N64 Repair - No soldering required, just sandpaper
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- čas přidán 27. 07. 2024
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I recently picked up another large eBay faulty console lot and as expected the adventure doesn’t disappoint. This was a lot of 8 “for parts or not working” systems (5 consoles and 3 handhelds) and today I take a look at the first system from this batch, a neglected N64.
🛒 Specialty products specific to this project
Fiberglass Pen: amzn.to/3eQzdWZ
Contact Cleaner: amzn.to/3dI93ly
Rust Dissolver Gel: amzn.to/3RUMzQS
My philosophy on buying tools is to start small and to "outgrow" your gear over time. Expensive gear won't improve your repair and fault finding skills, only practice will do that. With that in mind below is what's in my current toolkit.
🔧 Toolkit
Screwdriver Set: amzn.to/2X7s0Gj
Automatic Wire Stripper: amzn.to/30F5TJm
Pocket Multimeter: amzn.to/3IdvzQz
Component Tester: amzn.to/3l5rHG8
🖌 Soldering Essentials
TS100 Soldering Iron: amzn.to/2YIJZUR
No Clean Flux Syringe: amzn.to/2NFUZvQ
No Clean Solder: amzn.to/2NHEAqQ
Desoldering Braid: amzn.to/312Grws
Tip Tinner: amzn.to/31w2EF4
Contact Cleaner: amzn.to/3dI93ly
🔍 Soldering Add-ons
Fume Extractor with Hose: amzn.to/3hspLZi
Desoldering Vacuum Pump: amzn.to/3Qe9ipl
Circuit Board Holder: amzn.to/3k35Pzm
Helping Hands Soldering Aid: amzn.to/3ihgksP
🔥 Thermal Compounds & Tape
Kapton Tape amzn.to/3DEu0dd
Arctic MX-4 Thermal Paste: amzn.to/2Ak2y8w
1.5MM Arctic Thermal Pads: amzn.to/2Vv1RQU
🧴 Lubes and Epoxies
White Lithium Grease: amzn.to/2UApx5M
Plastic Epoxy: amzn.to/3up0LIm
0:00 Intro and test
2:22 Someone's been here before…
5:45 Contact cleaner to the rescue
8:23 More hidden corrosion
9:29 Hillbilly science
12:58 Rust, soap and water
13:43 Reassembly
15:43 Final test and outro - Hry
The N64 heatsync has alignment marks on everything so you can assemble the whole thing outside of the case then pop it on and it will be fine. I also swap out those old grey pads for new blue thermal pads since that material is 20+ years old and doesn't cover the whole chip. 1mm thermal pads work fine.
I am stocked with several thicknesses of thermal pads by Arctic (0.5mm to 1.5mm) but they are a bit pricey so I typically only change them on systems with a bad reputation for heating issues, or when they are degraded from the system being taken apart too many times. But indeed it's a good idea to replace them on a full restoration.
The sandpaper in the drill was absolutely brilliant.
Just reading the titles scares me a bit lol xD
Sticking the sandpaper and the fiberglass pen into the drill was pretty genius. Nice work dude! 😀
If you have a thoroughly borked controller, you can cut the plug off and strip the wires back a little bit. By plugging the cable into the console and checking continuity between the wires and solder points on the motherboard, you can quickly and easily confirm or rule out problems with the ports.
I actually have controller extension cables, which I could have used to do a continuity test as you suggest but it didn't cross my mind. Great suggestion.
Great work! The N64 is a great system :) and I'm glad to see this one saved. You got a nice deal on that parts lot!
As someone else already mentioned, you don't need to remove the heat spreader and all those screws, you can pull the entire top shield off removing only the two screws around the AV port, the power port, the six screws around the outside edges, the two longer screws near the cart slot, the two tiny screws near the expansion port slot and finally the two offset screws with the lock washers on them. Then separate the shield by from the board in the top corner near the power connector. Once it's cracked free, simply pivot the shield from the front side of the console to the back. It will come free entirely, and no damage to either ram chip which only have contacts on one side with the other side having only those tiny little ground legs. Put the whole unit on in reverse order, front to back. It'll sit right down.
LOVE the idea of using the fibreglass pen and the drill! Cleaned them puppies right up! I agree too though, take safety precautions. You do NOT want to breath that stuff in nor get it on your skin, Painful. Very painful.
The N64 is in general pretty robust. Usually, if one doesn't work... its because of a dirty cart connector where the game seats in, a dirty port where the jumper pak / expansion pak sits (or the jumper / expansion pak itself is dirty... or both) or because the game simply isn't working. I tell people to ALWAYS clean the cart slot, clean the games, and clean the jumper pak area. If the system still won't boot, try another game. Very very rarely is it ever something like a faulty chip or bad capacitor (though it can be bad caps sometimes, just rare).
I bath those N64 boards. I pull the cart slot off and bath the whole thing. Scrub with a soft bristle brush. Scrub the plastic housing for the controller ports, scrub the shell. Unless the console is very filthy, I try not to submerge the shell, so the labels do not get ruined. It's a shame the motherboard serial numbers are wrote on there with that sorta dry erase stuff that wipes right off....
Great work, lots of good stuff in that lot!
Thanks for the tips 👍🏻
Pal, the way you clean and revive broken/damaged/issued consoles with that tone of voice, its almost therapeutical. Suscribed and amazing tricks like that one with the sandpaper.
The N Six Four is a beast and pretty reliable. The only thing that really goes wrong with them is a dirty pin connector or the controller ports get corroded. Occasionally one of the IC pins lift up or get corroded but that's been pretty uncommon in my experience. I never thought about using a fiberglass pen with a drill but damn those controller pins look brand new again.
I will admit it's a little out there but I liked it better than the sandpaper. More gentle on the pins especially because all I had was 220 grit which is quite coarse on metal.
I once had a disgruntled ex girlfriend fling my N64 control deck off a five story balcony it cracked the hell out of the shell but otherwise was completely unscathed and worked perfectly she was hit by a bus a couple years later but she survived I like to think hitman mario pushed her in front of that bus
@@crimesforkibble6912 Karma. Also, that situation is why I live the single life.
people often crap on the N64 for lacking third party support but if there ever was a console that really says games are what nintendo is all about the N64 would be it so many first party games worth a damn on this thing
nintendos first party lineup is unbeatable
I agree wholeheartedly.
Congrats on the fix. A few things to note when working on these:
You don't need to remove all those screws for the heatsink, just warm it up and it'll come off in one piece.
You don't want to run an N64 for too long without the heat spreader attached, it can kill the RDP.
220 grit (sandpaper in general) is for refinishing, not for electrical work. Good call on switching to the fiberglass pen. Sandpaper is a nuclear option and should be avoided as much as possible.
Totally agree with your suggestion to wear gloves and avoid touching the fiberglass shavings. You don't want that stuff in your skin, it really sucks. Like a thousand little splinters.
And props for NOT USING BRASSO.
Thanks for the suggestions. What's the deal with Brasso? I've never used it. A few folks here suggested it but I'm not familiar with it.
Brasso has been around since the dawn of time. It's used to clean metal. It's mainly a British thing (don't ever remember seeing it across the pond). I've never used it on electricals.
the older formula of brasso would be fine, its a muuuuch finer grit, but its also a pain to clean out of some areas, and you'd really need to deep clean something like the controller ports to get it all out (or toss it in an ultrasonic).
that said, brasso wouldn't be ideal here, even if you just put some on a pipe cleaner.
the new formulas seems to be a heavier grit, and doesn't 'cut' as well as the old one, so you really just seem to get scratches in softer materials, while the old one cleanly polished if you did it right.
as for what it actually is; petroleum based liquid/paste abrasive polishing compound. it has its place in cleaning up some contacts, but older consoles? not really. though it might clean up those rusty shields nicely if you have a buffing wheel handy.
as for being available across the pond, i'm about as far from the uk as one can get without being in the ocean, and its on the shelves of almost every hardware store i could care to name around me, and some general purpose ones.
Awesome :) I'm not sure I could argue about "Borderline" but I absolutely enjoy your videos. Thank you - very enjoyable videos
Ha, let's just call it a labor of love.
The nice thing about old Nintendo consoles is that they use so little power that they don't really break in ways that are completely unfixable.
I grabbed one for 37 bucks shipped and then got a jumper pack + cables for about 25. All I had to do was disassemble it and scrub the whole board, the cartridge port was absolutely disgusting. After reassembling it booted right up.
Seeing a revived ultra64 fills my hearth with joy
Getting an N64 to live again well-done great console
8:00 “Well at least we haven’t made it worse” 😂😂😂😂
Very cool idea for the controller ports.
i have been enjoying watching your videos , its giving me the confidence to try out repairs of my own, i bought a mega drive on ebay claimed working but no power and the power connector just needed reflowing
Glad to hear it! Indeed many "no power" faults are things like a faulty power adapter or a broken power connector. Once you fix a system or two then you get the itch to keep at it :)
sometimes it's just moisture damage
my og xbox had a similar issue when i got it from a flea market
the shield was all rusted and bad so i cleaned it all up cleaned the mobo disc drive and all that checked the caps replaced the thermal paste it still works to this day
I've had this problem with a few older consoles. I will usually douse a cheap controller/controller extension with isopropyl, then push it in and out a bunch, then wipe, repeat until black crap stops coming off on the cloth or cotton swabs.
Another great restoration video. Always wonderful to watch your videos, you explain everything perfectly
I'm now regretting all the times I blew on my N64 games, cartridge slot, controllers, and controller ports as a kid, no wonder my jungle green N64 doesn't detect controllers sometimes and isn't playing games right! might be corroded and dirty, thank you for showing how to clean everything and what tools to use!
Awesome video once again. I really liked the fiberglass pen hack. I recently got an N64 with no video. Jumper pack pins were badly wore down. Added solder to pads and works until I get a replacement. I also replaced thermal pads and added Arctic MX4 to top of heat sinks and bottom of heat spreader. Temps were around 85f to 90f. now peak around 105f on the spreader. May be anecdotal but seems to be displacing heat more efficiently now.
thats a really cool technique!
My buds got an n64 with picky controller ports and i might tell him to try this now
Two words come to mind when I watch you work... careful diligence. Just thought I'd share that. Thanks for the video.
New life given to the n64 console
Dude, that was an ingenious fix. Well done. I'm new to your channel and also appreciated the sped up disassembly and assembly
I love your professionalism. You're very dedicated to a professional outcome.👍👍
As someone who used to run cables thorough roofs, you do get used to fibreglass on your skin, but I wouldn't recommend exposing yourself to enough of it to stop feeling it, like I have. :)
Another great repair/restoration and helpful pointers. I hope you get much use out of that N64.
Actually love this channel man, stumbled across it some how and your content is sooo frkn good
Amazing for sure i thought you had a bad i/o chip
Dude, I love your videos man. Always great to watch, listen to, etc.
Thank you for the videos.
Much appreciated 👍🏻
From my own experience, most broken N64 just have dirty expansion slots. The entire console turns off if the connection is iffy. (Sometimes with some funny graphical corruptions) This one was a bit dirtier.
Dude this was so awesome! Nicely done!!
You genius you 😁👍. Great fix. I love your videos because they are very educational . Huge like 👍⭐
That towel should have folded itself. I think it's learned it's lesson.
You could use a multimeter in continuity mode and touch the solder point on the motherboard and then around the pins in question.
that N64 looks so much happier ;)~
Another Great Video. Glad You got this up and Running again...
Thank you!
That was amazing! Thank you you clever sausage ❤
The back of play 1 and 2 controller port and the power switch still looked like they had a lot of corrosion around them
Also those sounds sounded like they came out of 80's cartoons or kids shows
Great work! Love this channel. Learn so much 👏🏼
Great to hear!
KISS method. Keep it simple stupid. Even the simple fixes I enjoy watching.
Most accessory switches, like window and mirrors, in older cars can be fixed like this if not working. Pop them apart and spray them down with cleaner and shine up the contacts. Usually work afterwards and last a long time.
Hadn't heard that acronym before, nice! From the great minds at Lockheed themselves apparently.
From all the consoles I've worked on I must say the N64 is one of the most well built and reliable. They almost never break and when they do, it's pretty easy to fix.
nice easy fix. i enjoy your content. subscribed.
I've found that the grounding shield for the Jumper Pak slot is not present in some earlier models. I've opened up several that didn't have them, never been opened before. Yesterday I got a new system to fix and that one did have an extra bit of metal near the Jumper Pak slot as well as another set of 2 screws with the toothed spacer to the left and right of the Jumper Pak slot.
This is not really a matter of it missing due to someone opening it up and losing, it was just never present in the console to begin with. Only with later revisions did it get added, just like those extra screws.
yet another good video. Thanks
Great video. Thanks.
Great video 😀
it's like keeping gaming history alive! I can see myself in your shoes and how trying to fix something might feel like spiraling downward hopelessly and very frustrating but it's so satisfying when you find the root cause and actually fix the system! awesome skill! your videos always inspire me to get back at attempting to fix my old consoles!
Nice work man...
Dude, you are the best... Greetings from Brasil.
I was having something similar with a 1992 Nissan forklift that didnt start or show any warning lights in the cluster, turns out the main concector between the cluster and the body of the forklift have the same green-ish oxidation in the contacts, after some contact cleaner and sandpaper the forklift came back to life and start again
Ha, now that's a different order of magnitude altogether in terms of project size.
I'm surprised it's not the backside of those controller ports that was causing the issue, they looked very corroded/green. I agree with you though, this thing was probably stored in a damp basement hence all that corrosion everywhere. If I was the OCD one, I'd be using Evapo-Rust on any rusted metal in that thing and cleaning any corrosion I could find, but looks like you got it working, and that's what matters.
Good methods , me I have desoldering and put on ultrasonics bath .
Does it work well for corroded contacts? I'd like to own an ultrasonic cleaner at some point, but I don't see myself finding enough uses to justify getting one.
Very nice indeed! I was thinking maybe corrosion or cigarette smoke was the culprit.
Judging by how corroded the power switch and cartridge slot look in particular, compared to how clean most of the metal shielding looks, I'd probably say it's had something spilled over top of it that got into the cracks. If it was just due to being stored in a humid area there should be more even corrosion all over. The corrosion in the controller ports is probably just due to age and humidity though.
Had to have been a DKOldies N64 at some point looking like that
Crl cleaner will get that part. I had to do that on snes console years ago.
The corrosion build up? Never used CLR before.
Very good! 👍👍👍
Thanks buddy.
Bravo !
Did you order a BennVenn screen for your Lynx 2 ? Great video by the way
I'm planning a Part 2 and will likely use the project as an opportunity to teach myself how to diagnose using an oscilloscope. Someone local in my area has offered to lend his working Lynx 2 for comparison readings so I can hopefully track down the root cause of the issue on my unit. There is a chance it is a bad crystal, ram or one of the two proprietary chips.
If you decided to replace the thermal pads on the n64 can you direct me to a thermal pad that will work really well
drill with sandpaper? i thought i was the only one who did that heh amount of people saw me do it cringed, also there is no dumb ideas just great solutions ;)
When it came to controller ports, your best option would have been using a multimeter to see if there was a connection.
Indeed. Hindsight is 20/20.
Can you help me? My N64 won't display on my CRT tv and it powers on. I've tried cleaning the game,the pins,and the jumper Pak. The av cable is oem but the power supply is aftermarket.Maybe it's the power supply causing the issue?
If I use the fiberglass pen (I'm assuming the blue is nylon bristles) without opening the case (I don't have a gamebit), is it fine to vaccuum only the shards that are on the outside of the console?
I don't want to risk vacuuming on an enclosed circuit because of static, but I also don't want to risk micro-cutting myself when holding the console
I got a n64 pikachu edition that I've had for 20 years give or take that needs some TLC, got a jammed ram upgrade as the top of the ram ripped off, missing the original controller, missing the front compartment lid, the av out port at the back is loose missing some stickers, scratched up to hell.....do you think it's still worth fixing?
i dont realy know why but the N64 is the most easyest console to repear only with cleaning.
I was repeared lot of them only with a bottle of alcool !
I have got a serious issue with my N64. I have to take off the heat sync and everything that goes with the jumper pack for the console to work, otherwise it refuses to boot. I haven't cleaned it, or re-flowned it yet. Another detail i always have to unplug evertything (PSU and Jumper pack for the console to turn on), any suggestion?
If only removed, won't rust come back if not treated properly?
nice
What video capture device do you use to capture footage? Thanks for posting content :)
A cheap USB capture card for Mac: amzn.to/2YM4TT7. It only has Composite and S-video but it works well for testing my retro consoles during repairs.
It bothers me to no end that you sanded down the RF shield, but did nothing about the rusty cartridge connector.
I'm sure you'll get over it.
Nothing wrong with hillbillies, they have clever ways of making things work, don't hate!
I have nothing but love for my redneck brethren 😉
@@BorderlineOCD Ha! Just kidding, I know by the way you solve problems you love us rednecks. Your videos are brilliant! I love your channel please keep posting!
I know this might be irrelevant to this vid o (maybe a idea for next video), but can you fix, or did you encounter a PS2 slim with not working laser. Like there might a broken fuse what won't move the laser up and down, but the laser lights up fine?
There are almost a dozen fuses on the PS2 Slim, I have a couple of videos on them. From memory not sure which one is related to the optical drive. You can also test a CD-based game (a blue game disc), sometimes that will work and can be a quick way to diagnose the main laser is on its last leg.
Great video, just please clean the brown gunk on the gray plastic parts of the controller ports. 😐
Evidently you didn't watch the entire video 👎🏻
@@BorderlineOCD Hmmm they look to be clean at 15:13. I thought you did just the case but I stand corrected! Im sorry!
Mine just randomly freezes.
How do you need only sand paper to fix it
Evidently you did not watch the video.
Yeah but I just commented at the beginning of the video before I watched it.
what cable are you using to connect N64 to a TV?
The stock AV cable connected to a USB capture card.
@@BorderlineOCD I was just wondering as I can't use the stock AV cable so I've ordered an N64 to HDMI cable and waiting for it to be delivered to see if it works, thanks for letting me know 👍
Осталось поставить RGB mod👍
I enjoy your videos thoroughly, thank you. For cleaning I usually just use a tooth brush but would like to upgrade to something with a little more surface area. Any recommendations? Thank you in advance. Also I'm glad to see someone else use abrasives to get rid of corrosion, it's always worked well for me. However I always get roasted from the conse repair community for suggesting it's use
I use a boot brush and an array of paint brushes. Horse hair is best. It actually picks up flux nicely with some IPA and can be washed and reused again and again. Plastic bristle brushes are no good, they just spread the gunk around. I use them for single use (like applying the rust remover gel in this particular video) and then toss them in the trash.
@@BorderlineOCD awesome thank you
Why shouldn't it still start and load up the game without a controller, like all other systems, that I know of do?
Not sure, odd design quirk.
One of my recent N64 repairs had the same ports buildup. I used Brasso and sandpaper to clean following up using IPA to get the gunk out. I should open it again to clean the cart port.
please wear a dust mask when working with fiber glass, silicosis is no joke
Never think to use a piece of sandpaper like that, sometimes I use a toothpick tip and cutted by half using brasso to cleaning controllers port, thanks for the information.
great, once something similar happened to me with my sega megadrive, I used wd-40 and a toothbrush
Wouldn't it make sense to wear a mask while doing this, as fibreglass is not so conducive to good health?
This was a pretty small project but definitely take any precautions that you feel are necessary if you are concerned about breathing any fiber dust.
The N64 was a trash console. A total downgrade from the greatness of the SNES.