I began installing the NESRGB on my AV Famicom today, and ended up being not happy with the desoldering job I did with my solder sucker. I soldered in the 40-pin socket and put back the original PPU, but I'm only getting a solid blue screen with it now. I know I've got broken traces, and I believe I've patched all the bad ones. Checked everything for continuity on the PPU and adjacent traces with a multimeter. Voltage check on the PPU shows pins are active. Unfortunately, I can't find any pinout online that shows where the PPU pins should connect to, so I had to trace everything back on my own. What does a blue screen mean? I'm afraid my console is trash.
I already have an update after a day of nothing. Game carts seem to boot to a blue screen but the Famicom Disk System actually loads the title screen (with vertical lines in the title). However, the disk system will not start reading a disk when it's inserted. Older games with no special chips seem to try to start as well (as opposed to just the blue screen), but just show garbled junk so far.
Pictures of the garbled junk can be useful in recognizing a possible pattern which could give a hint as to the reason it's not working properly. I doubt the console is trash unless you really heated up the PPU or CPU chips, or severely damaged one of their legs. It might not look pretty, but it should be repairable. I would imagine your problem is probably just a bad connection somewhere in there. I know it's silly but are your sure your cartridges are clean and that the connector is good? If this isn't a system you used a lot before modding it, maybe the connector wasn't in great shape. First thing you might want to do is try cleaning or getting a very clean cartridge to try. Those lines you saw with the FDS suggest a connection problem. Pictures of the exact screen would also help.
Here is what the screen looks like. This is the only thing I've found that plays: [GALLERY=media, 1861]Nes_corrupted_gfx by Neo-Alec posted Dec 19, 2016 at 11:08 AM[/GALLERY] I put in a known good PPU and I got the same result, except now when a game isn't working I get a gray screen instead of blue. I finished the NESRGB mod and I am getting RGB out, and the same Famicom Disk title still plays (can hear audio). However, now the graphics are completely garbled for both composite and RGB: [GALLERY=media, 1862]Nes_garbled_gfx by Neo-Alec posted Dec 19, 2016 at 11:16 AM[/GALLERY]
Did you attempt cleaning the cartridges? I was able to carefully open my FDS RAM Adapter and clean the cartridge contacts when I got mine and had issues where sometimes it would work and other times it wouldn't. After cleaning it worked a lot better. The garbage screen could still be due to some connection issue. Atleast you know via sound that the program is running. A simple thing to test would just be to take a cartridge and insert and remove it 20 times or so and then see if it works. It might help get a better connection. I'm not saying that there isn't a possible bad solder joint or something somewhere but cleaning should definitely be done as these things are all very old and almost always in well used condition and likely never been cleaned.
The system was working before the mod. I cleaned the system and games with Deoxit. I ordered a new system. My wife desoldered the good PPU we have from an NES we are reviving with Blinking Light Win and she did it very cleanly now that we know what to look out for, so we have high hopes for finishing this mod with the new Famicom we ordered. I still think we can revive this Famicom with some patience. We just need to recheck all the traces that run between the PPU pins on the solder side of the board. Hopefully I won't need to sell it as broken.
Yes, my wife solders for me sometimes because she is neater than me. I'm very lucky to have someone who doesn't care about games but supports my projects.
