32X cartridge suddenly stopped working

[Menegrothx]

I was playing Blackthorne on the 32X and I used a level password I had downloaded from the internet to jump to level 6. The game played perfectly normally and I started a fire fight with an enemy when suddenly the game froze. The music played normally but the screen froze and I couldn't do anything. After a while of that there was some sort of graphical bug/screen interferance so I reset the console, only to see a black screen and hear some weird sounds. I powered off the Genesis, removed the cartridge and reinserted it. After the blue Sega logo the screen went black and the game made some weird noises.
I decided to play some other 32X games for a while and after playing Doom and Tempo for about 20 minutes, I rechecked the Blackthorne cartridge. It gives me the lisenced by Sega text and the blue Sega logo but after that the screen goes blank.
My Sega CDs AC adapter wasn't pluged in at the moment so the Genesis doesn't have internal memory in use at the moment. Do the 32X cartridges have some feature like that built in them? Atleast Knuckles Chaotix has save files. The only reason why the game is acting like this that I can think of is that the Genesis/32X cartridge has the bug that crashed the game in its memory, and it loads it up every time I reset the game which I why the game wont work. Could that be it? Any one else had similiar problems with 32X games?

[Hobie-wan]

It is possible that there was a weak bit somewhere in the Blackthorn cart or you had a minor surge or brownout that affected it, but considering the issue with the white ribbon cables in the 32X, I'd open it up and reseat them. It is possible that Blackthorn is needing to send data down one of those lines that isn't making good contact or something. Maybe a function the other game doesn't use. Worth a shot. I'd clean the cart too.

[Menegrothx]

I reinserted the white cables a few months back (I couldn't play any games through the 32X cartridge slot at all, while my 32X CD games worked fine). The cartridge seems to be clean and it's in fine condition, I checked it and it didn't look like it needs any cleaning (tried a dry Q-tip, no dirt).
What's a brownout?
By the way I use a Genesis and NTSC 32X and Sega CD even though I'm in Europe. This set up hasn't caused me any trouble so far. I use 2 regular European AC adapters (in Genesis and in Sega CD) and an American AC adapter in the 32X via 230V->110V voltage converter. All the AC adapters are authentic, genuine Sega products.

If Blackthorne handles data in a different way than most 32X games, does that mean that my cartridge is as good as gone, or do you think it will reset itself over time or something like that?

[Hobie-wan]

A brownout is the opposite of a surge, it is when the power dips but does not completely go off. So called since incandescent light bulbs will be orange/brown if the power lowers enough. I was just speculating on that Blackthorn is doing though. The different pins of a cartridge do different things. Some are power and ground, many are data. Some games might not use all of the pins that others do. Do you have a way to try the cart on another 32X?

[Menegrothx]

I just booted the game and it works fine again. Maybe there is a some kind of short term memory in the cartridge? It would seem logical to me

[Hobie-wan]

Since it uses a password, it won't have any memory in it.