1996 Nintendo 64 Repair, Restoration, & Modification

My lovely wife kindly bought me six vintage games consoles for Christmas 2023, all in unknown or non-working condition, including my first Nintendo 64.

The Nintendo 64 is a home video game console developed by Nintendo – the successor to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), it was the last major home console to use cartridges as its primary storage format until the Nintendo Switch in 2017. It competed primarily with the Sony PlayStation and the Sega Saturn. The Nintendo 64 was discontinued in 2002 following the 2001 launch of its successor, the GameCube – it was critically acclaimed and remains one of the most recognisable video game consoles.

Nintendo 64s aren’t particularly rare, and you can pick them up in non-working condition for quite cheap – they go for quite a bit when refurbished and modified, though, and the rarer variants can fetch a huge amount of money. Their nostalgia value and interesting game library make them quite collectible.

On its arrival, it seemed to be in quite good physical condition. I bought a modern power supply and a HDMI adapter suitable for stock N64s, then tried it out – unfortunately, it would only output a blank black screen with any of the three cartridges that I had.

The first step was to disassemble the unit and check over everything inside.

Disassembling the N64

The N64 is easy to dismantle with basic tools: remove the Jumper Pak or memory expansion from its slot using a spudger; remove the six 4.5mm security screws around the perimeter of the underside of the case.

With the case opened, you get your first look inside the console – everything seemed to be original and pretty much untouched.

The mainboard and RF shielding are held into the bottom case with two long Philips screws on each side of the game cartridge slot, two long Philips screws on each side of the expansion slot, five Philips screws around the perimeter of the RF shield, one Philips screw at the bottom-right of the expansion slot, and four Philips screws (two each) on the two rear I/O port strain reliefs.

To remove the heatsink crossbar, there are ten Philips screws around its centre, and four Philips screws (two black, two brass) holding in the expansion slot shield.

Black Screen Repair

Black screen faults are apparently quite common problem on the N64, typically caused by a bad connection with the game cartridge or memory expansion / Jumper Pak.

I tested the basics first, power and reset: all power rails seemed OK (3.185Vdc and 12.35Vdc after the two-gang power switch, 5.05Vdc for the video connector from U13, and 2.55V from U12); the reset line out of the reset switch also seemed OK.

The mainboard was quite dusty, so I cleaned the reset switch, power switch, game cartridge slot, and expansion port with contact cleaner; the game cartridge port was full of thick, long hairs (yuck), which I carefully pulled out using tweezers; I also cleaned the Jumper Pak connections with contact cleaner, and cleaned the game cartridge connector with some cotton buds and acetone until they came up nice and shiny.

I tested the console again, and it now seemed to boot up fine.

With the console working, I wanted to perform some preventative maintenance (replacing all of the SMD aluminium electrolytic capacitors on the mainboard), as well as some “tasteful” modification (fitting an RGB video encoder to bring the N64 up to the same A/V standard as the SNES and GameCube, with better image quality for modern displays).

Mainboard Servicing

I don’t think that the N64 has been affected by failing aluminium electrolytic capacitors at the time of me writing this, but it doesn’t hurt to be proactive, so I decided to replace all of them – see my general advice for electrolytic capacitor replacement for more detailed information on the process.

There are several production variants of the N64 mainboard, each of which have different electrolytic capacitor values and locations, so take note of which you have.

This one is an early PAL board, marked “NUS-CPU(P)-01”. This is easy enough to recap as it only has 16 surface-mount electrolytic capacitors:

• C24: 33uF 25V
• C25: 10uF 16V
• C26: 10uF 16V
• C28: 33uF 25V
• C33: 68uF 10V
• C34: 10uF 16V
• C73: 68uF 10V
• C81: 68uF 10V
• C128: 10uF 16V
• C130: 68uF 10V
• C131: 68uF 10V
• C134: 68uF 10V
• C140: 68uF 10V
• C141: 68uF 10V
• C142: 33uF 25V
• C145: 68uF 10V

I decided to use tantalum electrolytic capacitors, an equivalent to aluminium electrolytic capacitors – these use a solid electrolyte, meaning that they will not physically leak.

I couldn’t find any commercially available capacitor packs for this version of the N64, so I just made up my own by noting the specifications of all of the electrolytic capacitors on the board, and ordering a set of high-quality known-brand parts.

RGB Video Modification

The Nintendo 64 uses the same “MultiAV” connector as the SNES and GameCube, however it lacks an RGB video output, having only S-Video and composite video. RGB video gives a clear, high-quality output compared to these, and is more suitable for use with up-scalers and modern high-resolution displays.

There are a few options for reinstating the RGB video output – NTSC N64s can use a simpler semi-passive RGB modification, whereas PAL N64s require an active RGB modification like the TW-N64RGB kit, which is the one that I used.

The TW-N64RGB kit is relatively easy to install, following the manufacturer’s comprehensive installation guide – the version that I bought came with a ribbon cable with a connector on each end, which made installation much cleaner and allowed for the cable to be easily removed from either end if required.

I also wired up an internal de-blur control switch using a small two-way switch that I had in my stock of switches – this ties “SW” to “GND” when disabled.

I tested the installation of the modification before reassembling the console, and it seemed to work well – the video quality via an RGB SCART cable was far better.

Reassembly and Testing

The console reassembly is just the reverse of its disassembly.

After its modifications and preventative maintenance, the N64 looked great and worked perfectly! I even bought an SD card cartridge to try out even more of its game library.

I also fitted an original Nintendo Expansion Pak, which adds an extra 4MB RAM (8MB total) – this is utilised by several N64 titles, such as Donkey Kong 64.