2 N64's dead before I did anything?

sydney075 · Post by **sydney075** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 7:35 pm

Quick intro I found out about the site from the g4 apperance and thought "oh how cool it would be to make one of those. When telling my brother about them he said I could have his old n64 to portablize beacause he had no av cable. Well after a lot of painful work with some hemostats I got the screws loose and opened the case only to find rust

, no components were corroded mind you. I preceeded to wire up a set of rca ports after removing the exsisting av port. Guess what no video

. I figured the board is dead and later found out he ex-girlfriend had thrown the unit against the wall which leads me to belive the assumption is correct.

So I found a n64 on ebay for $5 plus $10 shipping and ordered it. In waiting for the unit to arrive I got a psone lcd from ebgames and immediately cracked it open when I got home. I wired it up with a multi ac-dc adapter and guess what, yep no video

. I later realized the the 300mah adpater was not enough to run the unit and was able to get it to turn on with 5 NiMH AA's. A lot of soldering later and I had rca ports wired in and could get video

. I also realized in this time that another AA is required once I added the load of the speakers into the mix. So I do have this success I am happy of.

While working on my screen the n64 arrived and the screws were so tight I could not remove them with hemostats so off to ebay for some game bits. Yesterday my bits arrived and today was when I finished up my lcd screen. So I cracked open the new unit and attempt to connect the video up and guess what (with my luck so far yep you guessed it) no video

.

So what I'm wondering is it possible that both boards are dead without me having done anything to except to remove the av port off one. Or is there something I'm missing. Let me just give a few answers before they are questions.
*I am using the n64 power supply not batteries for the system.
*I do not have an av cord to test the unit but, according to the pinout info I should just be able to connect the rca ports directly.
*Speaking of pinouts I have checked them so many times I have lost count, they are correct.
*I have not soldered anything to the n64 units I am touching lead wires to the pins from an rca jack.
*I have not be able to get video from either unit on the tv or the lcd screen.
*I cleaned the rusted unit with isoprople alchol and qtips removing as much rust as possible and no components appeared to have been corroded.
*I have tried the turning on the unit with only them mempack for 10 seconds first trick.
*I think that covers it all If anyone can help me I will be very grateful.
**Searches for begging emoticon**

daguuy · Post by **daguuy** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 7:46 pm

your N64s might not be dead. when i first opened mine and tested it, it didn't work so assumed it was dead. i didn't do anything with it for a few days and then i was bored so i tested it and it worked. several montes later, it was sitting on top of my monitor (just mobo, no case or heatsink or anything). my shirt got caught on it so when i got up, it slammed against the desk, chair, and the floor; and that was a pretty hard slam. i tested it imediatly and it didn't work. a few days later, i tested it and it was working again. maybe it's the same thing that happened with yours. sometimes they'll die for a few days or even one day but then then start working again later.

bioniclebert · Post by **bioniclebert** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:03 pm

Cool! A new guy that knows what he's doing!

yes the process should work like that.
sorry to say it, but mabye you should get a cable from a videogame store or something. Its nice to keep if you have an extra N64 that you would like to save. (thats what i did)

Well you got it off ebay, no 100% chance it actually works. Just wondering, does the power LED turn on? at least make shure its powered up, you have a jumper pack in, and a game in thats all clean. I just got a N64 and I thought it didnt work, but i had to fiddle with the cart to get it working right.

sydney075 · Post by **sydney075** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:20 pm

@daguuy: Well I was kinda hoping there would be a way to fix them other than the passage of time but, I'm definatelty holding on to them.

@bioniclebert: Hmmmm knows what he's doing. Thanks for the vote of confidence made me feel good to see that altough I don't really think I know what I'm doing just feeling my way around.I have done a good ammount of reading in these forums prior to attempting anything though.

I have 2 jumper packs and have tried both. The power light does come on and the game cart appears clean and was bought from a flea market stand that guarantee's their games. Maybe I'll use my new gamebits to open it and check it out. Anyway I figured that I may need to get a cable but, I just dont want to spend $10 on something to test a system for one powerup. Maybe ill go by salvation army and get lucky with a cheap one.

daguuy · Post by **daguuy** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:30 pm

you're trying to get video from the pin labeled "V" and connected the grounds, right?

sydney075 · Post by **sydney075** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:35 pm

Correct Im following the pinouts listed in the sticky of the screen hacking forum. Plus I've checked on multiple googled sites to make sure I've got the right ones.

*edit so as not to double post*
I have opened the game and It all looks fine there is a little wear on the contacts but nothing other than that. It looks as thought it wasn't played a whole lot.

nos_slived · Post by **nos_slived** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 11:02 pm

sydney075 wrote:*edit so as not to double post*

I think I love the new guy! (You've obviously read enough to know that we hate double posts)

If you(or anyone you know) have access to a Game Cube, just use the cable from it for your testing. The SNES, N64, and GCN use the same cables. You definitely have video ground connected?

sydney075 · Post by **sydney075** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 4:11 pm

nos_slived wrote:I think I love the new guy! (You've obviously read enough to know that we hate double posts)

Haven't really noticed a hatered for double posts in what I've read I just post on several forums and I realize that double posting is bad forum etiquette. Anyways I don't know anybody with a gc or snes unfortunately. However, I just got a nice new multimeter so I'm going to start tracing the boards and make sure there is continuity and proper voltages where they should be. At least that will let me rule out so things such as a bad power supply.

sydney075 · Post by **sydney075** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 2:48 pm

First I dont consider this to really be a double post as it is a whole day later. But, if you want to turn and get mad at the new guy go ahead I just want people to see there is a new post here beacuase I have some new info.

First off my battery pack I made melted down. It really sucks but, the batteries are ok just the casing elted. I think a few wires got crossed (I wasn't even using it at the time).

But here is the good news I decided to give the systems another shot and while I still could not get a signal out of the first one I followed the traces past the two little capacitors and tried getting a signal there and it was a success. I have never been happier to see a please insert controller message. That was until I tried to insert one. Wouldn't you know I won't recognize a controller for some reason. I figured if one system worked that way I should try the same method with the ebay system so I grabbed it. I then figured what the heck I'll hook it up the regular way first and sure enough the system worked now. And it did recognize the controller. So daguuy I guess you were right for some strange reason I can't explain letting them sit for a while did work.

Now I'm off to scounge up another battery holder and start working on the ebay system. I'll worry about the controller problem with the other one at a later time.

extremesonic · Post by **extremesonic** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 4:37 pm

yeah N64s are definitely fickle, I remember this friend of mine said he had a 64, but it had been broken for years(like 3-4). So we were bored one day, and I said get the thing out here lets see if we can get her going. We pull it out, I put in Star Fox(after blowing in cart and system), put it in and got a green screen. I did a quick turn off then on of the system and BAM there was star fox running perfectly. So he had a working 64 for all these years without realizing it.

sydney075 · Post by **sydney075** » Tue Nov 08, 2005 11:26 pm

Ok this will be my last post in this thread I just wanted to verify the systems are still working. As extremesonic put it they are fickle but they are working again and it was not a fluke as they continue to work now. Let this be a note to anyone who may later use the search feature. Just because the system appears to be dead does not mean it really is. Let it sit while you work on another project and come back to it later, it may still work.

My next post will be in starting a log of my new system which will probably be tomorrow as my batteries need chargin from all my experimenting.

G-force · Post by **G-force** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 8:37 am

It's odd that people have this trouble. The N64 that I have been using for my N64 ondago (I changed the name, again) has been dropped, thrown, had solder all over it, metal shavings got all over it, short cirtcuited the 12V line (

scared me silly!), dremeled all voer (shock aint good for electronics), had a ton of stuff rewired, AND IT STILL WORKS!

Maybe it's because I am using the jumper pack instead of the expansion pack...

I notice that it's different version from the one I have that fried easy. The ones that never fried all say "C 1996, 1997 Nintendo" on the board, and the easy fried one said "C 1997 Nintendo". I don't remember the model # on the case though.

nos_slived · Post by **nos_slived** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 7:25 pm

I think the 1996 model was the most versatile.

daguuy · Post by **daguuy** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 7:30 pm

i have a 1997 NUS-CPU-05 and it's taken a beating and it still works perfectly

madc0w · Post by **madc0w** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 8:01 pm

nos_slived wrote:I think the 1996 model was the most versatile.

nice, i have one of the 1996 ones! Im just wondering, is there any easy way to increase 9.6 volts to 12 volts? Cause i might try to build another n64p and i wouldnt want to buy another battery.