Hucard (PC Genjin2) corrupted graphics problem

[deubeul]

So far, among several non working Hucards, I had 3 that I'm sure are not working, as I really tried everything I could:

- a Parasol Star that don't even start.
- a tennokoe that don't even start.
- a Jacky Chan (japanese) with corrupted graphics.

[xelement5x]

BITD I had an extra copy of Altered Beast for Genny, & I actually tried to mess with the pins & what not to see if  I could get the graphics to be jacked up.  Even gave it the name Altered Yeast!

I actually remember some early Genesis game has debug modes that could be enabled by hot swapping.  Basically you'd boot up altered beast, rip the cart out after the Sega logo and insert the new game and you'd get weird effects. 

[Addicted]

Thanks for the information. I was hoping to grab and Arcade card later this year. I'll have to keep an eye out for one that has been tested working.

[Winniez]

No updates about the Bonk 2 but I'm sad to report that I have encountered my second non-working Hucard. Its Break-In (the Naxat pool game). This one is completey dead, just gives a grey blank screen. On the outside its in immaculate condition (although that doesn't seem to be a big factor). I will be able to return it this time though, or get partial refund since I could keep the nice case and manual.

I would like weigh in a little. From my own experience both first hand and reading from internet it seems that Hucard failures are more common than with regular cartridges. Could it be that (for the time) very fast memory is more prone to fail?  Although Hucards seem to be more reliable in a sense that they rarely need adjusting or reinserting to start the game.

At this point I have had around 100 hucards go through my hands (including the games I have sold) and so far I have encountered 2 malfunctional cards, I know its a small sample but thats still fairly high failure rate given that games are usually sold as tested. I have had propably over 250 Super Famicom/SNES carts (many of which I have bought as untested lots) and not a single game has failed to boot after cleaning. Same goes for all the other carts (except a super corroded Gameboy game that was dead) though my collection is Nintendo heavy.
Could there be a connection between failures and memory speed? SNES carts have very slow memory and Hucard have the fastest available at the time.

[Gredler]

I had a copy on gunhed that for the life of me I could not resurrect, just dead card.

[SignOfZeta]

Winniez: you just got lucky. You got a %2 failure rate, but I'm sure that if it were really that high on average we'd be hearing about it here every single day since this forum collectively owns tens of thousands of HuCARDs and has members that have been here for over a decade and rarely do we hear of a card that cannot be resurrected.

[Winniez]

Yeah, its possible that I have just been lucky with my other games and unlucky with Hucards. Still when it happens to you you start to wonder.

It would be interesting to hear what sort of failure rates others have experienced.

[Necromancer]

I've got ~150 hueys and have had another couple dozen pass through my hands, and none of 'em are (were) bad.

[Black Tiger]

I've played at least 500 HuCards and the only dud that I remember is a PC Genjin 2 with some glitchy graphics.

[HuMan]

Don't HuCards use glob top ROMs? That kind of IC form factor is notorious for failing early. It's not uncommon at all for them to develop a bad data/address signal, or stop working entirely.

[Winniez]

Don't HuCards use glob top ROMs? That kind of IC form factor is notorious for failing early. It's not uncommon at all for them to develop a bad data/address signal, or stop working entirely.

Seems to be http://www.videogameden.com/articles/hu/hu_ins.jpg
Whats the issue with a glob top design, does the epoxy go bad over time?

[HuMan]

It's just the nature of epoxy covered ICs, they weren't intended for long-term durability. They're not as sealed from the air as proper DIP ICs. Glob tops were commonly used for mass quantities of ROM chips in a short manufacturer lead time.

[Winniez]

Interesting, I didn't know it makes any difference. I believe SNES Star Fox uses those glob top chips aswell, I just cleaned one few weeks ago and was suprised how different it looked from other SNES games. Strangely other Super FX games use normal chips, atleast the ones I have opened.
And most (if not all) of the pirate carts and multicarts that I have opened have glob tops.

Edit:After some googling it seems that Nintendo used glob tops on some Famicom/NES games that had huge print runs. Like you said mass quantities and short lead time to meet the demand.

[nopepper]

My Download huey glitches intermittently, depending on whether I position it right in the hucard slot. There are no garbled graphics or anything like that, but you can't make it past the third(?) level stiff dick boss that comes out of the ocean, you know, the one with all the turrets and what not.

It's not a huge deal, since I can tell right away in the first level, given that the bullet patterns are less aggressive in this "mode", but it's still a bit annoying.

Is this a common occurrence in this or other games?

[Winniez]

That sounds more like a contact problem (or a problem with data paths) than a bad ROM.
 I have experienced something similar with few cartridges, good cleaning sorted it.