Mega Drive MKII TMSS ghosting

Hi all,

My little brother recently bought a MKII Mega Drive (PAL) and it has an odd issue. I'm not a Sega h/w expert so I'm hoping someone has some ideas!

The TMSS ("Produced by or under license...") message appears, disappears for the Sega logo display, but from then on seems to be ghosted/watermarked on to the screen almost like burn in on a plasma TV. He's only got a few carts but they all do the same thing. They play perfectly, but it's a bit distracting!
He also told me it sometimes doesn't turn on first time and just gives a black screen, but it didn't do this while I was there.

We popped it open a few days ago and visually the board is in great shape - no bulging caps, no skid marks etc. I only researched the different motherboard versions after the fact, but from memory it looked like a MKII VA0.

I'll be seeing him again tomorrow so I can get some photos of the problem and board if you'd like.

Does this sound like a recapping job? I've found a few discussions of black screens, but no one complaining of this ghosting problem, so I'm not sure what to do. I was expecting to see something obvious on the board, but no such luck!

All input welcomed!
Thanks.

 

hi wedders , have you tried cleaning the Cartridge Slot with Isopropyl Alcohol or Deoxit ?...............btw Deoxit is the better choice. Also a Cap doesn't need to be bulging for it to be defective (i learned this recently on another forum)

 

Hi s8n,

Didn't try cleaning the slot, just had a very quick go at the carts. Will take some isopropyl with me tomorrow and make sure it's perfect. And believe me, I would never trust electrolytic caps this old anyway! Was just curious if anyone could say for certain that was the problem - my brother's only 14 so recapping will probably be a job for me, and I don't want to make a bunch of work for myself if it isn't going to change anything!