Erratic dumping

kjames_s_2000 · July 31

Please no cracks about more fiber in the diet...

I'm just shy of 60 and have a good number of cartridges from back in the day. Mostly very common ones and the vast majority have worked great on the 2600+.

I just ran into an interesting one with my Dig Dug cartridge. It always changes from 'Loading Game...' to 'No Game Detected' on first insert. Then without even touching it, it usually goes into a second cycle of "Loading Game..." and then again to "No Game Detected". However, there have been a couple of lucky times where that second cycle actually loads the game. Other times that second cycle loads a garbage run of stella.

I elected to open up the card and try a thorough cleaning, but the behavior is the same. I noticed this particular cart has a disc capacitor and was thinking maybe that's the issue? Also I noticed a possible diagonal minor scratch along the contacts. (attaching picture of the open cartridge).

Any troubleshooting ideas? I'm not skilled, but I can 'meatball surgery' solder. Maybe put a layer of solder across the contacts to try to fill that diagonal scratch? Maybe replace the capacitor (I have no idea how to test a capacitor, but could certainly by a multi-meter from Harbor Freight if it would help.)