Rant: Recapped a Game Gear and now the sound is worse than before?

I recapped my old Sega Game Gear last week using a cheap cap kit from eBay, and now the audio has this constant buzzing that wasn't there when it was just dead silent. Did I mess up by not using higher quality caps like tantalums or is this just something you live with on these old handhelds? Anyone else noticed worse sound after a cap swap or did I just get a bad batch?

3 comments

3 Comments

elizabeth_williams2mo ago

Nah, cheap caps are fine for stuff like this most of the time. That buzzing is probably just a bad ground or something else on the board you bumped during the work. Maybe it's just me but recapping usually cleans up the sound, not makes it worse.

sagea881mo ago

Had the same buzz problem on a Game Gear last year and it drove me nuts for a week. Turned out one of the little ceramic caps near the volume wheel had a cracked leg that I missed on the first inspection. So yeah @elizabeth_williams is right that it's probably not the caps themselves but something you bumped or a bad joint. I ended up just touching up all the solder points around the audio circuit with some fresh flux and it killed the buzz completely. If you're still stuck try poking around the board with a plastic tool while it's running to find where the noise is coming from.

kevin_bailey2mo ago

Man, cheap caps can be hit or miss in my experience. @elizabeth_williams is probably right about a bad ground - I had a Dreamcast that buzzed like crazy after I swapped caps and it turned out I just nicked a tiny trace near the audio amp. You might wanna double check your solder joints around the speaker wires and the headphone jack, those are common buzz culprits on the Game Gear.