Repairing a NES-FRA

This will be a log for my latest console repair, a french NES that I've been given, I know nothing about it other that it apparently doesn't work, let's see if it's fixable

1. Long PH0 screwdriver
2. Soldering iron
3. De-soldering pump

Here is our NES, it was in a cardboard box with a bunch of stuff

1. 2 controllers
2. A power supply
3. A video cable
4. A spare ... 72 pin connector, basically the part that reads the game cartridge ... suspicious

The console is a NESE-001 (FRA), this is actually important because the french variation is different, the output is a rgb/audio, all in one

Which means I lied to you when I said it came with a video cable, it's actually both audio and video and outputs to a Scart (péritel for french people)

Wait a minute, I don't have a CRT for that SCART !

Well that's a common issue nowadays, there's a bunch of solution like modding your NES or owning an analogical to digital converter. In my case, I'm the proud owner of an OSSC ! This will solve the issue for now

Note: I do not recommend the OSSC for playing the NES (FRA), the result is not looking great, in my case, it's just a troubleshooting solution

Okay, what's actually wrong with it ?

Booting up !

Grey screen, squiggly lines, some buzz sound... hu...

After some googling it sounds like the 72pin connector is the usual culprit, the pins can get bent and fail to read games, and well one was given to me with the console so it must be that right ?

Let's take the NES apart, for that you'll need a long ph0 screwdriver, I insist on the "long" part, those holes are quite thin

Remove the metal shield, remove the drawer and here is our exposed 72 pin connector, you can simply remove it by pulling on it, note that it's quite hard to remove

Yo the console is actually booting up Megaman 2 !

Okay so it's a bit hard to see on the video but... no, the colors are all weird and the only sound is some weird buzzing, we're not done yet, there's something else...

Let's inspect the board, this is a NESE-001 (FRA) CPU 11, there's some tiny differences depending on the CPU revision, you can learn more on console mods wiki

Well I do not see anything wrong on the board itself, but there's one last thing we need to see, the NES is made of a few things

1. The big motherboard
2. 2 controller port circuits, plugged into the mobo
3. A circuit that hosts the buttons, plugged into the mobo
4. A "daughter" board, in a metal case, soldered to mobo

That last one is the only one we can't inspect, it's in a metal casing and we need to desolder it to look, well let's go

Let's take a look, we need to desolder the pins (in orange on the pic) and some pieces that hold the board together and are for some reason also soldered (in red on the pic), was that necessary to solder that much ?

Introducing, the cheapest Desolder pump ever, I got mine for 4€ on aliexpress really, what you gotta do is:

1. Charge the pump
2. liquefy the solder with your iron
3. Discharge the pump on it to suck as much as you can

This is lengthy, and quite hard if it's your first, be patient

Note that there's always some solder left, sometimes shaking the board a bit and wiggling it inside can help

Let's remove the metal shields and...

This looks different from everything I've seen on the internet... the NES (FRA) is different ! Which makes sense as it outputs differently compared to other consoles, we'll have to work with a reduced amount of information

Well well well, would you look at this, a capacitor that exploded on its friends, this is most likely the culprit, everything around it is quite disgusting. Let's replace it.

First of all we need to get a new capacitor, in my case I bought a complete kit as I first intended to recap everything before finding this dead cap

Replacing the capacitor was actually quite easy, the poles are correctly marked on both the cap and the board, just make sure your new cap got at least the same nF value, voltage can be higher as this is the maximum working V

Just desolder it with your trustworthy pump and solder the new one, don't forget to cut the excess pin

So at this point I really wanted to try it out and see if the console worked better, i plugged everything in without reassembling much and... it worked !

Image was looking normal, sound was normal, and suddenly... black screen, no red led, console won't turn on anymore... it died, in front of my very eyes

So of course I panicked hard realizing that by fixing this cap I messed up something else

This entire section is ... kinda useless, basically I was looking for what could have been wrong and didn't find it instantly, this tho could fix your issue,

Something on the console grabbed my attention, a piece of metal that was ... very very hot, turns out this is a voltage regulator, and while disassembling i removed a piece of metal that was making contact with it through thermal paste

Since I had a spare one in the kit I bought, I replaced it and repasted it, apparently that helped some faulty consoles but it made no difference for me

Remember when we desoldered the daughter board ? well turn out I completely obliterated the contacts on the main board, so the console wasn't receiving power at all on some pins (pic is of a good console because I forgot to take a picture)

Genuinely, this is my bad and I've messed up, time to make it right !

Remaking those contact was very precise and quite the challenge to be honest, but in the end I managed, the NES is now booting up, outputing correct colors and sound

The shell of the console was kinda yellow, but there's some easy stuff you can do at home to fix it

Note: Retrobrighting damages the plastic, yes it makes it look better but it will eventually turn yellow again, doing it is a matter of choice

So I decided to do a bit of it, not too much because I don't want to damage it too much, for that let's use some chemicals, here's all the name it goes by

1. Hydrogen peroxide
2. Oxygenated water
3. H2O2

I took some medical purpose H2O2, which is 3% concentration, very low for our usage, I've seen people use some 15% for very clean result

The best way is to bath the plastic in a box wrapped in tinfoil and put a UV light on top, if you do not own any of those tho, you can just put it outside, the sun is quite the source of UV after all

You won't get a before/after since I forgot to take a pic

I'd say it went quite well, this was my first time recaping something, also first time desoldering something that mattered, that was a cool experience

When I started the project I didn't know much and just tried stuff, if you got an old console that matters to you, try to fix it, you never know ^^