I think I murdered my SNES. Please help my sanity.

Derp, I forgot to reply to this.

Ironically, my 4.5mm gamebit (I thought it was 4.2mm, but I'm seeing conflicting results, so if someone can clear that for me, please do) is a silver one, and my 3.8mm one is black, but my black is in much better condition. Granted, I've also have the 3.8mm one for a shorter period of time. I don't remember which I bought from where but they both claimed they were high quality, although I think the black one I have was meant to be especially high quality (and no, not the eBay type of "high quality" - this was an actual legitimate claim, at least as far as I could tell). Anyway, I forgot to order one and now I have no money. Yay me! Eh, my current one will be fine for now.

So before I test my SNES, I wanted to just ask one question that I believe I already asked and didn't get an answer to, but I believe it's important (that is, in case it matters): do I need to replace the fuse before the current will flow properly for me to test it properly? I assume not, but I was just concerned because of josiah's wording in his first reply. I don't want to test it and destroy it further because I did something wrong.

 

I'd probably wait until you have the fuse in place, obviously there will be no current past where the fuse is missing. You can test continuity of other components though, see if anything else is damaged, though I doubt it.

Fuse should be with you soon, it's been over a week since I mailed it.

 

200$ for a new SNES???? over there

 

Ah, right. Will do, then. Thanks again.

NZ$200. So that's about US$175 at the moment, I think. And that's second-hand. Sometimes you can get them cheaper, but people on Trade Me (kind of a local eBay thing) are real douchebags. They overprice everything. Can't even get a Master System for under NZ$30, usually, and even then, it'll usually have no cords and be a model 2. Everyone suddenly thinks their Mega Drives (again, model 2 - it's very, very rare to see model 1 Mega Drives and Master Systems over here, for some reason) and Nintendo 64s are suddenly worth ~NZ$100. They're insane.

EDIT (March 3rd): The fuse from Mechagouki arrived. It works like a charm. Now my SNES is working again. I'm over the moon. Not literally, though, because I'm not qualified for that.

Anyway, here's the problem I have now: games seem to be locked at 50Hz but the console appears to run region-free. Holding the reset button won't change the LED colour (and whilst holding the reset button, there's a quite loud buzz/hum coming through the TV - is this normal for a switchless mod? I don't remember ever hearing it before), and the colour seems to be solid red... butt could be orange. I'm not exactly sure. I'm going to assume it's red, though, since it looks more red than orange to me. My colour perception of red is a little weak, hence making it look slightly more orange to me than it should, so it's more likely red, in that case. Plus, I'm using a 220Ω resistor for red and a 100Ω resistor for green, so theoretically, the orange should be a lot more obvious.

I'm going to take some photos and post them, but everything looks fine to me. The only thing that is really suspect is the solder joint to CLK, which is connected (I think) but kinda shite. I need a better soldering iron (preferably with a chisel tip) before I can get in there and get it perfect, but it'll probably be a few months before I have the money to get one, unfortunately. Bonus is that the SNES actually works, though.

EDIT 2: Here's a photo album (click to enlarge the images - they're about double the size that they initially look). Sorry I couldn't get any better photos. These were the best I managed to take. My camera doesn't like close-up shots (it's capable of focusing them and even has a macro mode, but it's auto-focus sucks ass). http://imgur.com/a/oePHd
And yes, one of the hairs on my head decided to jump off and photobomb. I didn't realise until I had the photos on my computer.

 

Bumping because I updated before I week was up and so no one saw it (or maybe they did). Quick summary: replacement fuse fixed my SNES but the switchless mod isn't working properly. See photos for my wiring here: http://imgur.com/a/oePHd

 

Can you make sure the solder spots aren't interconnected or connected with points next to it on the board? You seem to use a lot of solder (not that I dont).

 

You mean check for bridges? Already done that and couldn't see anything, at least nothing obvious.

I know it looks like there's a lot of solder on some of those joints but I assure you that that's primarily because of the close-up nature of the photos. One or two are a bit too big but cover the surface of the solder pads (such as CIC pin 1 solder pad). This has seriously got to me some of my best soldering work ever. It's far from perfect, but apart from the CLK wire, I'm pretty happy with it.

I'm hoping that, given the specific symptoms, someone will know exactly what the problem is so I know where to look instead of guessing.

 

Bumping because I still need help. Red light only, stuck in region-free but can't tell if it's 50Hz or 60Hz. I believe it's 50Hz, but I could be wrong. Yoshi's Island (PAL) runs fine, so it probably is.

 

A good way to tell if it's in 50Hz mode is to pop in a PAL copy of Super Mario World. If it has borders and runs slower, it's in 50Hz mode. If not, then it's in 60Hz mode. Also, if your TV has it, hit the info button on the remote. It should display the resolution and the refresh rate.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of Super Mario World. The PAL version in particular seems to be rather expensive, at least over here. Super Mario World 2, however, doesn't run in 60Hz (the PAL version, that is), from what I can tell, since it's a picky SuperFX game. I could be wrong, though. I was having trouble telling if games were running with borders or not, since I can't switch between them, but they definitely had less borders than, say, Sonic on my Mega Drive running at 60Hz.

That all being said, I'm pretty sure all the games were running at the same speed that they were before I modified my SNES (I had previously lifted just the one CIC leg so that I could play imported games, but they'd still be at 50Hz, of course).

 

Bumping with update at the top of the thread. Mirrored it below for convenience. Thread said I had last posted 6 days ago about this time last night, but it still says it now. I figured I've waited long enough to bump, since it must be ready to tick over to 7 days any time now.

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I believe I have found the problem stopping my SuperCIC from working, however - PPU2's pin 30 was loose when I originally modified it. I opened my SNES up today and found that it has now snapped off. I was very careful, but had accidentally bent the leg out of place when originally trying to solder to it, and so bending it back loosened it.

There is a tiny bit of metal visible on the corner of the chip where the leg was. I'm assuming if I am careful, I could sand or cut back a tiny bit of the casing to give my self enough room to solder to. I'm unsure if this is wise nor how I should proceed.

Still, even when the leg was loose, it was still connected. I don't know for sure if this is the only problem I have or not. I can't see anything else that should be problematic, though.