D*mn this is the definition of bad luck! Yesterday I received my ED64 and this morning I soldered the CIC. All went fine, the N64 was working and I left some 10 games playing as demos while I was doing some other things... so 10mins ago I decided to play some games... I loaded DOOM64 and decided to reset the n64 to get back to the menu and load something else... From that point onwards the ED64 is dead. The red led comes up (on both console and ED64) and there is no menu or load activity. The TV just displays the "no signal" logo... I tried some other cart games that I own (like DK64 , Zelda MM etc) and all work fine. The ED64 decided to never work again while it was in the n64 and I reseted it... Is there anything to try at this point? ps. the ED64 pcb was inside a cartridge shell btw , from the beginning.... also tried another SD card and scandisk on the existing one, no errors found and the other sd did not help either
yes I am sure that I was just unlucky and either it is something I can fix or I just fell in the tiny percentage of hardware failure or something...
check yours cic chip. there's only two possible reasons with such symptoms: 1) problem with cic (bad soldering/unsoldered pins) 2) problem with cart bios (bad soldering/unsoldered pins)
Thanks for the info KRIKzz, I will look at it first thing in the morning. Before I do here are some pics from my cic solder job and the chips of the ED64 , maybe someone can spot an error , thanks in advance!!! (click to open full image)
I have put a semi-ridiculous amount of solder on the CIC and I have ensured there is no way that a pin has a cold joint or other problem... it works again now fine but I will be sure after some more testing
Please dont take this the wrong way, but using loads of solder does not equal a better joint :/ It also looks like you are trying to solder the chips pins from the top of the PCB near the chip? Its much easier to solder DIP chips from the underside of the PCB. Are you using lead free solder? If so that really wont help, since the old/original solder used on the CIC is likely a tin/lead mix, and it is not a good idea to mix different solder types as it prevents a good joint. A good solder joint using 60/40 (or 63/37 eutectic) tin/lead mix should be nice and shiny, and it will curve in slightly. In your pictures the joints look quite dull? (Although that could be because your using lead free solder) There are some helpful soldering tips here:- http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/solder.htm I hope you wont be offended by this post - I only wanted to give some advice in case the same problem reoccurs
no offense whatsoever taken, I did solder from the underside... from what I can gather my solder is a leaded one since it's more than 5-6 years old... and it is a fact that the solder that I used here does not "shine" at all... it's kinda greyish after it cools down. I only used maybe +10-15% more solder in each pin from my original photo. What I found later is that the SM64 shielding (case-donor cartridge) was actually bending the ED64!!! I have concluded that it was the original problem since even after the "re-soldering" I faced the same non-boot issue... after carefully examining the shell and fixing it the ED64 was and is rock-steady for 2 days now and heavy testing (power on/off and plugging in/out...) thanks for your time link83 , if you have anything more to add based on my new post please do as I am always looking to improve my skillz
Yeah I was also going to say that the joints look a little dry. It's working now anyway, so it does really not matter.
that jhgsduj is a spam bot, he just copied my original message... KRIKzz I have solved my problem, the culprit was the inside metal shield that had a small part that was bending the ED64 pcb... once I fixed it as well all is working just fine
