I am unable to play Konami Famicom cartridges with expansion VRC audio chips on them on my AVS, that is, Akumajou Densetsu and LaGrange Point, which have have VRC6 and VRC7 chips in that respective order, don't even boot up on my AVS. I know it's a problem with the AVS because I am able to play both carts on a Famicom which I bought when I was in Japan a few weeks ago. Do any of you know what the problem is?

UPDATE June 16, 2018 6:33 AM EST: I have received in the mail a new AVS and did a series of tests on them, playing

• Konami famicom carts with VRC sound chips,
• famicom carts without VRC sound chips
• NES carts of homebrew games made after the NES' lifecycle
• commercially produced NES games made during the NES lifecycle

and all the tests passed with flying colors! I'm as happy as a clam! Yippee Skippee!

UPDATE June 16. 2018 8:29 AM EST: I tried a Madara famicom cartridge I got from ebay and it works great! I also tried five famicom cartridges I bought from Super Potato on a trip I went to Japan a couple months ago and even though they all took some resetting, turning off and on again, firmware updating, and cartridge cleaning to get them to work, I eventually was able to play all of them! So I'm not really having any problems!

Strange, my copies of Lagrange Point, Madara, Esper Dream 2 and Just Breed all work fine on my AVS.

EDIT:both my translated and untranslated copies of madara and Lagrange Point work fine. Maybe you need a firmware update on the AVS? 

I updated the firmware to 1.3b6. Still have same problems.

EDIT: I should note that the LaGrange Point and Akumajou Densetsu cartridges were working fine until one day they stopped working.

UPDATE: I downgraded to 1.20. Same problems.

UPDATE: I purchased a Famicom cart of Madara for further testing purposes.

Sounds like something got borked. Did you try a full factory reset?

 

I'm not sure. I'll try that. Even if I had done so, no harm in trying again! Wish me luck!
 

I would reset, then try the games without adjusting anything other than updating to a stable firmware (1.30b5 is the most stable, with only the GG issue.)

If they play, then try adjusting settings to see if any affect it. In any case, once the games start acting up again, shoot an email to [email protected] explaining what exactly happened and when (what settings, firmware etc.)

If something's wrong with the AVS, they should replace it.

 

Okay, I did a full factory reset, and lo and behold, the Akumajou Densetsu game STILL boots with nothing but the white screen of death. I sincerely think there's something wrong with the AVS. I'll contact [email protected]

UPDATE: Mail sent!

Dumb question - didn't see where you said you already did this.

Have you tried to clean the pins on your famicom carts? ie. Take some q-tips and scrub with 91% isopropyl alcohol.

Even if you think they may be clean or look clean to your eye, scrub them anyways and see if that helps.

1. Not a dumb question at all.
2. Already did so numerous times. No luck.
3. Slightly irrelevant to your question, but I got a return shipping label from retro USB. I think after I explained what happened thoroughly, they threw in the towel.

Hopefully a new unit gets to you quickly.

Interesting. Glad to see they are willing to replace it. Hopefully the new unit doesn't exhibit any problems (I haven't had any issues with mine and Akumajo Densetsu).

I actually had an issue with my madara cart with the new firmware update. Used the older update and it works fine now. Was bummed about that. The music was off and the text was glitchy

New update to original post. See original post's update for details.

Updated post again.

My Famicom Castlevania III works fine on my AVS with the enhanced sound.

As does mine. See the update.