 2007 Posts: 18 Location: Canada	Pulled out and tested all the electrolytic capacitors and they all seemed to read close to the expected uF values so now I don't know what to do next. Any other ideas? Also, I have two games that will not play on any of my SG-1000 systems - STAR JACKER (which just has a black screen and a kind of garbled tone) and ORGUSS (which starts but freezes always on the first level whenever you switch from the robot guy to the space ship, I think it's hanging on a sound effect). I'm attaching pics of the two boards for each, any idea on what might be causing these to not work (the contacts are clean)? Thanks for your time. IMG_6366.JPG (2.42 MB) Front IMG_6365.JPEG (3.62 MB) Back

Raccoon Lad Joined: 16 Dec 2004 Posts: 495 Location: El Cerrito, CA	Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:27 pm
	Maybe a power supply issue, or a failing IC perhaps?

asynchronous Joined: 14 Aug 2000 Posts: 742 Location: Adelaide, Australia	Othello Multivision power problems Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 5:38 am
	Replace the capacitors anyway, especially if you have already removed them from the board. Leaky caps can still give a good reading on a multi-meter.

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