Opend Sega Genesis to find a previous modding?

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kaz254
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Opend Sega Genesis to find a previous modding?

Post by kaz254 »

I bought a batch of 4 broken Sega Genesis's, 3 1st edition 1 second edition.

This is the first time i've opend one up.

I opend up the second edition to take out the cartridge slot and I saw some wires soldered connecting a few different things. These looked more fresh and less professional than everything else and the wires were hotglued down. There was 1 chip hotclued to the board with wires comming off, and a resistor was soldered on somewhere.

Is this a common Genesis mod, or modchip? Or is this normal in a sega genesis?
bacteria
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Post by bacteria »

Might be a mod to make it work multi-region?
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Ace_1
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Re: Opend Sega Genesis to find a previous modding?

Post by Ace_1 »

kaz254 wrote:I bought a batch of 4 broken Sega Genesis's, 3 1st edition 1 second edition.

This is the first time i've opend one up.

I opend up the second edition to take out the cartridge slot and I saw some wires soldered connecting a few different things. These looked more fresh and less professional than everything else and the wires were hotglued down. There was 1 chip hotclued to the board with wires comming off, and a resistor was soldered on somewhere.

Is this a common Genesis mod, or modchip? Or is this normal in a sega genesis?
Does the chip have a Sega label on it? If it does, this is normal on certain Model 2s(one of my 3 systems has that chip with a wire connecting to the cartridge slot and several others branching off someplace else). Can you post of picture of that chip?
kaz254
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Re: Opend Sega Genesis to find a previous modding?

Post by kaz254 »

Ace_1 wrote:
kaz254 wrote:I bought a batch of 4 broken Sega Genesis's, 3 1st edition 1 second edition.

This is the first time i've opend one up.

I opend up the second edition to take out the cartridge slot and I saw some wires soldered connecting a few different things. These looked more fresh and less professional than everything else and the wires were hotglued down. There was 1 chip hotclued to the board with wires comming off, and a resistor was soldered on somewhere.

Is this a common Genesis mod, or modchip? Or is this normal in a sega genesis?
Does the chip have a Sega label on it? If it does, this is normal on certain Model 2s(one of my 3 systems has that chip with a wire connecting to the cartridge slot and several others branching off someplace else). Can you post of picture of that chip?
It's exactly as you described, sega label, connects to cartridge slot and other parts. It was definitely done by hand.

Why did sega do this?
Ace_1
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Post by Ace_1 »

I don't have a clue what that chip is doing there. All I know is that I can't find a way to region-mod that revision of the Genesis 2 and this is one with the Sony CXA1645 video encoder, which means easy modding for S-Video and RGB and a noise-free image, unlike the majority of models which come with the Samsung KA2195D video encoder. I, too, was perplexed as to what that chip was supposed to do. Region-coded chip linking to the TMSS BIOS chip, maybe(the biggest chip on the board)?
Bibin
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Post by Bibin »

I found my NES with an RF cable coming off of the power switch board 0_o The guy selling it thought it was broken, so I got it for $12.45. I took it home, removed the cable, and it ran just fine.
...
Mister X
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Post by Mister X »

Meh. This should be what the OP is talking about. Of my four Genesis 2 systems, this is the only one with jumper wires running all over it.

SN: 240682461, made in Thailand.

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Ace_1
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Post by Ace_1 »

Mine's exactly the same, except it's made in China instead of Taiwan, has the cloned Z80 by Sega instead of a Zilog Z84, a CXA1645 instead of the Samsung KA2195D, and the wires are all held down with electric tape. Here's what the board looks like on mine, plus an S-Video mod(notice the resistors and wires running off the CXA1645): Image
I need to know how to region-mod this Genesis, so if anyone knows, please fill me in.
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Post by Skyone »

Ace_1
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Post by Ace_1 »

I'm sorry, but this will NOT work. The chip is a completely different number than that on my Genesis' board(it's a 315-5786) and has pin 107 running UNDER the YM2612 on the board to some location I haven't been able to determine. So, this is a no-go.
Also forgot to mention, the board has a completely different layout than that one(there's a discrete YM2612, that weird chip that connects to many places on the board, some chips replaced, etc.).
Mister X
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Post by Mister X »

I wouldn't bother doing anything to this POS aside from popping out some standard AV ports, unless the crap video encoder isn't a pain to pull RGB from.
Ace_1
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Post by Ace_1 »

Mister X wrote:I wouldn't bother doing anything to this POS aside from popping out some standard AV ports, unless the crap video encoder isn't a pain to pull RGB from.
The Samsung KA2195D is the absolute worst video encoder ever put in a Sega Genesis. Trust me, I have 2 Genesis 2s with the KA2195D, and the image quality is pathetic: there's noise like on the Top-loader NES, but less, and the image itself is very bad, especially on the edges of the sprites(heavy pixelation). The CXA1645 is a much better video encoder, which can also output S-Video. Any and all Genesis systems with the CXA1645 eliminates the noise and reduces the pixelation, although it's still there.
Mister X
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Post by Mister X »

Well, I just compared three of my Genesisisisises. The system I posted a photo of with the KA2195D encoder didn't produce any video noise that I could detect. While I currently only have composite as a video option for any of the systems, any significant difference between the KA2195D encoder and the CXA1645M should have been blindingly obvious.

Well, the only thing I noticed was a color difference between the two.

Ah, BUT! There was a lot of crap in the signal coming out of the KA2195D in my one Indonesian-born Genesis. Maybe something with the sync, because there were faint vertical lines in solid color fields in games.

So it's more than just the video encoder that controls the quality of the video coming out of the system. Hm. Either that, or Indonesia is made of complete and utter fail.
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