Is my GC motherboard dead?

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vazek
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Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by vazek » Thu Oct 26, 2017 11:56 am

Hi guys,

My gamecube was in a drawer for about 3 years, and when i pluged it to play last week i got "no signal" message on my tv, with the led light and fan working.
When i put a disc inside it doesn't spin. I tried with another cable and it was the same, my cable on a friend's gamecube worked too.

So i looked online, found this awesome forum and read about a possible fuse problem. Having no multimeter i decided to just buy another power board (i have a DOL 001)

I installed it this morning and it's the same :(

Is she dead? I could just buy another one but i have a QOOB Pro installed, and it was a pain for me to install it back then, and since now you can load swiss from it i would like to try all the possible way to resurect her.

Thank you very much in advance for any idea of solving this!
novenary
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Re: Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by novenary » Thu Oct 26, 2017 7:05 pm

If you have a friend who knows how to solder, you can ask them to do it for you. First things first though, look at the QOOB install itself, does it look like it's causing any shorts? What happens if the QOOB is unplugged from the wire harness?
vazek
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Re: Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by vazek » Thu Oct 26, 2017 7:18 pm

The QOOB install hasn't move, doesn't looks like it's making any short, the green light stays on when the cube is on, and if i disconnect it i still get "no signal" (no sound either)

The weird thing is my gamecube was stored unplugged and nothing happend, no power surge or anything. I inspected the main board for oxydation but it was clean too.

No idea what to do next, thank you for your help!
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boredomca
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Re: Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by boredomca » Fri Oct 27, 2017 11:58 pm

Is the battery corroded? It could of leaked and shorted a trace, very easy to over look.
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emu_kidid
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Re: Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by emu_kidid » Mon Oct 30, 2017 7:23 am

vazek wrote:Hi guys,

My gamecube was in a drawer for about 3 years, and when i pluged it to play last week i got "no signal" message on my tv, with the led light and fan working.
When i put a disc inside it doesn't spin. I tried with another cable and it was the same, my cable on a friend's gamecube worked too.

So i looked online, found this awesome forum and read about a possible fuse problem. Having no multimeter i decided to just buy another power board (i have a DOL 001)

I installed it this morning and it's the same :(

Is she dead? I could just buy another one but i have a QOOB Pro installed, and it was a pain for me to install it back then, and since now you can load swiss from it i would like to try all the possible way to resurect her.

Thank you very much in advance for any idea of solving this!
Get us some close up pictures of the motherboard, try to boot it without anything connected (no DVD drive, no controller board, no Qoob) and see how you go.
Image
novenary
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Re: Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by novenary » Mon Oct 30, 2017 9:57 am

Another thing, check whether the CPU and GPU are getting warm.
vazek
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Re: Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by vazek » Wed Nov 08, 2017 11:22 am

boredomca wrote:Is the battery corroded? It could of leaked and shorted a trace, very easy to over look.
I tried with my friend's DOL 101 working controller board, same.

I tried booting without anything connected, same. The heatsink stayed cool (kept the cube on for about 5min)

Pics :

Image

Image

Thanks!
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boredomca
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Re: Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by boredomca » Wed Nov 08, 2017 7:40 pm

In that picture it looks like the yellow wire and green wires are sorting on the pins next to them
novenary
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Re: Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by novenary » Wed Nov 08, 2017 10:05 pm

If those were shorted, it would prevent the GC from booting, but the chips should still get warm. Check your power connector with a multimeter, maybe something else is tripping the fuse. https://www.gc-forever.com/yagcd/chap2.html#sec2.4.1.6
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boredomca
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Re: Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by boredomca » Thu Nov 09, 2017 2:29 am

When the heatsink is attached I would bet atleast the yellow wire is grounding on it. Atleast test the contact points for the green wire and make sure there is not a short then put a tiny piece of pvc tape over all solder points then attach the heatsink and test the Cube. If that doesn't work I have plenty of spare power units
novenary
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Re: Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by novenary » Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:14 am

They're both data lines. Grounding them will result in the CPU and GPU turning on, but executing garbage. His heatsink is not getting warm, which means the problem is something else.
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boredomca
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Re: Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by boredomca » Thu Nov 09, 2017 5:25 pm

If we are entirely dismissing the chance of a short then wouldn't it be easier to unsolder the chip and reinstall it in a new system.
novenary
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Re: Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by novenary » Thu Nov 09, 2017 5:27 pm

I'm not entirely dismissing it but there's something else that's wrong here and that should be tried first.
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boredomca
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Re: Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by boredomca » Thu Nov 09, 2017 8:08 pm

My vote is if it's something else then buy a replacement Cube for $10 and switch the chip over. It's only five solder points and a lot less guessing
novenary
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Re: Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by novenary » Thu Nov 09, 2017 8:33 pm

That's what I would do as well but he doesn't have confidence in his soldering skills to move the chip over. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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boredomca
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Re: Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by boredomca » Thu Nov 09, 2017 10:26 pm

It's super simple if you know what flux is. Just try to solder, there is not a lot you can mess up
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boredomca
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Re: Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by boredomca » Tue Nov 14, 2017 1:03 am

This topic die? I'm curious to the fate of the cube.
vazek
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Re: Is my GC motherboard dead?

Post by vazek » Mon Feb 01, 2021 6:29 pm

I bought a new gc (not for 10$ unfortunately) and installed the qoob in this one, it worked!

A bit late but thank you guys for your help tho!
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