Nintendo games and consoles repair

[bowser]

Now that some of the older Nintendo consoles are past their teens and are in their 20's and 30's, some of them may start having issues. Not reading games, randomly restarting, etc. This does not mean your console is getting ready for the grave! These old consoles are built like tanks and do not give in so easily. With the right tools and materials and a little bit of TLC, you can bring them back to life and almost as good as new.

 

I have repaired quite a few of my consoles. I don't trust any electronics shops to repair these because most of them have no clue what they are doing. They may tear a ribbon cable during disassembly or tug forcefully at the electronics without removing all the screws. Worst of all they forget to put back some screws during reassembly and also don't properly make sure the components are seated perfectly before closing it up. This puts pressure on the parts when closing the shell and causes gaps/bulges on the console body.

 

Before starting a repair on Nintendo (and some Sega) consoles, you will need 2 special screwdrivers: the Triwing and Gamebit screwdrivers. These are needed for the specially shaped screws that Nintendo loves to use to keep out the average Joe from repairing their console. The following 2 images of the screws are from Google because I couldn't take clear pics with my camera:

 

Triwing:

 

Gamebit:

 

 

NES Repair: When I got my NES recently, it was very dusty and I had to reinsert the cartridge many times and wiggle it before it would finally read the game. Fed up of spending more time to make the game work than on actually playing the game, I decided to open it up and see what was wrong. It was very dusty inside and there were even spiderwebs and dead spiders on the board . I stripped down the console completely and separated all the electronics from the plastic parts. I wiped down the board with IPA (isopropyl alcohol) and dumped all the plastic pieces into a bucket of hot soapy water. I also cleaned all the pins on the cartridge connector slot with IPA. Once everything was nice and dry I reassembled the console and the game started working on the first try every time! Thanks to the wash the console also looked like new without a single speck of dust anywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

Nintendo 64 Repair: After some time my Nintendo 64 started acting up. It kept randomly resetting in the middle of a game and slowly started getting worse. It got to a point where the console would reset every few seconds making games unplayable. So it got the same treatment as the NES, complete disassembly and a nice bath for the plastic parts.

 

 

Testing the console to make sure it was working before closing it back up.

 

 

 

 

GameCube repair: Gaining confidence in my abilities, I moved on to the GameCube. There was nothing wrong with it, but the fan was very dirty so I decided to clean it up also from the inside out.

 

 

 

 

 

Gold Nintendo 64 repair: The gold Nintendo 64 I got was also very dirty, especially the controllers. I had to completely disassemble it in order to properly scrub the plastic shell with soap water.

 

 

 

 

 

Game Boy cartridges repair: A lot of my Game Boy cartridges were not working at all. After opening them, I found that the pins were dirty and starting to get corroded. I cleaned them with IPA and electrical contact cleaner and they started working again.

 

Before cleaning:

 

After cleaning:

 

 

 

 

Game Boy Micro repair: One of the buttons on the console was not responsive. It had to be pressed very hard in order for it to work. This console requires extremely delicate handling because the parts are so fragile. One wrong move and it will end up beyond repair. I had to disassemble it completely in order to get to the buttons. Cleaning the buttons was a 1 min job and once it was reassembled all the buttons worked like new again.

 

 

 

 

 

Game Boy Light repair: This rare console belongs to a gentleman in Bangalore. He sent it to me in order to repair the buttons which were almost dead. I had never seen a Game Boy Light before and was rather proud that he entrusted this rare console to me. After cleaning the buttons the console was back in top shape and working perfectly. The owner said he was about to trash it and was glad that he found someone to repair it  

 

 

 

 

Moral of the story: Think twice before trashing your old consoles! Send me a PM or post on this thread and I will be more than happy to help you out  

[quixote_1989]