N64 crashing? [&& other help]

[budnespid]

As long as you can make it fit and look good go for it. Nothing wrong with a little extra protection.

[lucidPerspective]

that's always good! That's how I came across those sideways blowing fans. had one in a broken external hard drive enclosure, saw it and was like woah! that'll come in handy

[Falco]

It's making me start to wonder if I should go through the rest of my old graphics/sound/ethernet cards I have in storage..

By the way, I figured I'd ask this here instead of making another topic- What do the capacitors by the power supply port do? (C160 and C161 on my revision) can I do without those? they look like they attach to the 12v and 3.3v lines, but other than that I can't tell.

[lucidPerspective]

would removing them free up space you would need? I'm not too sure on the specific details, but if you don't need the space I'd just leave them

[Falco]

Well, to fit the shape of the case I have (the corners must go!), I may end up either cutting very close to them, or cutting through them.

[lucidPerspective]

Could always just relocate them to be on the safe side. it might be fine without, but generally the components are there for a reason (apart from all the ones around the controller ports lol) ..personally I wouldn't risk it

[budnespid]

You can cut them off and rewire to the traces. It has been done. Many times.

[lucidPerspective]

lol, that's what I said ..he was originally asking if he could straight up remove them

[Falco]

So I should detach and rewire the component? I'd assume to not find a normal size replacement.

[lucidPerspective]

Yup, follow the traces to see where the component actually connects to, and then just solder wire to those points, de-solder the component, and connect it to the wires. making sure it's hooked up exactly as it was originally (just with wires this time, instead of following the traces on the board)

you could think of it like materializing the traces into physical cable

[Falco]

Mmmm. I'm just worried about breaking/burning/dropping and losing those tiny things. I shall have to attempt it tomorrow when I have more attention span and energy.

[lucidPerspective]

My advice is to draw a picture of how it's meant to go before starting work on it, so that you can refer to it as you go. It's saved me many many times lol

[budnespid]

You can chop off the corners and not have to rewire what you chopped off back on. You just have to reconnect power audio and video to the traces. You can chop down the n64 board a fair bit with minimal rewiring.

Link: http://forums.modretro.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=245" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Falco]

Hmm, so obviously those capacitors I was worried about aren't really necessary, unless this trimming requires rewiring that isn't marked.

Thanks a lot for that link, this'll come in real handy.