Vince's Repair Thread - (Console Repairs & Mods)

Vince said:
Got some interesting retro coming in tomorrow supplier randomly dropped a mk1 mega cd and megadrive and some other goodies on me. This is what we have this week and my buy prices. Probably went a bit big on the mega cd but not every day you come across 2/3rds of a tower of power.

100 mega cd/drive
30 gg
40 ps4 pro
30 x 2 ps2
50 2x elite 2

So 250 all in for a load of toys. My buy prices can be all over the place me and this dude seem to just make it up as we go along. He dropped my prices on whatever the week the ps5 came up as it was my birthday that week :cry:

I've officially hit 40 lads, it's all down hill from here.
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Pah…life begins at 40 - you’re still a young man :D
 
Last night a photographer friend of mine brought around their Wacom Cintiq HD22 as it just stopped working, they assumed it was a backlight issue as it would turn on but no backlight and no display. I didn't really do much in terms of documenting as I did the repair on my living room floor due to its size. But I did manage to fix it within 2 hours of them dropping it off here is some of the content I sent to them on whatsapp :)





I should have done something a bit better but this was just a quick look at this for a mate and its not really the sort of thing that I can just throw on the desk... anyway enjoy!
 
I've just read all 125 pages, I'm not totally bonkers as I have an ulterior motive.
I agree with all those who have said that this is a fascinating thread and entertaining also, and all done with an enthusiasm that never seems to diminish (even when GPUs fail to play ball).
I've done a fair number of electrical repairs over the years, so I have some kit already. I've asked for a 4K microscope and digital oscilloscope for XMas from my good lady. My test gear knowledge is currently 30+ years out of date, so I'm going on a long learning curve with what follows.

My ultimate aim is to resuscitate an Acorn Archimedes A440/1, with amongst other cards a video capture card. It spent a few years in the loft (working when it went in), but suffered when the battery leaked. There are very few of these running any more, so I'd like to try and get everything working. It's very dear to me, something I know will chime with other followers of this thread.

To get to that attempt, in reverse order, I'll do the following:
Repair an Acorn Risc PC, it too has circuit board damage from a battery leak, and from I chap I knew a few years back said it was some of the worst he'd seen. I think these boards are 2-sided and not multi layered, so I'm hoping multiple fly lead and track resoldering will suffice. Caps are also on the list for both.

I have an IBM RT6150, with a couple of 440Mb SCSI hard drives (around 50kgs each), these I think were custom made as I'm unable to find their model etc. This is quite literally a museum piece and I have lined up a museum to take it, if I can get it working. Last time I booted this up, around 5 years ago, it was all fine, so hopefully will just need a clean up.

I have an A500 in the loft, which I will get down in the next few weeks to see where we're at. There was a number of games with this.

I recently fried a CPU and I think the MoBo was damaged, the air was heavy with that unmistakable smell as well as being distinctly blue. I'll use the kit I have currently to see if I can spot where the issues are.

I have a Logitech F710 wireless gamepad that works but needs a refresh of the buttons/joysticks etc.

I might pickup a faulty Switch and see where I get to with that.

If I chip in every now and again with progress and probably a whole bunch of annoying questions, is that OK?

I'll take a look later but I have (as a minimum) 2xKefs on stands and a couple with wall mounts that will match what you have. They were going on fleabay at some point but given the amount of time & effort you've put in on others behalf, I'd like to offer them to you FOC. I get down to Kent reasonably frequently so a trip out Essex way (if you still live near there) is not out of the question.

Oh, and 40-60 are the best years of your life. I turned 60 last year and it's defo downhill physically from there.
 
Prompted by the issue of soak testing X Boxes etc, I found this. As it happens I spent the last 35+ years programming and have access to the full pro VS setup. I'll have a look to see what's possible. e.g. The soak tester will have to be able to switch off the controller sensing so that it does not go to sleep.
 
Nigel Kingdon said:
I've just read all 125 pages, I'm not totally bonkers as I have an ulterior motive.
I agree with all those who have said that this is a fascinating thread and entertaining also, and all done with an enthusiasm that never seems to diminish (even when GPUs fail to play ball).
I've done a fair number of electrical repairs over the years, so I have some kit already. I've asked for a 4K microscope and digital oscilloscope for XMas from my good lady. My test gear knowledge is currently 30+ years out of date, so I'm going on a long learning curve with what follows.

My ultimate aim is to resuscitate an Acorn Archimedes A440/1, with amongst other cards a video capture card. It spent a few years in the loft (working when it went in), but suffered when the battery leaked. There are very few of these running any more, so I'd like to try and get everything working. It's very dear to me, something I know will chime with other followers of this thread.

To get to that attempt, in reverse order, I'll do the following:
Repair an Acorn Risc PC, it too has circuit board damage from a battery leak, and from I chap I knew a few years back said it was some of the worst he'd seen. I think these boards are 2-sided and not multi layered, so I'm hoping multiple fly lead and track resoldering will suffice. Caps are also on the list for both.

I have an IBM RT6150, with a couple of 440Mb SCSI hard drives (around 50kgs each), these I think were custom made as I'm unable to find their model etc. This is quite literally a museum piece and I have lined up a museum to take it, if I can get it working. Last time I booted this up, around 5 years ago, it was all fine, so hopefully will just need a clean up.

I have an A500 in the loft, which I will get down in the next few weeks to see where we're at. There was a number of games with this.

I recently fried a CPU and I think the MoBo was damaged, the air was heavy with that unmistakable smell as well as being distinctly blue. I'll use the kit I have currently to see if I can spot where the issues are.

I have a Logitech F710 wireless gamepad that works but needs a refresh of the buttons/joysticks etc.

I might pickup a faulty Switch and see where I get to with that.

If I chip in every now and again with progress and probably a whole bunch of annoying questions, is that OK?

I'll take a look later but I have (as a minimum) 2xKefs on stands and a couple with wall mounts that will match what you have. They were going on fleabay at some point but given the amount of time & effort you've put in on others behalf, I'd like to offer them to you FOC. I get down to Kent reasonably frequently so a trip out Essex way (if you still live near there) is not out of the question.

Oh, and 40-60 are the best years of your life. I turned 60 last year and it's defo downhill physically from there.
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Mate please do chime in with progress etc. We love to see it!! Sounds like you have some awesome things to get your teeth into and I'd love to see it!

In terms of the KEF's I do have another 3 under the stairs but they also make great little pc speakers so I sort of just let them be for now. I should really put them in the lounge at some point.
 
Nigel Kingdon said:
Prompted by the issue of soak testing X Boxes etc, I found this. As it happens I spent the last 35+ years programming and have access to the full pro VS setup. I'll have a look to see what's possible. e.g. The soak tester will have to be able to switch off the controller sensing so that it does not go to sleep.
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Now look what you have done. I also have a Visual Studio pro through work so I could probably whip something up if I could ever find the time. I find myself constantly busy which is both good and bad but realistically I doubt I'd find the time to make anything awesome :cry:

I did fix up another series X last night mind, quickly swapped out both a HDMI and a ethernet port on one... who breaks an ethernet port :cry:
 
Oh and I also rewired a new PIR sensor into my house wiring for the upstairs bathroom after work tonight, totally fed up of hitting the wrong switch.. no more!!

I might need to adjust it a tad mind once I work out how sensitive to the cats it is.
 
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Vince said:
Now look what you have done. I also have a Visual Studio pro through work so I could probably whip something up if I could ever find the time. I find myself constantly busy which is both good and bad but realistically I doubt I'd find the time to make anything awesome :cry:

I did fix up another series X last night mind, quickly swapped out both a HDMI and a ethernet port on one... who breaks an ethernet port :cry:
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Good work as ever Vince! Where do you source your ports? Fed up paying silly money for the bleeding things on eBay, so thinking a bulk order is the way to go
 
Diggsy said:
Good work as ever Vince! Where do you source your ports? Fed up paying silly money for the bleeding things on eBay, so thinking a bulk order is the way to go
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AliX for ports.... It's the only way! Careful of switch lite ones thought.... I had a whole batch where they couldnt handle any sort of heat! Had to send em back they were that bad.
 
Vince said:
AliX for ports.... It's the only way! Careful of switch lite ones thought.... I had a whole batch where they couldnt handle any sort of heat! Had to send em back they were that bad.
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Thanks Vince! I’ll give that a go. Fed up paying £3-4 per port (and more) only for them to be clearly cut out of a bigger package…no doubt from somewhere similar too :rolleyes:

I don’t really use them all that often but then they’d last forever anyway!
 
Diggsy said:
Thanks Vince! I’ll give that a go. Fed up paying £3-4 per port (and more) only for them to be clearly cut out of a bigger package…no doubt from somewhere similar too :rolleyes:

I don’t really use them all that often but then they’d last forever anyway!
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Yea i normally buy them in 10's or more. Switch are like 40p a port or something xbox / ps5 about 50p or so... just grab a load and they last more than long enough... plus random customers keep sending me them... one dude sent a load of ports in with a switch lite, im still using them :D
 
Vince said:
Yea i normally buy them in 10's or more. Switch are like 40p a port or something xbox / ps5 about 50p or so... just grab a load and they last more than long enough... plus random customers keep sending me them... one dude sent a load of ports in with a switch lite, im still using them :D
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Perfect! Thanks again, will go hunting :D
 
I'm intending to do the final repair to the 440 when I'm (semi-)retired, so I have some time to get up to speed, knocking up something that would run on an X box would be an interesting diversion in the mean time. I've not got an X yet, so maybe I'll find a faulty one and start there, although I'm aware they can be a pig.

If a X360 is missing the HDD does it just need a new hdd or does it have the encrypted partition on it?

In for a penny ...

Just bought this. Case looks in good nick and price was good.
 
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Nigel Kingdon said:
I'm intending to do the final repair to the 440 when I'm (semi-)retired, so I have some time to get up to speed, knocking up something that would run on an X box would be an interesting diversion in the mean time. I've not got an X yet, so maybe I'll find a faulty one and start there, although I'm aware they can be a pig.

If a X360 is missing the HDD does it just need a new hdd or does it have the encrypted partition on it?

In for a penny ...

Just bought this. Case looks in good nick and price was good.
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The 360 just needs a hdd, you can throw a drive in and you are away. I'm not sure how much work that is compared to just using osu1 on the one/series consoles. With the 360 the slims have internal drives and the earlier models like that one (cant quite work out what it is but prey its a jasper then you might stand a chance!) have a drive that clips on the top. I have 3 or 4 of these hanging around probably some HDD's as well. Problem with these is flip chip related on earlier models so they are near on impossible to repair unless you have a big old bga station as the cpu's are just too big to work with using a rework station, the old red ring of death plagues them. If I wanted something cheap and repairable its got to be a game gear as a starter console... it's not easy to fix/mod like a gameboy so actually poses a challenge, is well documented, has board views etc.
 
Saroo Saturn sound fix for the early VA boards...


Because I removed the old ghetto region mod while diagnosing sound (they tapped into a 5v and gnd at the sound memory IC) I decided to give it a more modern mod, same thing different setup...



It's a lot cleaner than the old mod and I decided to pay some homage to the previous modder and used all the wires etc they used for their mod.
 
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"The 360 just needs a hdd"
I have plenty of spinning rust hdds around, is there a size limit? I'm assuming formatted to FAT32?

Serial label has it built 09/09/2007 if that helps identify which one?

What's the flip chip?

It's been posted, so I'll take some photos when it arrives.

If I can get the x360 up and running, I was going to use it as a target for the soak test utility. Speaking of which, apparently I'm already registered as an xbox developer (I'm guessing as I used to be an MS partner with an Action Pack subscription). I can see my registration but can't see where I get started with the bit I need to develop anything for xbox, did you get anywhere or can you see where I might find it?

PS: I finally managed to subscribe to the youtube channel (my account is ancient and unused for decades). A while back you commented on how satisfying it is to watch a BGA reseat itself. Any chance you can film a BGA reball at some point, this is something I know I'm going to need at some point? I've got a diddy hot plate coming from AliX, similar to your little one.
 
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Nigel Kingdon said:
"The 360 just needs a hdd"
I have plenty of spinning rust hdds around, is there a size limit? I'm assuming formatted to FAT32?

Serial label has it built 09/09/2007 if that helps identify which one?

What's the flip chip?

It's been posted, so I'll take some photos when it arrives.

If I can get the x360 up and running, I was going to use it as a target for the soak test utility. Speaking of which, apparently I'm already registered as an xbox developer (I'm guessing as I used to be an MS partner with an Action Pack subscription). I can see my registration but can't see where I get started with the bit I need to develop anything for xbox, did you get anywhere or can you see where I might find it?

PS: I finally managed to subscribe to the youtube channel (my account is ancient and unused for decades). A while back you commented on how satisfying it is to watch a BGA reseat itself. Any chance you can film a BGA reball at some point, this is something I know I'm going to need at some point? I've got a diddy hot plate coming from AliX, similar to your little one.
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The is a switch oled wifi repair on there somewhere where I reball a wifi IC :) - Ill dig out the vid!
 
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