I’ve finally had another go at the rather annoying video problems with my PAL VA4 Mega Drive Model 1 and the 32X. Sega actually released a service bulletin back in March 1995 covering this particular motherboard revision, so I’ve decided to give their recommended modification a try.

Service bulletin 012 involves removing two capacitors from the back of the Mega Drive motherboard, one ceramic and one surface-mounted. The idea is to improve the clock signal and hopefully put an end to the shaking video. Considering the problems I’ve had with this combination in the past, I’m certainly willing to give it a go!

You can probably hear Lethal Enforcers running in the background. That’s coming through the Mega-CD, and so far everything seems to be working nicely. No shaking or obvious video distortion, which is always a welcome change.

I haven’t got the 32X connected for this particular test, so we’ll still need to see how it behaves with that attached. Hopefully the modifications to the Mega Drive are enough, because there’s another possible modification involving the 32X itself and I’d rather not have to pull one of those things apart again.

They’re an absolute pain to dismantle, thanks to all the shielding crammed into such a small enclosure. Thank you, FCC! Anyway, that’s the VA4 modification completed. We’ll see how it goes when the 32X gets another turn.

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