Motherboard repair attempt - No video

[vickdu31]

2023 Update:

I managed to kill 2 motherboards:

1. 2020: Using zeldaxpro HDMI, some pins were moved while powered on so it smoked and burned something and video output did not work.

• 2023: While attempting PicoBoot, not sure what I did, but even after removing all wires and cleanup, the video does not work

They now are both in same condition: No video output and the disc drive wont spin.
I tried many combination and power boards and power brick, and I can confirm that the motherboard is the faulty piece.

I would like to attempt to fix them or find a way to bypass stuff that are damaged or replace some components to save them!

_____________________________________
Hi!

So yesterday I was having fun at my friends place and I accidentally kick the gamecube and it moved 2cm and my crappy zeldaxpro HDMI adapter (v1) slightly move and then nothing...
Got a little burnt smell and then no more video output, GC still turns on but no video output at all.

I have seen few cases where this happened with early HDMI converters but is there today a fix for this?

For now I will just swap motherboard with another broken gamecube (dvd drive broken) so it should work but ultimately I would like to have them all working.

[Papy.G]

At last, that wasn't a drunk girl, this time!

That's not as nobody warned that such bad thing can happen…

I'm not aware of the possible pin to be shorted when this happens, but if you fried the GPUs output, it may not be repaired, if you fried the Video DAC, maybe you can have it replaced, by another one, by a Wii one (to get component output), or just use the GC with a Digital AV device (external or internally fixed).

You have to cross-try to know what is fried and what is not.
Do you get Video:
Via the analog AV on the cube?
Via the Digital AV on this cube (With another digital device)?
On the Zeldaxpro HDMI with another cube? (Beware that no pins are kept bent in the connector before plugging it somewhere else)

Isn't there a way to adapt a carby DAV connector on those HDMI adapters? If not, their best use would be to be soldered sraight to Dol-101 GCs.

[vickdu31]

Salut!
Thanks for the reply,

Via the analog AV on the cube? - NADA
Via the Digital AV on this cube (With another digital device)? - I ordered this, so it will take some time before it arrives, it should be better one than zeldaxpro (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000283 ... 4c4dAcExBk)
On the Zeldaxpro HDMI with another cube? (Beware that no pins are kept bent in the connector before plugging it somewhere else) : I am a bit afraid to try that but I will try it today. It may also be that the zeldaxpro is also fried? All pins looks ok inside but I kind of hate that thing now....

By carby DAV do you mean their HDMI adapter? I cannot find other products, they had component cable but it seems discontinued.

I will maybe just buy a new motherboard and just throw that one if I don't get any output at all.


Btw I have other question/issues, can I add them here or make a new thread?
I will write it here for now and we can move later.

_________________________________________________

DVD mainboard swap:

I received 1 broken gamecube that has missing optical block but it still had the board of dvd player then I have my very old gamecube where I fucked the board trying to install Xenogc a while ago.
I tried to swap the new board into my old drive but the discs doesnt spin at all (optical bloc is fine). I had to de-solder and re-solder the red and brown cables on the board.

I noticed in website like IfixIt for replacing the lens only they say that do not remove the white "nappe" (I forgot the name in English) or these red and brown cable that are soldered.
Is it so that the optical block is kind of tied to the board of dvd drive so you cannot swap them? Or did i just mess up my swap..

[Papy.G]

Those on Alix are not the best quality, but safe enough and the cheapest for sure!

Trying the zeldaxpro may not be worth frying another cube, it's up to you to decide.

Carby also sells their high quality Digital Av connector, it may be a nice upgrade to your HDMI adapter, if ever possible.

Don't throw your MB, you may need some components later, does it still ouput analog sound?

Optical block swap is very tricky as you may not be able to fine tune its position to what has been done at the factory with the original part, it's been discussed quite a bit.


PS: I am du 31 too, you can publish your localisation in your profile.

[vickdu31]

I will try audio output later today!

I think you mean potentiometer adjustment for the block swap? I think that not a proble, I can start high value and then reduce but now the disc doesnt spin at all

[Papy.G]

No, the mechanical positionning of the block has to be done very precisely. I thought the beam was servo-centered with the raw signal as a refernce to target the peak value, but it seems it is not the case in the GC.

The spin motor doesn't start before the beam has detected a disc, so if the Laser is not OK, the motor might not spin at all.

[vickdu31]

I ordered a japanese motherboard on ebay for 20USD so I will have no use of that broken motherboard. I will try to test analog when I have opportunity.
If someone is interested in that motherboard for parts PM me!

[vickdu31]

Allright! I am back with some news.

I received the Jap motherboard and when i swap it! No video output (digital).
Then i decide to check if jap motherboard have issues so I swap with another PAL board, same thing!

Now the only part that remain in the case was the power supply board (under the motherboard). So i decided to swap power board with my working PAL unit and now it works ! I then ordered a new power board from Ebay jap (7$).

Regarding the dvd drive swap (dvd board swap to another disc block) it actually works ! The main issue i had was actually the small PCB that tell the gamecube if the tray is closed or not (with two plastic thing you need to hold when you try out if the game run when console is open) those plastic pins are broken. I will open a new thread to attempt to repair these.

I will soon try out the original motherboard to see if it still works using another power board. If that works it means zeldaxpro doesnt actually break motherboard, only power board.

[vickdu31]

So I am back again... I received the power board but did not have time to install it..

Magically when I tested it with the old power board to make sure its broken, it started displaying video again (from HDMI external mod).
So I am very confused now.. The zeldaxpro made the big shock noise, smell like burn, no video on GC for a really long time and after 2 month in storage it starts working again...

[emu_kidid]

Sounds like it was something in the zeldaxpro that burnt up and not in the GameCube itself. As for it working again, sometimes there's components that have a non-instant recovery time (like a fuse, but not quite), I've noticed it in some Nintendo 64 power bricks myself after having shorted something accidentally (not sure what the electrical terminology is for these).

[Papy.G]

Not sure about how it is called in english, but there are auto-recovering circuit breakers you can use instead of one-time-blowing fuses (in pcb component scale of course), but I didn't know they can be so long to recover. Sometimes thermistors are used as "fuses".

Good news, but what about the ZeldaxPro HDMI adapter? Is is fried?

[vickdu31]

Sorry for the late reply

I actually still have this motherboard and now I killed another one apparently.
Somehow the ZeldaXpro is still working but I never use it its too dangerous, now I have these 3D printed adapters from China.

While trying to install Picoboot on a working MB I managed to loose the video output, I then removed all wires and cleanup and still no video (I can only test digital out).
I did check if it was a bad power board or power adapter but the issue is with the motherboard.

So I now have 2 motherboard who looks ok, I clean them up quite well and I cannot see any obvious issues but there is no video output and the disc drive does not spin when pressing the latch.

Any idea how to pinpoint the issue? Some specific capacitor to test? Other option is to again buy another motherboard but I wish I could repair these two.

[emu_kidid]

since you were messing around near the MX chip to install picoboot, my guess would be that you've bridged a pin there or on the SP1 connector, triple check everything for shorts between pins.

Lately I've found that the digital port can be prone to dust binding onto it if it's never been used, especially with systems I've bought from Japan, they're notorious with dirty ports to the point where even the controller ports don't work without a deep clean.