Slightly Modified 64 Oddly Stops Working? Hmm..

[deadbolt]

I hope somebody here can help me. I recently re-located the expansion pack using my own method, and thats all I have done to it so far. Everything seems to run fine, but about five minutes into gameplay the graphics skew and flicker then the screen goes black. Nothing will startup with any game for about 2 hours then it just does the same exact thing when I test a game on it. I'm assuming its an over heating issue considering it fails after a few minutes then works later on.

The method I used to lay the expansion RAM flat on the board was, I took the housing off the RAM slot leaving all of the connections connected, then I bent all of them as far down toward the front of the board without putting too much tension on them causing them to snap. I made sure they were all strait and not touching, then I slid the bare expansion board flat underneath the connections and pulled it upward until all of the connections touched the appropriate connections. I used epoxy to hold it up and in the position I wanted and I then lined up all of the pins to their correct positioning. I tested the system with a game and made sure it ran with no problems, then I blabbed epoxy over all of the connections to hold them in their place. I tested it again and it worked fine, except it just simply stops playing about five or six minutes into any game.

Has anyone had this problem and found a solution for it? Thanks in advance,

-Carson

[XCVG]

You're probably right about the heat. Did you use any heatsinks?

[deadbolt]

Yeah I kept the stock heatsinks and shielding on the processors and I mounted an extra stock heatsink onto the RAM chip, no shielding on the RAM though. The problem exists with or without a heatsink on the RAM. I may need to go to more extreme measures to keep it cool, but it didn't seem completely necessary. It should be able to run fine as is considering the expansion chip is more cooled now then it was in its original housing, and the processors have the same cooling they had originally. I'm a bit stumped.

[timmeh87]

You soldered it right?

It sounds like something is shorting.

[deadbolt]

No I didn't solder it at all, that's why I went with the method I did to avoid having to. My being lazy and not soldering may very well be the problem, but would it run for few minutes then short if that's the case? And I just remembered I removed the red LED from the board, is there any possibility that removing that lamp could cause any problems? Thanks for everyone's help so far, I greatly appreciate it.

[XCVG]

If you didn't solder it how are the wires attached?!

[jjhammerstein]

Compression between metal contacts.

[deadbolt]

Compression between metal contacts.

That's correct, I just used tension from the existing pins to firmly press them onto the RAM's contacts. One more idea, besides never being able to access and adjust the pin placement again, would epoxy over all of the contacts and pins cause any of these problems?

[jjhammerstein]

That shouldn't effect it at all.

[ShockSlayer]

I had an exp pack once, that did the same thing. Even with proper heatsinking. It was fried due to a short, but still ran.

Are the contacts from where the LED was touching the pack? That could be screwing it up.

SS

[palmertech]

I had an exp pack once, that did the same thing. Even with proper heatsinking. It was fried due to a short, but still ran.

Are the contacts from where the LED was touching the pack? That could be screwing it up.

SS

I was wondering why the jumper pack you sent me had a half ripped off expansion chip...