Nintendo 64 - No Power - Can I Repair it?
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- čas přidán 20. 03. 2023
- In this video I attempt to repair a N64 Games Console with no power. It was sent in to me by a friend (Rob) of a friend (John) and has had no prior repair attempt on it....Yippee
If you would like to support these videos, please click here / mymatevince
Remember that this is just for entertainment and I am not an expert in these repairs. The processes in the video may not be the best way, the correct way or the safest way to fix these things. I do love fault finding and trying to fix broken things, so I hope that comes across in this 'Trying to FIX' series. Many thanks, Vince. - Jak na to + styl
"Local man spends $200 on working N64 power supplies to attempt to fix one broken one". Great video Vince!
😂
And blows one up in the process anyway.
😂
What a marathon
These videos are the proof that I love what Vince does not because the result is always success, but because I just enjoy so much the process he follows and how hard he tries to fix every single device that he works on ❤️
Vince, you are my Hero!
I have the exact same PSU revision with the same fault and spent DAYS without finding anything.
I can finally fix it! :)
Amazing mate! You just saved another Nintendo 64 here at my place. I went straight for the resistor and replaced it (without even removing the Isocoupler board from the main board) WOW that is the smallest thing I have ever repaired and I wasn't using great gear like yours, my eyes hurt! Well done Thanks.
They look so big on the screen, but in reality they're tiny. You did well to fix it without any magnification 👍👍👍
Nice repair, I was screaming no "Don't plug it in " The reason it went bang is without the control board the power transistor or mosfet base or gate is floating, causing the full voltage to go thought the transformer,. You were very lucky you could have killed the power transistor or mosfet plus the transformer. The 3 variable pots on the main board are for adjusting the output voltage.👍👍👍👍👍👍
I was very lucky AR. I was expecting numerous blown components after seeing all that smoke!!!! I knew you would have the answers!!! Cheers for commenting. Are you still repairing stuff for a living AR?
@@Mymatevince I am, but I am so busy that I don't get time anymore, Thinking about getting a setup at work so I maybe just do a voice over of an repair, I am getting in 25 repair a day and is far behind
@@AnonymousRepair I fully understand. Good news that you have plenty of work to keep you out of trouble. If you do return I along with others will be glad to see you back 👍👍👍
What a fantastic video. Is exactly what I’ve been working on and mine had the exact same problem, now mine is also fixed. No aftermarket rubbish for me!
Any chance your power supply was also using a higher amp fuse instead of the proper one? My theory, in another comment was this: Complete guess, but maybe too much voltage/current went through the power supply because it had a higher rated fuse and caused those 2 resistors to burn out (basically the resistors became a fuse; after all, a fuse is just a calibrated resistor designed to go "pop" above a certain current).
Nice find Vince.
Fuse in power cord is irrelevant.
I am not aware of any other country putting fuses in the power plug. Board had a 2A fuse and it wasn't blown. Broken resistor was on the low voltage side.
@@jonathansharret4900 i'm in australia, our power cables dont have fuses in them. i think Vince's comment was correct, the resistor couldn't dissipate the heat. mine was also covered with the grey goop that was supposed to hold the pcb to the heat sink
@@mattski6969 Same here, fixed it. Had the exact same setup but mine was the other resistor. It was a 1.50k valued one
Nice fix, it goes to show how patient you are whilst trying to track down a fault.
Thanks Scott👍👍
N64 Power Supply addiction, now that is a new gambling habit on me. You never fail to amuse, entertain and inform Vince. Keep up the great work.
25:44 Jeez, Vince..... be careful brother, that looked so dangerous. I almost felt that. WOW!!
In my experience, resistors very rarely go. That was a great fix! Glad you didn't permanently damage the board from that explosion!
The bang and smoke was soo satisfying but the fix and the excitement at the end was great also nice fix vince!
Glad you have friends in the great city of Bristol, we are a friendly city.
Great video, as usual
The amount of dedication this guy has in fault finding is amazing! Thoroughly enjoying these videos
Looks like the gamble payed off. Thanks for not giving up on this. It was a pleasure to watch.
your are amazing vince . so much love you put in your work. I'm studying eletronics at 41 . you are inspiring. keep the good work
Awesome job Vince. Real sense of accomplishment getting this fixed.
"ooo a new my mate Vince video! Ooo hell yeah an N64 video.. Oh HELL YEAH it's 47 minutes!!" 😁
I love when My Mate Vice doesn't give up or curiosity gets to him.
Great work on figuring this out. Fantastic debugging skills too. Sorry it took so many purchases. That's a hard one. Something that I've seen other console repair channels do is for any faulty board, start by giving it an IPA clean. Doing so forces you to look for dirty spots and finding dirty spots. Best case scenario, the board was just so dirty that it wasn't working. Worst case scenario, you've now identified areas of potential corrosion when you did the cleaning. Any time I see grunge like that on a board, my first instinct is to clean that area up and then test it out. Impressed that you were able to diagnose the whole issue tho. When I run out of the obvious stuff, I'm like welp, I've done all i can do.
What a legend! Thanks for not giving up Vince!!!
Fantastic. I have two N64, both with this power supply. I had one go dead, and switched to the other one, also dead. I gave up when I narrowed it down to the feedback circuit, so I am glad that you pushed on. I will give repairs another go now! Thank you!
Did you fix them?
@@mch2007uk I fixed one of them. Turned out in my case it was the resistor next to the one in the video. Man soldering those smd resistors requires a steady hand and some heavy duty magnification glass😄! I will give the other one a go also but it is currently not very high on my "to-do" list. So many projects and so few days in a year😁
I'm learning so much while enjoying these videos. Great work!
44:30 - this is the part of repair most people forget - whilst you may be able to repair something for pennies, there are the hidden costs of time (in tracing the fault), knowledge (which also takes time!) and having access to spares or working units!
Yeah, I was working on this over 3 days!!!! Not full time but many hours was sunk into it 👍👍
Quality work!! Love how devoted you are to figuring out the problem. Love your videos. Been watching for awhile. Keep up the great work. 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
Great job, Vince ! Always enjoy watching
Always look forward to your videos! When your opening music starts it puts me in a good mood! Thanks for all you do!
Excellent, thank you Michael 👍
This is a more of a general tip about a smps that has 330v dc on the filtercap but doesn’t do anything: 9 times out of 10 they use a high value resistor (220k and higher) to supply the gate driver ic of the switching mosfet , just follow the ‘plus 330v rail’ to this high value resistor, they do fail alot because there is ~300v dc across it, very common resistor to go open circuit.
They don’t burn up because there’s hardly any current flow through them, but high voltage across them makes them go open circuit.(optically the always look fine, so you have to measure them)
Also glue and all other kind of crap can become corrosive and/or conductive and can ‘open circuit’ a resistor.
Always puts me on edge and gets the adrenaline going when you plug in a power supply. The capacitor popping was a good one! Great video as always Vince 👌🏼
The amount of time it takes for a cap to blow is measured in "ohnoseconds" it's a different scale than nanoseconds, and varies depending on how much caffeine you've had - the cap waits until precisely 2ns per mg of caffeine you've had that day, so you realize exactly what you did wrong between the OHno and BANG!!!
Finally got a chance to view this one and wow Vince, perseverance paid off! Good job!
Nice one Garth, thank you 👍
Absolutely amazing fault finding there Vince honestly you are a true pro love it when such a small component stops something working
Thanks RM, my favourite fixes are when tiny components like these fail and cause the whole think not to work 👍👍
Amazing video as always. Vince you never cease to amaze. Best wishes from the USA
A great archive of a potential repair for this component!
Cap going up like that would be a/c across it. We used to play those pranks in the lab at Woolwich college when I was an apprentice in the early 70’s. These vids are so good Vince!.
So cool that you stuck with it. Like others have said, most would have gotten a new power supply and threw the old one out. Thanks!
Love that you caught the magic smoke on camera. Nicely done!
I've been looking at different listings for the N64 this past week as I've been thinking about getting one again, and now a video from Vince about one. What timing
Love the fact you just don't give up no matter what lol
Cheers Phil, like yourself, you take customers repairs far further than most people, hand reballing chips etc. 👍👍👍
@@Mymatevince indeed mate. Has to be done if you want to gain an advantage these days
@@TheCod3r 👍👍
Most people would've given up way before you did, I know it cost you £100 but you've just saved a lot of people a lot of money by sticking with it, love all your videos, your my go to for most stuff👍 I'm a white goods engineer so if you ever need advice on appliance repairs I will endeavour to help you, keep up the great work.
Thanks Stu 👍👍👍👍👍
@@Mymatevince Hmm, maybe you can at some sparetime take a look on those not working and get life in them as well to get back your money on selling them! Cuz you won´t have any use of all these power supplys for a N64!
/L
@@lifooz2955 hmm, maybe Vince will find a few broken N64s on eBay missing their PSUs!
Well done Vince. Credit to your perseverance and not giving in.
I wasn't going to watch this video,but i didn't have the capacity to resist it .
😂
Great fix and fault find! Your videos helped inspire me to follow a career in electronic engineering ✌️ Keep up the awesome work!
Wow great job. Hard work paid off in the end.
I love how that Board was screetching for help before that cap blew
Totally worth it Vince. Im always so lost on power supplys. Im glad you found the fault
Thank you so much, I was very lucky on this one with the end fault considering my capacitor mishap 👍👍👍
Nice, just when I hoped for, Vince uploaded
it made me laugh out loud when you kept showing more and more power supplies, amazing! l just fixed my psu, based on your findings. l had given up after recapping and even changing out the ceramic caps. thank you for your dedication and service!!!
The buying addiction paid off 😂 Excellent news that it fixed your one as well. Looking at the other comments as well s yours looks like it is a common failure point 👍
Hallo Vince, vielen Dank für das tolle Video! Bei meinem Board war der untere Widerstand durchgebrannt (1,5 kOhm), ich habe ihn auch ersetzt und jetzt funktioniert das Netzteil wieder! Noch einmal vielen Danke!!! Mein Arbeitskollege wird sich freuen.
N64, suspense, explosions and finally an unexpected ending!
Better than many movies imo
😂👍👍👍👍
Thanks, mate! That was exactly the problem with a power supply I have. Same resistor too. Now it’s working again. On a working power supply, the gunk was below the resistors. On the failing one, it was on the resistors.
Big thanks Vince. I've been a viewer for a while but came across this video after googling common issues with N64 PSUs - of course I should have just gone straight to you!
I bought a faulty PSU ages ago to cannibalise for a USB power mod but never got around to it, and after recently coming across a second faulty PSU I thought I should at least open them up to have a look before I started ripping the first one apart. Fortunately for me my two Australian PSUs had identical boards (I also noticed that the cables are removable which would no doubt help with manufacturing - just make 110V and 240V boards and plug in the appropriate cable for each market).
However, my boards had different faults to each other. One PSU had an issue with the same resistor as you replaced, but bizarrely mine was reading 6M ohms. The other PSU had that resistor reading 220, but the resistor below it was giving me an odd reading (it's labelled 152 which I believe means it should be 1.5k ohms). Anyway, I swapped the top resistor between boards and I have 1 functioning PSU.
Now to go look at my parts boards to find some suitable replacements for number 2 and fingers crossed I will have two working PSUs. Thanks again!
This had everything I love about repair videos!
"I am in deep, like a gambler". That made me laugh thanks Vince. 🤣😂
I remember getting my N64 so well, I had been asking for one for ages when I was 9. My parents had told me santa might bring me one if I was good. I was so excited for many months looking forward for xmas. I couldn't sleep on xmas eve night and was still awake when Santa arrived. I was pretending to be asleep. I was facing away from my bedroom door and had a small CRT tv next to my bed. I opened my eyes and saw Santa walk into my room in the reflection of the CRT holding a N64 sized present. Weirdly Santa was wearing my dads blue jumper. I closed my eyes again and didn't look again until all the noise had stopped and it was safe. I jumped out of bed, got my torch and started unwrapping the box and it was an N64. Just then I heard my dad coming in so I jumped back into bed and pretended I was asleep. Although he could see the half unwrapped N64 on my floor. I was adamant I was asleep and knew nothing of who unwrapped it. Really I had planned it all along to unwrap it in the middle of the night, set it up and be playing it when my parents woke up and would surprise them with it but I got caught! I always remember that morning saying to my mum that Santa has the same blue jumper as dad has. I didn't click on that it was my dad who had put it in my room.
I just love you Vince, I am in two minds when that power supply blew up, 1. It's very very sad for you buying so many of these power supplies and finding they're all different and then the one that's the same went kaput.
2. Its good to see you don't disguise any of your video's and you show us the good and the bad.
But in reality doing the same thing on several occasions I feel so very badly for you and I definitely know how you feel. But what I love about you Vince is you never give up and you don't let these problems get you down for long, you seem to recover very quickly, and that is another good thing about you. An excellent video Vince, I have to say I didn't expect that power supply to go bang like it did, I actually thought it would just not do anything, but if it had been me I would have jumped 10 feet into the air when it happened, you remained remarkedly composed but boy did it blow up my goodness I have never seen anything quite so loud and produce so much smoke just because the high voltage wasn't connected to the low voltage, I really can't see why it would have been so dramatic, but then I'm no qualified electrical repair guy. One thing it's shown us by your endeavours is not to remove the coupler board in a Nintendo 64 power supply. It's a lesson none of us will forget and thanks to you we now know what not to do by showing us what will happen you have helped many people not to make the same mistake, thank you for an excellent video Vince, again sorry about your power supply.
I hope you get to a million subs man, great video👍
Fantastic video. I enjoy the repair as much as your elated-ness. 😁
Wow your persistence amazes me. The result though is an awesome video. LOVED IT!!
Thank you Brendan 👍👍👍
I repaired now a N64 psu, same issue. Thanks you man! great content as always
Hi Vince, many thanks! You pointed me in exactly the right area. My board had the lower resistor blown open (1.5k) replaced it and now it works! Again, thanks!
Excellent, looks like it is quite a common problem on these boards. Thanks for letting me know 👍
Hi, when you say lower do you mean the one directly under the one Vince replaced ? My seems to have done the same but there are no marking on the resistor for me to be able to figure out the resistance 🥺
@@Gazzerdaman Yes Exactly that one. I was looking at other Videos as well, and found one where the marking was there. it was missing on mine as well, but be assured with 1.5k it works absolutely perfectly.
@@eddy42109 thanks ! I got a replacement yesterday and managed to swap it over
A clear face shield wouldn't be a bad idea when working on high voltage components. That could have gone horribly wrong mate and we need you in one piece for good repair videos. So glad it was face down but still i recommend a full face shield
Isn't that just crazy. I guess it was bound to happen some day where it actually was just a tiny cheap resistor that needed replacing (and you didn't spend hours checking tons of them only to discover it's some 32 pin chip or something). Awesome video and amazing conclusion.
Excellent work! I needed to re-cap an N64 PSU a while ago and was surprised how little resources there online about the N64 PSU. I knew in US there were a variety of different PSU revisions but I thought in Europe there was just one. Those aftermarket PSUs are very shoddy and barely even clip into the N64, so repairing broken N64 PSUs is a worthy endeavour.
Nice fix Vince. persistence paid off a great video 👍👍👍👍
You are a legend! There is no information on the whole internet about this problem. THANK YOU
Thank you 👍👍👍
Probably the first one to discover this
What a video, great work, and so glad you persisted to find out what the issue was. Amazing!
Thank you 👍
Best. Video. Ever. Magic blue smoke released. And you are brave enough to show the world.
Thanks Margie 👍👍👍👍
Great find Vince.!!!!
I know that £100 is more than anyone would want to spend fixing an N64 PSU, but it's still less than a university course (at least here in the US). The knowledge gained will serve you (and us viewers) well in the future. Great work as usual!
truly truly awesome dedication at its finest. Well done..
one of the most amazing youtuber ever i have been watching you for years, i think my first video was the 360 controller on xbox one!, Great videos!
I've got a few of these with a couple not working. This video is very helpful.
Wow, that was an awesome video Vince! I think you've got to the bottom of the common issue with these N64 PSUs! I still have the regulation board somewhere here for that PSU I gutted. I will check that resistor!
I thought of your video when watching this one, I was thinking ' I wonder if he solves it??' I've spent too many hours messing around with these PSUs, but just like Vince I never thought to test all the resistors on the board as they generally don't go pop.
I still have a box of faulty PSUs, be interesting to see how many are due to this fault 🤔
Thank you Gadget 😎
RAW, I would love to know if any of them test open or in the megaohm range on the 220 Ohm resistor in the video or the 1500 Ohm resistor below it. It might be just pure coincidence that the one that went open was under the black sealant👍👍👍
great work vince. never give up!
Got one of these boxed in mint condition bought to play super mario 64 and goldeneye back in the day completed both games and packed it away, seeing super mario 64 on an episode of Bad Influence (that ITV games program) for the first time was one of them jaw dropping moments, looking forward to seeing how this repair goes 😊
You fixed it keep up the good work you put lots of effort in your vids
Just fixed my n64 with an identical problem. Both my resistors at top of that opto board were bad. Thank you.
Awesome video as usual!! Love it!! You chatted with me on The Cod3rs video the other night. I appreciate you!!
Thanks Shane, I really enjoyed taking time out on Phil's stream, it was good fun 👍👍
Welcome to the wild world of retro console hardware revisions.
Thank you for this video Vince.
Mine has exactly the same fault. That resistor. Much appreciated xxx
No way!!!! Excellent 🙏👍👍👍
Its been soo long since a my mate vince bang! :D
😂
So I bought another one and it was different, then I bought another one and it was different so I bought another one and it was different again... Loved the ups and downs and the small jump scare too! So glad your persistence paid off!
😂Cheers Treena!
Amazing fix, great video.
Love your stuff - Thanks Vince
Its amazing how much magic smoke the manufactures can fit in capacitors these days. good effort.😂 really enjoy you videos 👍
A true classic never go out of style
I agree
Brilliant Vince methodical diagnosis at its best 😊
Thanks Gary, I got lucky with this one after my little capacitor incident!!! All's well that ends well😎👍
@@Mymatevince lol I did chuckle a lot 🤭 but we’ve all been there Vince 😊
Great video Vince . Job well done🎉.
Oh nice repair video, helped me a lot to repair my old n64 console
loved this :) Nice work mate
good job man. way to persevere!
One of mine doesn’t work and is the exact same board, thanks for working this one out (and taking the hit), I’ll need to take another look at mine and see if it’s the same fault!
That was mental... I would never found that :) well done
You are totally right about the danger of caps, years ago I had a faulty modem so me being me I took it apart and noticed two caps had blown so I replaced them both with what I believed were like for like, turned it on and one exploded in my face, luckily it was not a large cap but still I felt the hot cap liquid burn my face and it almost went in my eyes, not wanting to risk further issues like that I got rid. Never knew what caused the issue in the first place.
Had to revisit this video I had the same problem last week. I think 30 years of gunk + heat is what does it (the resistor that failed on mine is the one next to the one in this video).
Cheers Vince!
Electroboom approves of this message, EXCEPT for the actual danger. Be careful Vince. Control circuitry is there for a reason.
Thanks Wholly, hopefully I won't make that mistake again!!!!
*Has a chuckle at how many N64 PSUs you bought, trying not to think about the box of 9 I bought off Ebay that are gathering dust*
I'm sure this video will be extremely helpful when I get around to those 😅 Thanks for persisting!
Good job and nice find! Agreed that it's usually caps that fail but finding that resistor was a good effort.!
Thanks Retro Krazy, I haven't checked on your channel in a while. I'm going to enjoy perusing it after I have gone through the rest of these comments 👍👍👍
Great fix hard to find something like this.
23:27 - that's not the Model number, it's actually the German postcode of the former Nintendo of Europe headquarters where these European power supplies must have come from.
As always great fault finding Vince! I'm so happy the N64 is working again, love that system :)
Back 40 years ago I was temping at an aviation parts supply store and we got a call from someone in the US demanding a replacement for Part No. T2E 4J5. That was the company's postal code.
I'm very skeptical about that. German Postal codes consist of a 5 figure number no letters. The Japanese power supplies were made in Deutschland?
Take a drink every time Vince says "unsolder" :-) the term is usually "desolder", just like caps discharge, rather uncharge.