The Blog

Sega Game Gear Before Repair: No Video, Quiet Audio

Nix McRetro // 30th March 2012 // Repairs, Sega

Here’s the little Game Gear before repair. As you can see above, it has very quiet sound and no usable video, although the inside of the unit is in reasonably good condition. Failing electrolytic capacitors are a common cause of low audio and display problems in ageing Game Gears, so... Continue reading

Amstrad Sega Mega PC 486SLC: Coprocessor and 16 MB RAM

Nix McRetro // 29th March 2012 // IBM PC, Repairs, Sega

Amstrad Sega Mega PC 486SLC: Coprocessor and 16 MB RAM

The PC7486SLC-based Mega PC upgrade really is running at 33 MHz. Great news: the math coprocessor for the 486SLC has arrived and is recognised perfectly. It is a ULSI Advanced Math Coprocessor SX/SLC rated at 33 MHz, part US83S87. The diagnostic software also identifies it as a ULSI 84x87. I’ve... Continue reading

Amstrad Sega Mega PC 486SLC Upgrade Progress

Nix McRetro // 25th March 2012 // IBM PC, Repairs, Sega

Amstrad Sega Mega PC 486SLC Upgrade Progress

The replacement PC7486SLC motherboard is in. It passes POST and, unlike the original 386 board, recognises the hard drives perfectly. That strongly points to a fault somewhere in the original motherboard’s storage subsystem or related circuitry rather than the drives themselves. The old board will still make a useful spare.... Continue reading

Sega Saturn Model 1 Power Supply Issues

Nix McRetro // 24th March 2012 // Repairs, Sega

To reproduce the fault, I ran the Saturn for more than an hour until it was thoroughly warmed up. The music player was more than sufficient for this. I then made some recordings to help narrow down where the noise seemed to be coming from. This meant investigating the Saturn’s... Continue reading

Amstrad Sega Mega PC Controller

Nix McRetro // 24th March 2012 // IBM PC, Sega

Picked this up on eBay from the UK and gave it a bit of a clean. It has become my favourite Mega Drive controller. Internally it is much the same as another Mega Drive controller I cleaned yesterday, although that one sadly had some tabs snapped off the D-pad. Amstrad’s... Continue reading