Hi there, first post here.
I found a Sega Mega Drive in our basement and am working on restoring it. It turns on, but I have no audio or video.
I never used a cartridge-driven console before, so I want to make sure this is not user error. I need to plug in the cartridge before turning on the console, and then there should be a boot screen and eventually the game.
Is it possible for the contacts to be too dirty to allow reading the cartridges?
And then lastly, I had a peek into the maintenance manual I may need to exchange hardware parts. Should I need to; do you know any trustworthy sellers in the EU that could have parts compatible with the Mega Drive? I have been looking for a 53.2034 MHz +/-20ppm oscillater since it could be faulty, but couldn't find any shop that had one with that odd of a MHz frequency.
Any advice is appreciated. :)
Edit: Thank you all for your comments. On further inspection the contacts on the Mega Drive's cartridge-slot were oxidized. A little bit of sand paper did the trick. :)
The Mega Drive has 4 preinstalled mini-games that load when no cartridge is present, so if you don't get a screen at all, you can rule out cartridge contact issues.
Does the device have 3 separate cables to connect to the TV (red, white, yellow connectors), or a SCART connector? AFAIK they released two different options.
No, the original versions of the Mega Drive had no built-in games. They will display nothing but a black screen if a) there is no cartridge inserted or b) the console can't read the cartridge.
So they won't even display a boot up screen?
No boot screen, just a black screen with no audio