Got a bad feeling about your DC-in power socket on your Mega Drive 2? Well, here’s one that was giving me a bit of trouble. The power light would come on normally, but give the power cable a little movement and the whole thing would switch off. Move it back and we’re in business again. That’s not particularly useful when you’re trying to play a game!

After taking the console apart and having a look at the DC-in socket, I found the problem. One of the solder joints had cracked around the connection to the mainboard. The two outer connections looked alright, but the rear connection on the centre pin had clearly seen better days. Fortunately, this particular Mega Drive 2 was otherwise in rather good condition.

So it’s off to the soldering station. Well, what passes for my soldering station anyway. Alongside the soldering iron we’ve got an oven, a toasted sandwich maker, a milkshake machine and some random hard drives. All the essentials!

With the console disconnected from power, I reflowed the damaged connection with some fresh solder and gave the other socket joints a little attention while I was there. Probably used a bit too much solder, but the joint was looking much better than before.

Back to the gaming setup and the Mega Drive powered up without any trouble. Beautiful! It’s a nice little result for what turned out to be a rather straightforward repair.

I’d actually encountered something similar with a Sega Nomad, where the power jack had become damaged. Having a spare Mega Drive 2 for parts certainly came in handy on that occasion.

Hopefully this Mega Drive will keep going for a good while longer. You can see the repaired unit in the Goodies section under Sega Mega Drive Model 2 430672435.