Game & Watch: Mario Bros crash/lockup issue?

I recently picked up a Mario Bros G&W that needs some repair. The system it self is in good shape (see photo below) but the system has a small problem. Majority of the time the system locks up after putting batteries in or sometimes will let you play a bit then lock up. At first I though it was batteries as the system had shorter 1.5v watch batteries so I replaced them with proper 357 batteries but the crash issue seem to got worse with the new batteries. There are sometimes where the system wont crash and is fully playable but once you remove and reset the batteries it can go back into being stuck.

https://goo.gl/photos/d2f6inKJM4ez4txf6
https://goo.gl/photos/TQLm34SydLE3QPEN6

I found a good video on disassembling the unit.


So I tried this once, everything internally looks to be fine on brief observation. I also tried to give the contacts and ribbon cable a light clean but that doesn't seem to have made a difference.

So any ideas? Could it possibly be one of the caps inside needing replace? I can try getting some photo of the pcb later if that helps.

 

When it freezes the display stays stuck or does it dim and fade?

 

Stuck

 

You could have a problem with the quartz oscillator at the game and watch board. I believe it's a standard 32Khz oscillator of the kind that is used on LCD wrist watches and even on PCs for the RTC.

 

Before I finished reading the first post, I was going to say crystal too

 

Which part on the PCB is it, is it an easy repair and is there ways to possibly test to confirm this?



-edit-
Not a picture of my unit but is the pcb of the same game.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Yep. You're awesome. Any chance you have an idea of what kind of replacement quartz I need or is my best bet to just open it up and check for marks (I don't quite remember seeing any last time).

 

You can likely source it from a dead desktop PC motherboard. Which should be super easy to obtain, I suppose.

 

I tried just then to find out the specs of a Game & Watch crystal but didn't find anything, so your best bet would be to see if you can read the inscription on yours. From that photo you posted, it looks like the crystal might be covered in something (what is that even, looks like hot-glue or thermal paste?), so if you need to remove that stuff to read the crystal you should be careful not to scrape the actual inscription off with it.

Yep, and he could also probably find one on some older PC ISA/PCI cards (VGA, CGA, MDA/Hercules cards).

 

No, video cards will have other frequencies like 29Mhz, 27Mhz, 14Mhz. 32Khz is a industry standard frequency for clocks. wrist watch LCD and battery powered mechanical clocks use such crystals. PCs have the crystal connected to their real time clock/CMOS chip.

So, no. One will only find a 32Khz crystal on a PC motherboard. Or other boards with real time clock chip. Certain videogame consoles like the Saturn, Dreamcast, PS2 or Game Cube for example will have this crystal because they have calendar/RTC chip in them.

Edited to fix the last paragraph and add some info

 

Didn't know that, good to know, thanks!

 

FYI that photo was not mine, it was from wikipedia.

Anyways I took mine apart and checked. The part is KDS7M which is 32KHz. I sadly don't have many old PC around to source a part from nor would I want to tear one up for it. There is a hobbyist part shop in downtown toronto near the university that I plan to check out and see if they don't have one.

 

Keep in mind you can source similar crystals from tabletop clocks or even wrist clocks or toys with clock chipsets in them.