Repair/Mod General - Game Tech Wiki

[Anonymous No.3760595]

Trying to repair one of your consoles? Working on a mod? Bring your questions and expertise here.

http://www.gametechwiki.com/w/index.php/Main_Page

Remember to clean your games, consoles, and accessories on occasion and before attempting any repairs. Many problems can be solved this way. Check out the guide on the wiki:

http://www.gametechwiki.com/w/index.php/Game_and_Console_Cleaning

[Anonymous No.3762925]

Ay, Repairman Maryo is back.

[Anonymous No.3763115]

Why would a Gameboy cartridge suddenly stop working, other than being dirty? My first GBC cart, Mortal Kombat 4, stopped working years ago. I've cleaned it repeatedly (the contacts are pristine) and visually inspected the circuit board, but nothing looks off. When I try to boot it, I get stuck at the Game Boy logo, with the Nintendo logo corrupted. Is the cart a lost cause?

[Anonymous No.3763263]

>>3762925

Ayyy lmao

[Anonymous No.3765681]

Any ideas what's wrong with the screen of this GBC?

[Anonymous No.3765693]

How do I select MIDI sound for Monkey Island and LOOM?

[Anonymous No.3765717]

I know a PS2 isn't quite /vr/ but my slim PS2 isn't reading discs as the lid doesn't close properly and doesn't register as such. Any suggestions on how to fix please?

[None !7XHitler/Q No.3765792]

dat tripcode

[Anonymous No.3765807]

I found a dirt cheap Nes console at the flea market, seller said it didnt turn on but it actuyally does, the problem is you have to press the power button really hard and let it pressed for the console to power on, if i stop pressing it it turns off.

OPbviously the problem is the power switch pic related, does anyone know where to buy a replacement switch? its an easy job but i just cant find any info about this particular switch as most people replace the whole buttons board.

[Anonymous No.3765824]

>>3765807
http://furlocks-forest.net/wiki/?page=How_to_Modify_a_NES_Power_Button

This may be of some interest to you anon

[Anonymous No.3766181]

>>3765824
yeah thanks, i just desoldered the switch, opened it up and cleaned it with a qtip and alcohol, it was ridty as fuck.

Inside theres only two copper pieces, i cleaned both really carefully and let them all shiny, reasembled the switch and now its working perfectly.

[Anonymous No.3766185]

I got an Nes that works perfectly except for the Led light, sometimes it lights up and sometimes it doesnt, it powers on just fine so its just the Led acting up.

Could it be that it is just dead? or whats exactly what tells the LED to power on?

[Anonymous No.3766221]

>>3765717
While I'm not familiar with the PS2 slim, consoles with a disc door detect that the door is closed typically through the depression of a switch which is usually visible when the door is open. Maybe you can find that switch and Macguyver a way to keep it always depressed (maybe tape and some wadded-up paper).

Otherwise, could you elaborate on the door not closing properly? Maybe it can be repaired.

[Anonymous No.3766226]

>>3766185

If still it lights up sometimes, it's likely not dead. Check the power connections to the LED light; maybe one is loose and needs to be re-soldered.

[Anonymous No.3766271]

>>3766226
do you mean the LED solder points? because from what ive seen theres nothing connected to it at all, its just 5 wires comming out of the buttons board and a white connector that goes to the main board.

[Anonymous No.3768201]

Gotta save this thread.

Does anyone have experience making custom cases for consoles?

I have a board only SNES that works great, it's more reliable than my other ones.

I've bit hit with a bit of a retro bug and I want to make it wooden, and get a real nice wood grain theme going since I have a junked NES and N64 as well.

Any ideas on what to do? Anyone made a case before?

[Anonymous No.3768372]

>>3763115
Clean whatever you're using to play the cartridge and check the battery voltage. Should be like 3 volts.

[Anonymous No.3768387]

>>3768201
You could bring this over to /diy/, they might be able to help you with the woodworking. I'd say get some wooden dowels and drill in a bit all the locations where the screws need to go. Cut the dowels to size and then glue them in place. Use an appropriately sized wood screw to secure the mobo. You can use a dado joint to hold the controller board in the same way a normal SNES console would. Depending on the style you're going for I would again go for a dado joint with a 1/8-1/16" thick piece of wood to cover around the AV, as this part has to be thin for the wires to look right. For the top you could either construct a similar thing to what an SNES has for the cartridge slot or just put a rectangular hole in it with drill + (coping saw or jig saw), cut a nice rectangular hole with a chisel, or use 2 or more pieces and your favorite saw. Buttons you'll have to do on your own, some sort of spring construction for reset and a slider for power. For the rest, I don't actually know much about wood working but this would be enough to get a shitty, rectangular prism wooden box (or a nice one if you can into wood working).

[Anonymous No.3768451]

>>3760595
I'm disappointed in that wiki, it's pretty baron.

Should I hardmod my gamecube with a XenoGC or get an action replay to soft mod it? I've got the gameboy player and disk, but I want to use the game boy interface.

[Anonymous No.3768540]

>>3768451
I use sd media launcher, works fine outside of being picky about sd-cards(I believe it only supports max 2gb cards). And yes GBI works with it.

You can get one directly from codejunkies.

[Anonymous No.3768574]

>>3768540
>sd media launcher
Do I need the SD Gecko thing too? Or would that help?

[Anonymous No.3768580]

>>3768574
yeah I use the one that came with the sd media launcher

[Anonymous No.3768597]

I'm planning on fitting an RGB bypass kit to my PAL VA4 Mega Drive and repurposing the (useless) ext port as a 9 pin av out with stereo sound.

Am I safe to simply remove the coupling capacitors below the port and use their pads to hook up my audio and video lines?

Pic related is the VA5/6 board where the port and caps were removed but their positions retained.

[Anonymous No.3768602]

>>3768597
I don't have the answer, but I'd suggest probing the pads or following the traces. While the thing might not have an peripherals for it, it is probably still connected to other things.

[Anonymous No.3768848]

I don't know where else to ask this but I am looking for an adapter for my SNES to Super Famicom. As in play Super Famicom games on my American SNES.

Both are NTSC and I know I can just cut the tabs out but I'd really like an adapter. Only thing is, I'd like an adapter that works with FX games.

So anyone have any idea if such an adapter exist?

[Anonymous No.3768940]

>>3768848
Just grind the tabs away

[Anonymous No.3769146]

How do I get rid of the screws on the surface of an NES' bottom?

There's six of them and I had no success. Seems to be extra secured.

[Anonymous No.3770182]

>>3769146
Use a standard phillips head screwdriver. One of the holes doesn't fit with my screwdriver set, so you may need a normal screw driver and not one that takes bits.

[Anonymous No.3770190]

>>3768940
I'm aware of this. I don't want to do it.

I'd like an adapter that supports FX chip games.

[Anonymous No.3770278]

>>3770190
I think that's a limitation of the NA SNES

[Anonymous No.3770290]

>>3770278
It really shouldn't be because all it needs is the extra pins passed though.

Hell, some one made a game genie compatible with FX games by taking a cheap FX game and cutting the extra pins off, adding them to the game genie and wiring them in.

[Anonymous No.3770316]

>>3765681
there's vertical lines, it must be a display error
saging cause useless memes

[Anonymous No.3771078]

Do you think this can befixed? I bet it's is a menu on the screen but the game won't respond, I fear I could fry it completely when I wanted to see what's wrong with it the last time (then it did respond). The google search yelds that it's likely to be the 7805 dc power chip. I guess I'll just replace it, and then see what happens.

[Anonymous No.3771082]

Repair my dick

[Anonymous No.3771123]

>>3771082
i have erectile dysfunction too :^(

[Anonymous No.3771128]

>>3771082
>>3771123

If you're not a certain age...then your hardware is not retro.

[Anonymous No.3771694]

>>3770182
I just made a thread on /diy/, hopefully they can give me advice too, because I tried everything I could do today.

>>>/diy/1124112

[Anonymous No.3772521]

Alright so years ago I lost my copy of Mario & Luigi Partners in Time and thought a friend stole it. Months later I found it slightly buried in some sand in my driveway, the plastic was deformed and it didn't play. Now I still have it, and I've tried cleaning the contacts but it doesn't play still. Is there anything else I should try? Tinning the contacts? Is there a physical/mechanical anti piracy thing that might be telling the ds not to see it?

[Anonymous No.3772537]

>>3771078
while you're at it you should consider checking for bad electrolytic capacitors

[Anonymous No.3772719]

>>3765681
screens ribbon cable is loose and needs to be re-seated or its just broken, you can't fix them beyond that you just need to get a new gbc

>>3772521
try brasso to clean it if you haven't already

[Anonymous No.3774091]

These tiny little CR1616 battery holders that I use are back in stock at Ali Express. I recommend picking some up if you plan on replacing any batteries on Gameboy games. I always put a dot of hotglue on the PCB before soldering them down so that I don't risk lifting any contacts when the battery gets changed.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/free-ship10pcs-lot-CR1616-battery-holder-patch-battery-holder-3V-button-batteries-environmental-seat/32634642198.html

[Anonymous No.3774116]

>>3774091
Sweet! I remember this was brought up a while ago.
Do they also fit into GBA carts or gameboy carts with indented grips?

[Anonymous No.3774136]

>>3774116
I haven't gotten a chance to use one in a GBA cart as of yet because I don't own any of the GBA Pokemon games, and those are pretty much the only GBA carts with batteries (it uses them for the clock rather than save data). From what I understand they work fine though.

I've refurbished a few Pokemon games and a handful of original GB games using these holders and it fits fine inside the older style cartridges.

I've even used one in a bootleg Shantae cart I own because the battery that was in there was way too big and made the cart bulge in an annoying way that made it had to fit in my Gameboy. Using a CR1616 battery with one of these holders worked great and solved the bulge problem, though I did have to cut and bridge some solder pads to make it work.

[Anonymous No.3774147]

>>3774136
Thanks for the confirmation. I think the cartridge depths are the same for GBA/GB. The last time I looked into this it sounded like the holders only fit into GB carts with the bulge style grip.

[Anonymous No.3774357]

>>3774136
I just got metroid fusion and it had a battery pack in it. That I know of there isn't an RTC in metroid fusion.

[Anonymous No.3774418]

>>3774357
There's a chance you might have gotten a bootleg. Did It look like either of the two battery carts in this picture? I bought a Zelda Minish Cap cart like that once and I returned it when I realized it was a bootleg. Chinese bootleggers use a "universal" bootleg cartridge and all of them have batteries because most of the carts they are bootlegging are Pokemon, so it's cheaper just to throw away batteries on games that don't need them than to make a non-battery cartridge.

[Anonymous No.3774518]

I forgot to post updates about this but in January I finished modding my NES for RGB and used one of those nifty 3D-printed multi out ports that you can buy. If anyone's got questions maybe I can help answer them.

Overall I'd say it's a pretty tough mod if for no other reason than because that PPU unit is a real son of a bitch to remove from the motherboard, almost like some of the legs were glued in there. The instructions had a tip about how to loosen them up but the real simple answer is that getting it out is going to be a fight, even with my crappy Chinese electric solder sucker.

Between this and my McWill Game Gear I'd say the two mods were pretty similar in terms of difficulty. On the one hand I wasn't worried about accidentally scratching a beautiful LCD screen or sneezing away some tiny little desoldered resistor with the RGBNES, but on the other hand on the Game Gear there wasn't a stubborn IC chip that I had to pry off the board without breaking anything. I'd say if you have to skill to do one then you can probably pull off the other.

Neither mod was quite as stressful as repairing the Commodore 64 and its disk drive, although those were mostly difficult because I had to diagnose the problems myself and figure out exactly what parts I was going to need.

Next big console mod is going to be the Atari 2600 RGB kit in my Darth Vader. That should be a lot easier since Atari was nice enough to socket the big chips on most 2600 units.

[Anonymous No.3774525]

>>3774518
Nicely done.

I like the placement of the pallet switch. Not really jutting out and keeps the console nice and square.

How is the S-video if you hooked it up?

[Anonymous No.3774543]

>>3774525
I haven't tried S-video on it. I can't remember if I actually have a TV in my house with S-video, although I do have an S-video cable that would work fine with the new multi-out port. Sorry I couldn't provide a better answer.

That does remind me though that I wanted to mod an S-video jack onto my Commodore 64 monitor eventually, or at least pick up an adapter to go to Chroma/Luma. That is the only screen I own that I know can actually take an S-video signal since chroma/luma is the same thing.

[Anonymous No.3774568]

>>3774418
Looks like this

[Anonymous No.3774570]

>>3774568
Should I care that it's a bootleg? It cost me $20 with shipping, came with a manual even.

[Anonymous No.3774576]

>>3774568
Look under the battery and see if the chip has the AMTE code on it.

[Anonymous No.3774578]

>>3774568
>>3774570
I opened up my own copy of Fusion just to check. Mine is definitely not a bootleg because my parents bought it for me from Wal-Mart as a Christmas present when I was a kid. It looks exactly the same as yours. I had no idea this game has a battery.

I knew the Zelda game was a bootleg because the word "Nintendo" used a crappy unofficial font and the board was rough looking, and that's not the case with yours. I can say with 99% certainty that you do not have a bootleg. I have no idea what the hell this battery is for though because by this point I would think all Nintendo games would be using SRAM.

[Anonymous No.3774581]

>>3774576
It does

[Anonymous No.3774584]

>>3774581
Then it's legit.

>>3774578
This is an early version that used SRAM and not Flash. The GBA was at a weird time when flash memory prices where coming down quickly

[Anonymous No.3774586]

>>3774584
Well mystery solved then. Anon's copy is not a bootleg and that website that said that only a few games used batteries was not 100% accurate.

If you buy a game that's not supposed to have a battery and it has one, that is a red flag that it's a bootleg, but the catch is really knowing which games had batteries and which didn't, and there are other signs to look for too.

[Anonymous No.3774730]

>>3770290
>>3770190
Continuing on my hunt for a pass though I've come across a Pro Action Replay 2.

Only thing is, it supposedly has 2 revisions. I've found splash screens for v1.1. but not the v2. Anyone knows if there's a screen shot showing the second revision so I know I'm not on a wild goose chase?

And Why would they call it a Mark III? Or is that just a UK thing.

[Anonymous No.3775438]

I want to mod my 1002 PlayStation to output composite sync on the yellow composite video out socket.

Will this break compatibility with light guns or do they work solely on the sync pulse and not the entire composite video signal?

[Anonymous No.3775461]

>>3775438
You can also use the luma output for s-video, i had my lightgun plugged into luma working fine.

[Anonymous No.3775480]

>>3775461
Cool thanks. I figured it just needed the sync but wanted to be sure.

[Anonymous No.3776456]

My Game Boy Light has insane ghosting. Playing scrolling games is really hard because you can barely make out what you see and what's coming for you.
Is there a fix or is it just how things are with the GBL display?