N64 cartridge dead for good?

So... I have a copy of Ocarina of Time (1.0 gold) and it means A LOT to me. It died on me about two years ago so I put it away and I'm just now getting around to it.

So basically, one night I was playing it and all was good! I saved and turned the game off, and when I came back the next morning it was completely dead. The game hadn't even been taken out of the system. When I try to play the cartridge, the screen starts out black and gradually gets brighter. It's the weirdest damn thing I've ever seen.

I've already tried cleaning it (with qtips and alcohol) and I'm confident the contacts are good enough to work, I have many many games that look much worse but work on the first try. So.. It's gotta be something internal. Maybe the capacitor went bad or something? I've already ordered a N64 security bit from Amazon, but I just wanted some thoughts because I have no clue about cartridge repair. Where should I start? Is there anything else I should try before taking it apart? Also, if it's something too complicated is there any repair services you would recommend?

I'd be so happy if I could get this thing working again, like I said, it means a lot to me and was a huge part of my childhood.

 

Edited, asked a stupid question, sorry.

 

When you say it "means alot to you" are you talking about the physical cartridge or the save game on said cartridge?

 

First of all I never had to repair a N64 game but I would start with testing the continuity between the mask rom and the cart pins. Test the capacitors.
If you are good with soldering iron and have a compatible donor cart (a crappy game with the same board type and sram) I would desolder the mask rom chip and pop it into the donor cart. If you get the same effect it will be safe to say that the mask rom has gone bad.
Good luck

 

The cart itself. I couldn't care less about the save games. I've erased everything on it and started over a million times.

 

Okay, thanks. I'm pretty terrible with a soldering iron but if it comes to that I know someone who is a wizard with that kinda stuff. When the bit gets here I'll test the stuff you said to.

 

If you're interested in swapping the ROM chip out, WcW/Nwo Revenge is a compatible donor cart that's cheap.
I recently had to do this recently, and found this an easy to find and cheap cart for it.

I would wager it's a problem with the ROM chip though, unless it's your cartridge contacts.

 

I vaguely remember selling you that. Glad to hear that the repair worked out. It's awesome to see people that dedicated to repair ('cause let's face it...it's a cartridge, most would chuck it out).

And as such, I'd say miloxydia's advice is good. If you suspect anything bad with the board itself, the most surefire way to check the maskrom is to pull it off with hot air and solder it on a known good donor board.

 

I had a bunch of N64 carts refused to work on my RGB N64.
I opened them up and clean the contact using the nail polishing stick from missus cosmetic bag.
All four of them fired up at the first try

 

Well, the way I see it if it's worth more than a bad donor cart game it's always worth repairing something. Funnily enough, I was also repairing a 1.0 OOT cart.


You won't really even need a hot air station for it 2Buck, just a good hand with solder wick will take care of it. Just remove all the solder on the back-side of the chip and the ROM will literally just come right off. I'm assuming you have little to no solder experience here, but it's really an easy job for someone without experience as long as you're careful and remove all the solder.

 

Why not buy a cheap working copy of the game and swap boards? No soldering necessary.

I recently found a Majora's Mask with a cracked PCB and did a ROM chip swap. Not difficult at all. I pulled the FlashRAM too but since it wasn't my original cart, I didn't swap that chip.

 

Got a couple of those laying around. Not sure why I'm not into wrestling titles.

I did a ROM swap once to get Top Gear Overdrive onto what I thought was a bad PD cart and PD onto what I thought was a good TGO cart. ABout 10 years later the other night I popped in Perfect Dark to dump the save and found it recognized as TGO, though it won't boot probably because of a CIC issue. Not that I really care at this point as I have both games as working carts and neither is particularly valuable. The maskrom swap must've worked or else I wouldn't have been able to dump the ROM and run it in PJ64.

 

edit: messed this post up, not used to these forums yet, sorry.

 

Thanks for all the helpful information guys. It really does mean a lot.

Once I can get the cart apart I'm gonna try to work on the contacts a little more (can't get to or see them as well as it stands). If that last effort doesn't work I'll start testing other things. If none of that adds up I'll try a ROM swap like you guys said.

Again, thanks! I'm glad I'm not the only one in the world who can't bring themselfves to give up on a piece of history.

 

Okay guys, the bit I needed came today and I went ahead and took the cart apart to inspect it. As you can see from the pictures, I was completely wrong about all of this. The board looks pretty much new while the contacts look very bad. I guess I just couldn't see them in good enough detail with the cartridge together.

So what would be the best approach to reverse this damage? (if possible)

I know there's still a chance that it's something else wrong, but from the looks of things the contacts look to be the cause.

 

.

 

I just did what you said and it did make a noticeable improvement in the look of the contacts and even returned the shine. But, there is one contact that still looks like absolute hell. I took a better picture this time. Also, instead of getting the screen i described in my OP, I now get a dark green screen, which I think is a step in the right direction. What do you think I should try next? Oh, and thanks by the way!

Picture showing improved contacts + the really bad contact:




The screen I got after I put everything back together and tested: (screen looks darker in person)

 

.

 

The corroded contact (Pin 38) is a NC (no connect). It doesn't connect to anything.

I'd continuity check all of the connected pins. If you can't continuity check, then I'd visually inspect with magnification the area where the black plastic spacer runs across the board. If you look in the picture, there's a line that follows the edge of the board above the gold contacts. The line runs between "C6" and "45" labels on the board. You can see some wear running across the traces. The solder mask is rubbed off and might have also worn thru the copper traces.

Good Luck!

 

have you tried the ultra fine nail polishing stick - like one from local Daiso or some place similar?