Technical and Repair Assistance

[ericj]

You'd be better off using a real Famicom. Clones typically don't work very well or steadily supply the necessary 5 volts to the ram adapter.

[amurphy245]

Alright guys what do you think of this motherboard? is it a knock off? because the ones ive seen dont look like this.

http://img132.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=dscf0800.jpg

The strange thing is it says konami with the old logo,as if they manufactured the board O_o the actual famicom itself is exactly the same as a normal one so if its a fake then its a dam good one.

Second i have a problem i need your help.its AV modded ( a long time ago by the look of it),i got audio but no video.

I couldnt see anything wrong with the board,but i ended up snapping a leg off a transistor that they soldered in,so i will have to replace the modded section anyway.

Gonna order some soldering stuff soon to repair it but i wanted your input on the board and the mod.

[NintendoKing]

Alright guys what do you think of this motherboard? is it a knock off? because the ones ive seen dont look like this.

It appears to be a clone and more then likely is. Many clones have standard AV already, and closely resemble real famicoms even the boards.

[amurphy245]

Well someone has clearly modified the existing board for AV outputs,and the konami symbol is confusing :/

[ericj]

I'm almost 100% sure it's a clone. Do you have any pics of the casing?

Edit: It could be a clone in an official casing, too.

[amurphy245]

Il take some tommorow,its yellowed but i have an authentic famicom to compare and i cant see any difference it looks real.

[RoZioN]

So,
I bought a broken unit, modded the I/O and replaced the belt. Now the drive takes my copied games but no Nintendo originals, I either get error 22 or the slightly more exotic error 21.

Has anyone experience this before? I would have though the nintendodisks to be easier to read...


Any help is greatly appreciated.

// Peter

[rogueofmv]

I replaced the belt on my FDS today. It came with a broken belt, but I didn't know that until I tried to play a game on it and heard the motor start whirring at full speed, with no result.

Now that I've replaced the belt, it won't power on! When I put a disk in, the light doesn't turn on or anything! What have I done?

[Marlon]

Are you sure you didn't break a wire or maybe it overheated.

[rogueofmv]

No wires were damaged at all... although I did accidentally hit that little switch in the back of the disk drive (to the left of the motor) and it went forward... is that bad?

EDIT: oh my god, I just realized what an idiot I am... I forgot to reattach that cable into the back of the disk drive.
*facepalm*

[RoZioN]

hehe, I did the same thing last night. Just didn't want to admit it ^__^



So, now I've cleaned the head and still no result. Games that are only on one side works fine but 2 side disks get error 22.

Pretty f'ing strange. The belt is kinda loose and not as snug as in the videos....

[b1aCkDeA7h]

So a friend of mine got an AV Famicom where the picture goes after about five minutes of play (graphics glitch up). AC Adapter is good and it's been run through a stepdown converter so that's not the issue.

Our next step is to get a multimeter and test all of the resistors and capacitors. By visual inspection, everything looks like it's in great shape and nothing smells funny when it's powered on.

We do suspect that the PPU may be going. Fortunately we do have an NES with a pretty much gone 72 pin connector that may serve as the donor.

Other than our next steps, any suggestions?

[ericj]

Try replacing the voltage regulator first. Since it takes awhile before it glitches, it's probably heat-related. It probably wouldn't hurt to re-flow the solder anywhere it looks suspect on the pcb. Maybe try another AC adapter just to rule it out for certain.

[b1aCkDeA7h]

Try replacing the voltage regulator first. Since it takes awhile before it glitches, it's probably heat-related. It probably wouldn't hurt to re-flow the solder anywhere it looks suspect on the pcb. Maybe try another AC adapter just to rule it out for certain.

We definitely tried another AC Adapter. We'll have a look at the voltage regulator when we check all the other capacitors and resistors with a multimeter. Solder points look good though.

Probably going to do the zapper mod while we're in there.

[133MHz]

You won't be able to tell if the caps are good with a multimeter alone. Just like ericj said before your problem is most likely temperature dependent,  you need a quick way to heat and freeze up electronic components while the console is operating in order to pinpoint the temp. flaky component. A small hair dryer and a can of compressed air works wonders for this, proceed by selectively and repeatedly heating and freezing every capacitor and chip on the board until you can reliably make the glitching appear and disappear. Small capacitors are the most likely culprits (they seem to like to fail in this fashion), but it could also be flaky Video RAM or PPU.