The final capacitors enter the scene and will determine whether we have succeeded or failed… Watch on to see the horrors. It’s just about spooky Halloween time, but hopefully there won’t be any trouble. The last two 33 uF surface-mount capacitors had finally turned up, so I could finish the recap and give the console another test.

Desert Fighter loaded, and there wasn’t any smoke or fire. Excellent! Unfortunately, there still wasn’t any sound. Spoiler: the recap did not bring the sound back. I still haven’t found what’s causing the missing sound, but at least the old capacitors are out. That’s kind of a win, right?

With the capacitors, fuse and voltage regulator dealt with, next I want to investigate what the audio signal is doing before it reaches the S-MIX chip. If I can find sound before it gets mixed, perhaps that will point me in the right direction. On with the diagnosis!