Fixing eBay Junk - Game Boy Color Game - Game won't boot up
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 พ.ค. 2024
- In this video, I repair a Game Boy Color game that will not turn on. I get the nintendo logo, then stuck at a white screen. I go through some basic troubleshooting, then find the issue to repair.
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Thanks for watching - เกม
Pro tip: When you turn on the Gameboy, the "Nintendo" logo that is displayed on the screen actually comes from the cartridge ROM (part of an over-complicated anti-piracy system). Since the Nintendo logo displayed correctly from the beginning, that indicated that the connector was fine and that at least the first kilobyte of the ROM was being read correctly.
My guess would be that one or more of the higher address pins on the ROM chip had come away from the board. Cartridge games often have their startup code located right near the end.
It usually depends on processor's reset vector. 68k has a reset vector table that is located at the end of address space, thus this location must be mapped to a cartridge and is necessary during startup. Small capacity cartridges repeat themselves because high cartridge bus address lines simply aren't connected to anything. Disassembling Sonic was 'interesting' because across different routines, the jump and constant addresses refer to different mirrors of the same ROM data, as the ROM repeats 4 times in address space.
Gameboy has a custom processor vaguely based on Z80 with unusual changes. There is an extended reset vector for the interrupt controller at address 0. The reset program counter is 0x100 as opposed to 0 in Z80. Everything that's needed to start is in low ROM addresses. Actually it's impossible to guess which pin group was no longer operational - low ROM address lines, high ROM address lines, data - same result. Besides, mask ROM address inputs can oscillate when floating.
@@SianaGearz god damn I just learned more from two comments than a whole week of school
@@HolyPetRel Ikr!!!
Siana Gearz thank you 🙏
Maybe the controller doesn’t work properly and only loads the memory containing the Nintendo logo.
Wow, somebody actually took the time to caption this video for me! You guys rock!
Hi i have cartridge that work only sound without image can it be fixed
@@shadomar4633 no
That pencil eraser blew my mind.
But did you blow the cartridge?
This is clearly a fake comment
ifalrady ü yes, astute observation
@@lemon_boy577
Thus commentor is fake
It doesn't work
ifalrady ü press x to doubt
Makes you wonder how many things get chucked because of a tiny fixable component.
Unfortunately way too much.
Somethings get chucked even if they work perfectly
I had a lady this week message me about fixing her laptop because the touchpad physically broke. I quoted $100 for parts + labour and she messaged back saying she’ll just get a new one. Imagine how much ends up in landfill.
I fix most of my things
Some people could be too lazy to fix it, or really don’t care if they have the thing or not.
This square-shaped chip which has the label MBC-5 on it is called a memory bank controller. Every GameBoy cartridge that is bigger than 32 KB has one. It's used to switch between sections of the ROM in the GameBoy's limited address space. The version 5 of this controller supports the GBC's double speed mode and can address up to 8 megabytes of ROM.
Thanks for the info
Are you sure its megabytes and not megabits? Because usually cartridge capacity is measured in megabits.
It is megabytes. You can read about the properties of the controller here: gbdev.gg8.se/wiki/articles/MBC5. There's also at least one GBC game I know about which has a size of 8 megabytes. It's the Japan-only title called Densha de Go! 2.
Wonder why /RST was missing that capacitor to ground and instead it goes to /CS2 on the bus through the via. Test point?
Next video: Create a replacement sticker for that.
Mobin92 please
Draw it on your own XD!!!!
Seriously, a replacement sticker would be amazing to see.
wouldn't be too amazing, they sell printable sticker paper at places like walmart, all he has to do is print a label on that and stick it on
The trick with these is the shiny graphics. It doesn't replicate on a printer well
At 4:12 you can clearly see that the rightmost leg of the ROM chip has a broken solder joint. So reflowing was the right choice. :)
im so pleased i wasnt the only one who noticed that straight away
Thanks man, your presentation in this video is fantastic. I have an old copy of Pokémon yellow that's been dead for 10 years, followed your reflow steps and boom - now it loads up. It's people like you that make the internet a fantastic place for education. Kudos.
This video helped me revive my very first gameboy game ever; Pokemon Gold. It went through the washer/dryer over 15 years ago, killing it quite thoroughly. Years later and after some practice soldering, I managed to finally repair it and I can once again play my favorite game. I’m so happy I held onto the dead cartridge for sentimental reasons.
I have nothing to repair, but it was interesting seeing you fix it !
The back of the board looks like a surprised face! And thus ends the extent of my understanding of this video :)
🤯
Mind blown
The Last Knight hilarious 😂
Once you see it, it starts to look like invasive eye surgery..
Me too
Watching this guy repair stuff always calms me down, no idea why. This is fast becoming my go-to channel after a few beers
Man, I saw that resistor and immediately thought it looked funny. Great video man. It was so cool to watch you break this all down.
I love your videos dude, as a lover of retro games and consoles myself I have leaned a lot form watching you. Keep up the good work and the videos coming.
4 years after the video released it's still very helpful. Thank you!
Fun fact: The screw is actually called an inverse Torx bit. "Gamebit" is simply a nickname.
That's actually not true! It looks a bit like an External Torx drive, but it's actually a Japanese drive called "line".
Whenever you see "gamebit", you can be confident it's about a line head screw / screwdriver.
I was noticing it does have some similarities with E Torx™ but it’s definitely not the same and I don’t think the E Torx™ standard goes that small (although it may). E Torx™ is a distinctly small head in proportion to the fastener thread diameter, and is used primarily on German cars where limited space for fastener heads is available - hub bearings, some suspension links etc.
dregenius thanks for putting the trademarks in. I would’ve stolen the name otherwise.
The more mechanic types know it as spline drive.
16:23 panic attack hahaha
I laughed way too hard on that part 😂
Dude. I fucking died laughing. This shit is small though, I get it.
HAHAHAHAH
LMAOAOAOAOA underrated comment 🤣
thank you for describing why you do everything. i know you're older viewers my find it redundant all the time but its short enough to help out people who find certain vids from your catalog. great stuff
You make these repairs looks so easy. I am tempted to try some on my old consoles. Love the videos and keep up the great work
If they already don’t work what’s the worst that could happen🤷🏻 give it a shot
I have some amazing memories of this game on the GBA. When I was 4 I had a gba sp with it, along with Rayman
Another awesome job on the restoration, this was certainly an interesting video to watch through, as well as being educational about learning the workings of such a little game cartridge on the inside, but most importantly I'm glad you got this game working again in the end too! :)
Love learning little things here and there from your videos. Thank you for making them. They are fantastic.
RetroRepairs: "just to prove that it does work we have pokemon yellow here"
Me: Youre Goddamn Right
Nice video! I really enjoyed the amount of detail you included- much more informational than videos from other people I've watched.
I love watching people fixing things and thanks for making them. I have a Sega Dreamcast and going to dust it off and give it a play. Keep up the good work 👍🏻
I respect you fixing the most miniscule and unwanted items. I see that game in bargain/junk bins all the time.
you rarely see people try and attempt to fix these awful games. awesome work
Thanks. Truth be told, I'm probably never going to sit down and play this game, but I more wanted to see if I could do it, and show others how to revive a game they might actually care about.
Having unsteady hands is the worst with small things like this lol
I'm an artist and doing lineart is the worst for this reason. I always fuck up the drawing with my pen in the lineart stage
Thank you so much for making this video! I got a copy of Oracle of Seasons and couldn’t get it to work no matter how much I cleaned it. I had never had to use a soldering iron before, but your video made it easy to get through, and now my game is working perfectly. :D
funny my oracle of ages is having the same issue
Cool video man, and props for fixing that board with that big soldering tip!
I have no understanding of any of what happened in this video, but I found it quite interesting and oddly soothing. Subscribed!
I'm not a gamer but I watched this for educational purposes and learned a lot about proper soldering. Thanks!
The pencil eraser method already helped me get my megaman dr. willy's revenge, and gargoyle's quest working again. Almost every cart I had issues with. Thanks a lot for the help and good explanations.
ive been trying to fix my pokemon silver game for days and you have saved my life
Used the ideas from this video and fixed my old copy of yellow version! Had to reflow the solder and it worked! Thank you 🙏
Just wanted to say this video helped me repair two GBC games that I didn't think would work! Thanks so much.
Jager Felice awesome to hear. I've done this to two GB games so far, never had to do it to a different type of cart yet, so I suspect GB carts are prone to this
I think so as well. I had an n64 cart that pulled two traces up so i'm happy these were easily repairable. One showed life when i rubbed isopropyl alcohol over the rom pins and the other was a surprise to get working! Reflowed the solder on both sides of the rom. I think your flux recommendation is spot on. I did it with a pen type soldering iron dry and it was a pain.
I don't play any video games. This page is fascinating. I love it
I just want to thank you for making this video.
Regardless of the outcome or what you were repairing, it was a really nice, easy to learn, soldering tips video at its core.
My uncle taught me how to solder at a very young age. It was the essential basics and I had forgotten a lot of it over the years.
This video, and videos like it, are a great crash course on soldering basics, especially when it comes to electronic soldering on gaming elements.
Without any over complicated jargon or techniques, it will help a lot of people. Shit, it helped me for sure, I just need to get a better Iron.
I love these repair videos and I hope you keep doing them. Thanks again.
Thanks. If i can help people keep their old repairable games out of the garbage, then mission successful.
RetroRepairs - It absolutely helped me and it’s going to help me in future Repairs just from the Soldering Basics.
Great Video!
One thing to note, capacitors can be polarized, meaning they have a positive and negative side, and cannot be reversed without causing an issue in the circuit. Resistors on the other hand are non polarized and do not care what orientation you connect them. Awesome that you were able to get this guy working!
Very true and important. I've got one project that involved replacing the caps. Luckily usually the board indicates which side positive should be.
@@RetroRepairs that is very helpful! :) Keep up the video posts, I am enjoying them!:)
How do you find good deals on ebay? Do you look for stuff inside Canada instead of the US? A lot of interesting things come up from the states but the shipping always seems too expensive to be worth it
This is cool. I might be able to fix the Zelda Oracle of Ages cart I've had laying around forever.
Thanks for this video! I have a couple of childhood games I love that have this exact thing happen when I stick them into my gameboy. I had more but the alcohol cleaning fixed most of them right up. I've held onto the ones that don't work for sentimental reasons, so I'm glad I'll finally be able to fix them someday (after I've bought all the parts necessary, and test out the technique on another game idc about lol).
Just discovered your channel. Your concept is awesome.
Very satisfying !!! Love board repairs like this
Just wanted to give a suggestion.. I recently was working on an old forgotten project that had a ton of old dried up rosin flux on the board. I normally use rubbing alcohol but it wasn’t touching the old flux. I didn’t want to heat everything up just to soften the flux, so I tried naphtha thinking it’s a short chain hydrocarbon which should be good for rosin flux but it’s not so aggressive as to damage plastic. It worked great and dries just as fast as alcohol. The added benefit is that unlike alcohol it doesn’t contain any water at all, so you don’t have to worry about moisture under chips causing corrosion between puns with differing voltages etc.
I paint miniatures, and shaky hands is an issue for me as well. A tip I show new painters is to touch your wrists together while you work in a tight space. It's a little awkward at first, but it helps tremendously with the independent movement and shakiness of your hands. If that isn't feasible, rest your forearms on the table and use just your hands and wrists to control the movement of your tools.
Great videos, by the way. I've watched a few now, and while I've literally no experience in soldering or working on boards at all, I'm finding these very fascinating.
You're giving me anxiety watching you re-solder that capacitor 😂
Monsters, Inc. was one of the worst games I ever played. I feel like it was not beta-tested, because the difficulty is ramped up way too high. (i.e. the reaction time required for some of the enemy characters is insane.)
Yeah I hate the CDA in Monsters Inc. GBC because they are so hard to distract and they come out of nowhere!
For unscrewing game bit screws, You can also use small pliers (my go to) or the bic pen method (you melt the tip of a bic crystal pen casing, and push it into the screw, let it cool down and unscrew the screw). If you are doing it just once, like when I replaced the save batteries on my GB carts, it may not be worth the cost and wait time to you to get the proper screwdriver bit.
That capacitor was like that before it was crooked but definitely after you got your soldering iron out it came off likely from the heat coming off of the tip indicating probably a bad solder joint that's what I think
I wish you only reflowed one chip at a time so I know which one was the culprit :P Good video for sure subbed.
it was the rom chip i think
Pencil erasers are good cor cleaning, but the BEST kind of eraser is a white rubber eraser, which you can by at an arts and crafts store. These particular erasers create the least amount of crumbs compared to a standard #2 pencil eraser. I also feel they are far more effective due to the material they are made out of. Not to mention one eraser will last you the rest of your life, no matter how many games you clean with it.
I also clean my games with rubbing alcohol and Q-Tips as well as erasing them, just for good measure. A cart of the Game Boy version of Donkey Kong I bought had booting issues, and Q-Tips / alcohol alone didn't fix it. Busting out the white eraser, I noticed the rubbed was picking up some green stuff that the Q-Tip wasn't!
from a conservator's point of view the best eraser is actually white unsalted bread. All Erasers contain some form of softener and other chemicals which will rub off on what you clean. The residue will lead to corrosion at some point down the line. The bread works just the same only minus all the chemical compounds.
Great video. Very satisfying to watch. You earned my sub, bro!
Have the same problem with the same game , did the re soldering and works now , thanks!!!
Thanks man, you helped me fix my Pokemon Yellow cart ^__^
Keep up the good work, definitely earned my subscription.
You just saved me the boxed Elevator Action I found the other day in a shop ^~^ It didn't work, now it does! Thank you!
2:17 we only used a modified flat screwdriver spared two pins that would be enough to open these carts. this was pre internet now such a tool is dirt cheap. but if you got tools or access to a school/manufactoring place you can easily make a tool to open it.
onehappynegro did you file down the middle of a slotted screwdriver? That could work, but if you do more than one of these, it's definitely worth spending $3 and buying one
yes exactly. well this was pretty much pre internet (in sweden) before 1994. this tool wasn't around and even if we had people opening and tinkering they would make the tools themselves. i googled it and found www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Gamebit-screwdriver-to-open-Nintendo-Gameboy/ ours would have more like a "v" shaped cutout though. but hey we're novice to tools and only nes nerds. at 3 usd it's a steal. *=)*
onehappynegro I've also seen people melt a ballpoint pen to the point where the plastic softens, then press it over the screw molding it into the right shape. Problem is, plastic is hardly durable enough to put any type of power into it. Would probably strip almost immediately
this is far beyond out teen minds for sure. my mate steve in uk always said "if there is a will there is a way".
this keeps us evolving. so nice to see other retro hoarders online.
The "game bit security driver bit" also called a inverted torx bit. Also try some Deoxit d5 for cleaning it not only helps to clean but it coats to help keep them from oxidizing more and a little goes a long way. Just a tip from someone who also loves keeping old systems alive.
Such a good vid to watch, well done.
Correct way to solder SMD caps is to clean the pads with soldering wick, tin one pad, solder the cap in place by the one pad and then solder the another end.
Krivulda the other correct way is to use a smaller tip. I haven't done a ton of really fine SMD work like that (as you can see)
Yeah, I wanted to point it out aswell, but I know it doesn't have to be a problem. I just pointed out the trick I learned from work which really does help :)
also that tip is so big i had diarrhea watching his awful soldering work.
themazeful like you know how to solder
@@walterkanehl5624 it really isn't hard...
You definitely helped me out with this video. My GB game was the problem. Its back in my collection and off the work bench.
Nice! Awesome to hear
Huge thanks for this, my Pokemon Blue game started to glitch out and become unplayable once any NPC text appeared on the screen. Glad it worked too because I ordered a new label for it since my copy's sticker is very old and worn, now I can continue to use it without worry of it not working anymore.
Normally you use no clean flux. It is not corrosive and you can leave it on. Don't touch the really small SMD components until you made sure that the game is still not running. You start with the ROM chip (big one) and the test the game and if that was enough you leave the rest alone.
Amazing!! Love your inspiring work!! Gives me a purpose to use my work bench again
dropping those nuggets of wisdom about soldering like it's nothing
Thanks! This helped me revive my Championship Motocross 2001 cart.
i like to put on ur vids when i go to bed, helps me fall asleep (cuz theres no background music or anything)
Monster Inc. hands down my favorite movie of my childhood
Nice video man. And just for reference the square chip is called mbc (memory bank controller). It is used when the game is bigger than what the Gameboy 'naively' supported. Cheers!
Great video! Very informative, and even helped me get my old Pokemon Gold cartridge working again.
This video made me really happy for some reason, thanks man. :)
This was proper epic to watch mate.. fair play!
I love your giant soldering iron!
I had a Super Mario DX cartridge that gradually seemed to be getting more and more corrupted (missing graphics, obstacles in wrong places, etc) and eventually did this exact same thing - stuck at a white screen after the Nintendo logo. I tried opening it up and removing/shorting the save battery in case the SRAM was corrupt, but to no avail.
You should have your own business,if you don’t already.Just amazing work😎😎😎😎😎😎😎
Thanks! I just do this in my spare time, but I enjoy making these videos
Wow dude when you brought out the multimeter i knew you ment business this the first vid ive seen
I will definitely keep.note of what you are doing to learn. I need to change save batteries for gbc games, pokemon silver. Tryin to be cautious in any way
Love the video and want to say keep up the good work. New sub here now. But a little constructive criticism. Please use the proper sized iron tip for the job. In this video, a smaller tipped iron would havemade better sure each pin was soldered properly. Still,. awesome work!
Okay so I've soldered 5 q-tips onto the back board. game still not booting. What am I doing wrong?
How did you even do that?
S A R C A S M D E T E C T E D
Great video. I will try it in one of mine N64 games (the game gets stuck after the first logo).
This game bring backs so many memories
Good job! Great info that I will use in the future.
Nicely done! I bet you bumped that little capacitor off while reflowing but maybe it had a weak joint too? It's one of those situations where you don't know exactly what fixed it but it dosen't matter because it works!
71dembones it's way easy to bump of tiny components so I wouldn't be surprised
LarryM yeah that's one of the reasons I don't like SMD stuff. Microscopic components, tight pin spacing; it's all scary stuff to me
71dembones as long as everything is discharged you don't need to worry about any shorts until you add power so there isn't too much to worry about
you saw the video. the cap was fine. he touched it with the tip. he was using the wrong tip for the job.
Wrong comment
Pretty good video and explanations. Thanks!
You did a great job. Thx for explaining your way of fixing this issue :-)
Kudos man! Shit like this inspires me. It seems so simple!
The C2 capacitor already seemed to have had a broken solder joint before you introduced any heat to the board.
The chip is Memory Bank Controller ver. 5.
It's a custom chip from Nintendo to play games bigger than 32kb. I hope that answers your question.
Question, on what voltage should I set the multimeter to check my broken Pokémon Blue?
I have a Sega Genesis game cartridge called Awesome Possum. It was one of my favorite games and one day it gave up the ghost. I still have the cart and I'm going to try these tricks to see if I can revive it! I'll let you know how it goes! Thanks for the great video!
Give it a go. The chips are a bit different, but same basic principal can apply.
Your shaking scares me.
Thats what i said
Haha I have a friend who's 21 but shakes like an old man and he solders almost microscopic stuff for a living. It's amazing how some people can work around shaking.
I, for one, am happy that Michael J Fox found a hobby repairing electronics...
I do micro-metric soldering and yeah, working under magnification changes everything, imo.
I know the poor guys shaking made me nervous hahah
I know this is an old video.. but I just used this as a guide to fix my copy of Pokémon blue. It wouldn’t load until I reflowed the big ROM chip. Now she’s good for another 20 years of service
Subbed. Love watching your vids.
Thank you very much for that excellent tutorial! I’ll have to try it myself! :)
Thanks a lot I got 2 of my games back up and running 😀
Good job mate......I enjoy the whole video. Greetings from Spain
Awesome video man vut where do ya get that soldering thing from im trying to replace the board on my xbox one disc drive but need to solder 2 cables by the motor
Check out ebay. You don't need to spend much at all.
Great video ... I'll be sure to try some of those great tips in future.
besides that, Im really impressed how you attached the smdcapacitor Oô
those surface mount components are so tiny.last time i had to solder one of those in i had my watch makers eyeglass jammed in my eye. it is so hard to get em to stay where you want em to be as well.
The game-boy was reading the nintendo logo and deciding to try and start the game, so the data and low-number address lines were almost certainly ok, my guess would be either one of the higher-numbered address lines (either from cart connector to rom or MBC to rom) was bad or that the capacitor was not soldered down properly and this was causing signal integrety issues. The square chip BTW is what nintendo calls a "memory bank controller", it's main function is to allow the use of roms bigger than the 32KB the game-boy can natively address it also has some features related to save-ram, but those are not used in this particular cart.