More Guitar Hero Woes

After I got the two functional guitar controllers from a friend and hardwired the GH3 Kramer, I went about my merry way playing the game.  I'm still nowhere near the level I was at previously, but I've managed to knock a few 5*s and FCs off of the list of stuff I was close to, including a 5* of B.Y.O.B. Expert Bass for my second Full Game 5*, and in the process accomplishing my goal of FG5*-ing Guitar Hero World Tour on Expert Bass with at least 50% FCs.

Just recently, that Kramer has started having its fret buttons flicker.  I've been trying to narrow down the cause, but every time I think I'm close to figuring it out, it happens in some other circumstance entirely.  It seems to be related to when I strum and whammy near-simultaneously, as I normally do on long notes within star power phrases.  The result of this is that the long note in question gets hit and then instantly dropped.

But that's not entirely it.  For a while it seemed like it only did it whenever Blue or Orange were involved.  But then it started happening on Red, Yellow, and Green.  I opened it up and checked my hardwiring job.  Everything still looked good, though I adjusted the blue wire a bit (it was looser than the others) and repositioned the electrical tape.  It still flickers and insta-drops long notes, though.

At one point, it seemed like it would happen consistently if I twisted the neck in a weird way, but that went away as quickly as it came.

Regardless of anything, what I'm left with is an unreliable GH3 Kramer and a GH2 SG whose strum bar bounces back up and causes an overstrum.

This is all relevant because I was with CAINE last night wandering around our local Wal-Mart after midnight and happened upon three copies of Guitar Hero 5 for PS2 with the guitar in the games section for $20.  Unfortunately, I only had about $14, so I put it back, but I was forgetting about my check card which has the money for what was once the New Case Fundraiser that I had the progress bar over on the right for a while back.  I've kind of been spending that money ($20 or so of it bought me a TracFone card recently), so...  I think I'll go back there and nab one of those copies of GH5.  Hell, I could grab two of them, sell the extra copy of GH5 to Gamestop, and have two completely untouched guitar controllers. (and a game full of tracks to sightread)

I have confidence it'll still be there, they had multiple copies and who the hell else is buying shit for the PlayStation 2 these days?

Much later edit: Picked up one GH5+guitar bundle.  A friend wants to go halfsies on another, where I get the guitar and he gets the game and pays me $10, so I'll be doing that.