Nintendo 64 Fan Mod Instructions

Hello all,

Recently I was playing my Nintendo 64 and decided to install a cooling fan and apply thermal paste between the CPU, GPU, RAM and heatsink.

I thought I should create this guide as I could not find anything similar online.

This modification is rather simple if you have experience with soldering, hot glue guns and opening Nintendo consoles. It does not involve modifying the plastic casing.

You will need:

• A Nintendo 64
• A small 40MM cooling fan with a suitable length of wire. Prepare the ends for soldering.
• A soldering iron
• A hot glue gun and glue

Method:

1. Strip the Nintendo 64 to its motherboard.
2. To supply the fan with 12v I have chosen a capacitor marked '33 EHA 7F7' which is located on the top right of the motherboard. The right leg of the capacitor supplies the 12v you need to power the fan. A wide range of places can be used for ground.
3. Thread the red fan cable through a suitable location on the lower RF shield and solder it to the right leg of the aforementioned capacitor. Secure it down with hot glue. Now would be a good time to test the fan to see if it comes on when the console is switched on and switches off when the console is turned off.
4. Carefully reassemble your Nintendo 64 so that you have screwed in both RF shields and the heatsink. It would be a good idea to re-apply thermal grease between the heatsink and the RF shield.
5. The next step would be mounting the fan inside the Nintendo 64. I chose to mount the fan in the middle of the heatsink so that warm air is blown out of the ventilation slots in the middle of the console's case. Make sure the fan is positioned in such a way that air is blowing out of the case.
6. To mount the fan I created standoffs with hot glue on which the fan would sit. I made the fan flush with the top of the heatsink.
7. Once you've got the fan flush with the heat sink make sure it all fits properly by fitting the top case.
8. Once you are satisfied that that the fan fits you can now secure the fan in place with hot glue.
9. Assemble and test with a marathon of Resident Evil 2!

To conclude, I think that this mod is worthwhile doing if you have the parts lying around. My Nintendo 64 now feels a lot cooler, especially around the Expansion Pak!

Feel free to follow this guide and post back with your experiences, questions or any criticisms of this method.

Nintendo64fx

(PS - Why are the attached photographs so bloody big?)

 

Very nice !
I will definitely use this!
Have already ordered the parts, so I hope I can make it work!
Does it make a lot of noise, or isn't it noticeable?

 

any idea how worthwhile this is and is there any history of n64 getting damaged from overheating? i once had an n64 rigged up in a big closet and remember accidentally leaving it on with donkey kong 64 for four whole months. the n64 was as hot around the expansion pak as it gets after an hour of playing and nothing was wrong with it. i remember also back in early 2000 i used to use backup units that took a minute or two to load a rom and i was too lazy to turn it off so jsut kept it on for weeks until i was done with the game. nothing ever broke.

 

But why?

Fans make noise. That massive heatsink is there for a reason. If you're not having performance issues I don't see the point of this.

 

madsmaten,
Thanks for following; please report back with your results! The fan I used is not noisy so once you have the television on and the volume up you will not be able to hear the fan.

This would be beneficial to those who wish to overclock their Nintendo 64, but apart from that, to each their own.

 

No benefit unless all the metal is removed and heatsinks used, ie making a portable. Also if you needed a fan to keep it cool you'd not use hot glue to hold it in place as that melts at around 40-50 Celcius (you'd use superglue as that's good for up to 95 Ceclius), so if the hot glue isn't melting the fan isn't needed...

 

I don't really see the point, but anyways, if you feel the need to add a fan, I'd recommend installing in such a way as to to move hot air out of the case, instead of just circulating most of it inside.

 

There are plenty of vents in the case, however for a fan to work it needs to be elevated enough for the air to move from top to bottom of the fan, otherwise the fins move but little air circulates, and therefore isn't of much use.

 

super noob here. im installing a 140mm 12v case fan to an n64 motherboard. i plan on hooking up the red wire(+) to the pin 6 of the board where the power supply wires come in at the corner of the board (i can do that right? its 12v...) but where should i solder the black wire(-) ??? I just dont want to break anything. any help would be much appreciated. Im aware, based on the previous comments, that a fan isnt really needed for this, but i am doing a very different project for my n64 that is different anything i have seen online and i will need a fan. anyway, I wish that whoever posted this would have just shown a picture of where he soldered the other wire to... kind of annoying that he only showed one wire. sorry for the noobish complaint. thank you for any help!

 

A fan would really be beneficial if you are messing with the hardware beyond its default specs.

Although you might want to check if the N64 PSU’s 12V 0.8 amp (9w to 10w) rating has enough headroom to accommodate your desired fan – since it also is powering the audio amp and video ENC/circuitry (5V through the 7805 LDO), it will certainly introduce unwanted noise on those power rails.

Soldering the fan to where the PSU interfaces with the console will make your fan run 24/7 even when switched off. You would need to solder it further downstream for it to start running when the console is switched on.

Some mods out on the net have used small chip heatsinks and fans that are very cheap on EBay, like those from ADDA for example (http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/ADDA/AP4505MX-G90-LF/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMvrW/fo9sIoWxGVyR0qWsF9).