Trying to FIX a Faulty Nintendo GameCube

hi there my name's Vince from our Maitland stock comment in this video stay tuned have a fix-it video another video where I try to fix something that I've bought from eBay so this is advertised as faulty and I'm going to best to try and fix it now take these videos mrs. entertainment don't actually take it as any sort of advice or anything a lot of times I do things wrong so let me just see what's on the paper here okay perfect so that shows the price I can just show you that here now this was bought quite a long time ago and actually it's notion point of me showing you the eBay listing because this is from a business seller who specializes in retro consoles there was very little information it basically just says GameCube powers up doesn't read discs spares or repair and I paid seven thousand five P and five-pound 95 postage so in total 13 pound now this doesn't include any controllers it doesn't include and the cables memory cards anything this is purely just to console but really I've just got this purely to do the video on it because I already have a working GameCube I got this from a charity shop near me I think it was about I think was 18 pound for everything and that includes the controller so actually it was a really good buy and it came with a little memory card as well so obviously eBay isn't anyways it's very rarely the best place to buy something but if I want 40 stuff then it's ideal right here we go so this looks like it's a black one condition-wise well it mean it seems to be it seems to be okay let's just peel this off here now so basically this is supposed to power up but it's got a problem with playing discs and I believe that's quite a common issue with these I'm just quickly looking at the laser there I mean I'm not studying it to close but it all looks pretty clean around here it looks dirty but I'm thinking if it's a business center the chances are that they probably check the simple things out but you never know let's just have a look so it's missing a port at the bottom I cover at the bottom for these ports I've never taken apart the Gamecube conforte and I'm quite looking forward to it it's a very compact design and it's a good little system so I think first things first let's plug it all in I'll actually see if we do get anything out of it you realistically even if I do get this working about a time you buy at a power supplier controller and things like the memory card and stuff really you probably be probably would be cheaper just to get a working Gamecube but I still think it's going to make for an interesting video well okay so we've got a light to power on and it's coming up with the menu screen this that's good and okay it hasn't got the correct date but it's not far off right okay let's pop a game in and see what it does I can hear it moving I bring the camera down the minute so you can hear it right and now it stops yeah there you go you can see it's not moving right let's bring the camera right now so you could actually hear what's what's happening now if this is a common fault with these then I'm thinking the best thing for me to do is do a search on Google and see what others have done to fix this issue right listen to this now okay and then it stops yeah spike so that's I wonder whether we can forcibly move this up yeah why so I've moved that up there let's see if that moves back into the reader position and it stops again so now let's see where it is right so that says to me that that looks like that part of its working okay so I think the first thing to do is just to get a bit of IPA on a q-tip and then we'll see what happens you never know we might be lucky parts looking at it there it really does look very clean so I'm thinking that it's probably been done already but who knows you never know and luckily with fault-finding because i'm gonna find it very hard to actually you know test two components and stuff on this because i have a working one it's so much easier because it means I can swap things over and then I'll be able to pinpoint what the problem is so let's start off by doing that right okay so I'm just going to do this when this is all on so I'm just gonna dip the cotton buds in here and I'm very gently because obviously I don't want to damage this laser I'm just gonna just gently just wipe it just on top there I remember it's all gonna evaporate off right okay and I'm just going to use the dry side now just to help it dry up a little bit now another cells silly but in a way I hope this doesn't fix it because I do actually want to take this apart see the inside of it because I've never taken one apart before right okay I'm just gonna do that and see what happens so normally when you got to gameplay it should come up with the game up here and also that this shouldn't stop right this stops again and just try a different game just in case lovely little small discs aren't they no and that's do nothing Eva so it's time to take this thing apart now I'm wondering if it's going to be very similar to the Dreamcast where there's a potentiometer in there and this is a pot that you have to turn for example clockwise to make more to give the laser more power and anti-clockwise to give it less power now I know that that probably isn't going to be a last in repair because obviously if the lasers die in the laser is dying but by giving it a bit more power you never know it might last months or possibly years who knows maybe it's already been taken apart and maybe it's it's already been tried I'm not too sure in fact I haven't even looked for even look for the screws there I can see that there's missing things there maybe you know what they're gonna be for oh yeah they're gonna be for you can get to a Game Boy you think aren't you that goes on the bottom here right so I'm gonna have to get I think these just use one of these game bit drivers and I got one of them after I had trouble getting the Mega Drive cartridges open so let's take this thing apart well okay so I've got my little game bit driver which is this thing here that's the mall out just excellent obviously I put everything on plugs so that just comes out there like so I can see that it's been it's got a slight tiny little break just here so it must have been drops at some stage right actually you know before I go any further what I want to do is I want to see if there's any red light on this and also I want to see if it's focusing you know when it moves itself up and down so let me focus in now obviously I'm not gonna look at this directly with my eyes because these lasers can damage your eyes straight on and like I say don't copy what you see in my videos because I will not always be doing things in the safest way right okay so I'm being careful not looking at I'm looking for the actual viewfinder itself so there's two little switches here so this must mimic when the lid is closed there we go red light yeah and I can see it moving up and down now let me see if you or the camera can actually see it moving up and down all right you ready on those off in the center of the album alright here we go ready there you go you see we've been up and down right so to me it looks like the laser hasn't burnt out completely I believe well actually I don't know that do i but I believe if it's burnt out completely what I'm thinking is it will be it won't come on at all I think this has all the hallmarks of that same thing as the Dreamcast which is where there's not enough power to the laser because the laser is dying so by increasing the power to it it will hopefully start working again so I'm gonna unplug this and I am gonna take off all these screws around the edge here and then hopefully I'll be able to get to the bottom off this bolt as they come up here hold on the ribbon cable there let me undo all these screws suck it's really nicely made looks lovely it's good chance to clean it as well before that let's see if we can get it working speaking with now had a look online and the laser is only six pound so I would actually be tempted to get a laser for it but if I can do this kind of fix with the potentiometer thing then I would like to do that to start and then maybe it could be a future video how to replace the laser because I'm thinking when you replace the laser you probably have to sort of like tune it in again using that potentiometer so I think what I'm going to do is because I've got a working Gamecube I think I'm gonna see if I can measure it because on the Dreamcast I was able to actually measure the ohms on the the laser but back then I did it wrong I did it when it was still when when it was powered so apparently when you were reading resistance everything's gotta be on powered so I have to make sure it's basically dead I thought it had to be powered shows me how little I know so if I can get a reading on this one then get a read on my working one I might be able to see and then it will tell me maybe if this is already maybe this is at the end of its life now maybe it's been tweaked that many times about to go but I'm thinking if it's a business seller I think that's unlikely I think he's just got this in probably wants to get it out again they're not worth a lot of money even working I hear the goat is it gonna come up no I've got a screw it back here excellent now came off pretty easy it feels like it's not even making a connection on that oh there we go yeah okay yeah let's go down on sit right okay well it all looks lovely and clean isn't there it's looking good looking good alright so let's now take this off because I want to be able to get to the board it's not the laser that's dying maybe it's a problem with the capacitors or something else feeding feeding the power to the laser right okay so here it is and I can see something that I can turn here so let's give that a little let's see if we can measure anything on that so if you have a look if you have a look here yet this one here V is it why why our 401 hold on vr 401 this thing here let's get the multimeter on this obviously this is completely dead and let's see if it's what it reads so I'm just going to go to ohms all right point three five I mean this means nothing to me I'm gonna have to go with my I'm gonna have to take apart my GameCube and see the difference well let me get a pen and paper and scribble these things down cuz I don't know where I don't know how I'm supposed to be measuring it actually let me put its continuity and maybe when I get continuity between there right so if I'm getting continuity there maybe it's between there and there or maybe it's between here and here a minute point two that's nearly that's nearly a full source isn't it really killer arms well let me yeah gonna get a pen and paper I'm gonna write down those figures and then want to take apart my GameCube and compare [Music] 0.355 so there's just one between here and here point three five five killer owns a lot of people pick me up for saying that see why I say kilogram but I know it's about kilo gram and I don't know whether that's just me saying it wrong or whether that's just the English accent but a lot of people were sort of saying you know how her the way you say it killer as in ki ll er I know it's like kil o but so I just that's what I say that's what everybody around me says like killer ohms kilogram actually the DOS a killer ohms because we don't talk about this because one of my friends are into this but it's you know like kilograms and stuff like that even though I know it's about kilo grams so just that's just gonna hopefully stop all the comments talking about it I'm just going to write that down they're there to their point too point three three five so these two are the same as that one point three or ever I was point three five five right okay so just to show you what I'm going across if you have a real close look here it's got three little contacts here here and here so they're the ones I'm going across so now I'm just gonna get my good game coupe I'm gonna take this one apart and again I'm gonna measure what it is on my working GameCube and then I'm gonna try to twist that until it measures what my working GameCube is and then see and if doing that because originally this would have been correct see the potentiometers not gonna have gone out is it always says maybe as I'm trying to think there's a laser going out adjust the potentiometer or has this one here always been point three five five and now it's just at the laziest fade and so I have to increase or decrease this well I'm gonna be D I'm gonna be decrease in the anti I'm gonna be decreasing the resistance to make it more powerful or the somehow when the laser start dying have a knock-on effect and makes this figure lower I really don't know I think for peace of mind I should take a partner at the working GameCube just to just just just to see what those figures are because then I've got something to go like right so I'm just going to fast-forward through all this bit [Music] here we have the working one let's get some measurements off this one okay so that's completely different 140 ohms 140 ohms just going to come across all of them or point to sevens that's the same 140 ohms now I'm just gonna double-check on 100% Huntress ensure it doesn't make a difference what way you have the leads round but just wanna double check as you know force a shouldn't make a difference because you're just measuring in between the leaves on you exit 140 sight look that's completely different so let's sir and that makes sense as well because look a hundred and forty ohms is will have less I don't know one second one second now one hundred of 40 ohms will have less resistance than point three killer ohms won't it point three killer ohms so this will have a lot more resistance which means the laser is not going to be as bright so let's sir let's adjust the forty one so this is a good one so let's keep this to one side and let's adjust a faulty one until we get to one hundred and forty ohms so let me just see now it's just going to turn it yeah that's going to turn it all right so even just that has probably turn sit a little bit so I don't know whether you go clockwise or anti-clockwise I see all right so that's point three is the same as was before let's see if I can keep these on there while turning it so I'm gonna go anti-clockwise a counter clockwise okay and that's getting it's getting lower isn't it Wow nothing's turn it an awful lot though oh here we go here we go why not just suddenly did a massive jump what a hundred and forty three and the good ones supposed to be a hundred and forty so why don't we just run with that let's go across the others if they're the same point well that's changed now before that was point two on both of them that was 0.5 mm okay 142 ohms and the good ones 140 ohms that's close enough isn't it I think I'm going to give that I think I'm just going to run with that and see what see what happens now I'm not going to put it completely back together so so I was turning it anti-clockwise there was right so I turns it turns counter clockwise and it changed from 0.355 killer to 142 ohms well okay yeah what was kind of weird is it was going very very slowly and then it just seemed to do a massive jump actually hold on a minute see this is what this is really where my knowledge is really bad point three killer ohms is that not just the same as 300 ohms in there because one killer on would be 1000 ohms so surely point three would be 300 ohms so it wasn't actually wider though it wasn't actually that far out was it I don't know well let's err let's pop this back together just going to put a couple of screws in it what I'll do is I'll just put a couple of screws in and then I'll just I won't clicks that's the TV I'll just see whether whether the disc is spinning for longer I think I should be okay shouldn't it then get a disc now just in case I have ruined something I think I'm gonna just try this game because there's a lot cheaper than this one here right okay here we go so I'm gonna turn it on and now see what happens I can see the red light through it no still not doing it thought that was gonna work no we're sure that was going to work hmm so I wonder do I need to increase it a bit more maybe a bit less let's just try this try this game just in case you can see the little red light moving there no it's the same as before all right let's sir what should I do now well let me just let me just try some different sir because I've just gone by my working GameCube have a mic do you know what I should have done maybe I should have just tweaked it a tiny bit at a time instead of just going straight for the straight for the other one because it was quite a big jump there wasn't it [Applause] maybe you have to get these absolutely perfect before they start working well I'm gonna go a tiny bit clockwise because I did go quite a bit counterclockwise before see what's measuring now 2 5 2 kilo ohms do you know I'm gonna go with that 2.25 2 kilo ohms 0.25 - killer ohms I'm just writing down as I go along because that's still different than the original reading which was 0.355 [Music] No right I think the sensible thing to do is try my work in disk drive on here because maybe it's not a problem with the laser at all no I know that sounds weird but that's exactly the problem I had in the past with that Dreamcast one that I was working on for days and it turned out to be the board that was driving the the laser at one the actual laser so now this is the good laser here that I know works let's just see what happens when I connect this one up [Music] yeah there we go that's working right so now I need to find out why my one is not working find out what's wrong with this thing here maybe I should swap out the board next and then it will tell me if it's a board problem or a laser problem yeah I think that would make I think that would make sense so let's see how easy it is to take out the board of it that's a good thing about having a working one you can just do a process of elimination just keep swapping well let's see okay so take this one out we're just gonna leave it up a little bit that's how that's nice I said nicely this looks like it's soldered which is annoying let's take this one out here just get some little tweezers just make sure that these do look the same Oh JB 2 2 8 1 a - 1 yeah so these look the same there's a minus 3 a minus 1 but I'm sure they're the same that one really didn't want to come out there [Music] well it was just a little plastic clip holding it in here so let me see where this thing goes off to I suppose and so this is going to go to the motor so I'm going to have to unsolo this anti because otherwise I'm going to have to then get involved in separating out the motor and stuff which it's gonna be bother see on the Dreamcast one it definitely wasn't the laser that was faulty it was some other component I even changed order capacitors and it wasn't there and a lot of people said that it will not a lot a couple of people said it was to do with one of the chips that drive it so you know the driver for the motor or something so that might be the same thing here in my not necessarily be the laser it might be the motor maybe it's not spinning up fast enough but let me on unsold of this I think that would be the best option don't even have to worry about which goes where because it actually says on the circuit board what color goes where brown and red was this unsold of that right so now we're going to find out whether it is this bought that's faulty or whether it's the laser that's faulty now hope I don't get all this mixed up let's do the same under good working one here [Music] right okay so what we're gonna do here is we're going to call everything here good sort of good board and a good laser and we're going to call this the bad board and the bad laser so what I'm going to do is I'm going to put the bad board with the good laser and we're gonna see if it works so this is the bad board on the good laser I'm gonna write that down and no I'm gonna get mixed up bad board good laser and obviously if this works it means that the board's not faulty it means the laser or something is faulty to do with that top section here actually no that doesn't mean that because I've adjusted this potentiometer now so that doesn't mean that but what we can do is when we put the good board on the bad laser if it works we know then the laser is okay all right so you know I'm not going to do that one first I'm gonna do that bad laser good board first [Music] the reason I'm not doing the other one first is because remember I've tweaked the potentiometer and I don't want to damage my good laser so I just want to see what's happening on this one first of all [Music] okay so bad laser good board good board on the bad laser screws that share this on there what do you think yes or no what do you think it's gonna be ready bad lazy good board perfect right okay so it's definitely 100% the laser on the good board so so maybe I can get it to work by change of the potentiometer but with using this board here it's all working fine so that says to me that the laser is bad so let me just write that down Laser bad I'm just gonna try this other one here just to kind of verify that but remember that doesn't necessarily mean anything because I have been mucking around with the potentiometer so I probably should have swapped it round to begin with for a more accurate test so now we have the bad board and a good laser it's working well when I say it's working it's spinning yeah happy with that right so I am now gonna what we're gonna do now I might as well leave the boards where they are really because I don't have to swap them back and I might as well just concentrate now on this one here because I've I've sold them back on now so I don't need to I don't need to swap them back and I'm just gonna keep tweaking that potentiometer to see if I can get it to work but really I think the better job would be to buy a new buy a new laser I'm wondering whether I should take this apart forever sort of see how easy or hard it would be to change the laser now that I've gone this far it looks like we've got clips here maybe I don't even have to undo the screws at the bottom if I can free these clips yeah you can look at that you can just free the clips of this clips here here here those are one there look just here and here and at the back here can you see these kind of clips here just push him in look at that right but remember we've got the ribbon cables that's disconnect the ribbon cables again then we'll have a look see what's on the inside because even if I get it working this I know now for next time what's involved in changing out the laser all right so this is it this is it here oh hold on does this look a bit weird like all the nice few hairs in there every way that looks a bit just all looks a bit vents up doesn't no wonder is it supposed to look like that no it's not look this thing's coming out here look this is out here that should be clips in this doesn't look right at all maybe maybe that's the problem maybe it's or maybe it's all vents up so it can't move freely let's have a look at this one to compare it normally I would just try to take that apart and work it out myself but because I've really got one here I might as well just pop this one off zoom out of it and then we'll be able to see what's going on it would be nice if it wasn't the laser something how it should look and how it looks now excellent is completely completely different so if you have a look here this is how it should be can you see its clips in here clips in here that spring looks nice in this or position it should be and this is what's happening on this one and the esatas hairs and stuff wrapped around it so I think I'm going to take this apart clean it and see if I can get it back to how it should be look at that it's just you know what just by doing that it's automatically gone back into place the hairs I wonder whether a hair got trapped around it and just kind of put a loss now hair wouldn't put enough strain on it with it look at that it's moving nice now yeah look nice and easy nice and easy well let's try to get this little spring back in the correct place this will probably be the most challenging part of the whole thing I get some better tweezers [Music] go up in that little white pit here yes right okay look at that Wow let's see if that's gonna do the job let's put it back together might be nothing at all to do with it but it definitely wasn't right but maybe this thing's got a few faults if I should put the board's back to the original ones just so it's by for original yeah should I yeah I think it's only gonna take a couple of seconds to D solder it isn't it I'm gonna put the balls back to how they were how they were originally while I'm waiting for the soldiering I know it yeah I will I'll do that I was gonna sell test it but there's no point and keep on putting the ribbon cables in and then it means that my ones still original and then this one is you know that the broken one the faulty one we'll be using all the same parts that it was when I when I when I actually got it [Music] this is my original one now so I can put this to one side and now we're dealing purely with the 41 [Music] well okay so we've sold that back on and we're ready to test it so what do you think yes or no do you think the thought was that or do you think there may be maybe when they got dropped remember when I got possibly if this is due to drop damage maybe that thing misaligned itself the weird thing was there was definitely a hair that was trapped around it and it was a long hair I wonder did it just wind itself up in fact I think that remains that the hairs here somewhere just seen it just strain this bit of it right here we go the moments of truth is it gonna have made a difference or not all right let's tell it on yes it's done it look man if there's working but it's doing more than it did before result right okay I think what I'm going to do is put that potentiometer back to how it was originally because if the fault was that thing that was misaligned then there might be nothing wrong with this laser so why do I want to increase the power to it they go there's the hair why do I want to increase the power to it if there was nothing wrong with it because it's just gonna shorten its life so let's do this put it back to where it was so I'm gonna do it a tiny bit more just a tiny bit more clockwise and we want to get it back to point three five five so this is why it's importance and make a note of what it was originally so 0.355 or thereabouts okay point two eight eight tiny bit more I'm barely even touching it there right so we've gone too much Emily all right so let's go counterclockwise now again there just doin tiny movements there we go point three five six so I'm not going to get any closer so point three five six it was point three five five between here and here it was 0.355 and it's to this point three five four killer I'm sis's and between here and here it was originally point nor point two okay nor point one three I'm not exactly sure why that seems to vary so much anyway look the yet the other figures the point three five five is is the same now as it was before so again temporary put it back together then if it works I can screw it all up and test it yeah it is right okay I suppose the sensible thing would be to put it on the TV before putting it all together wouldn't it so let's just put it on and hopefully you'll be able to hear the sounds I won't have to move the camera everywhere controller and it doesn't have the game in when I yet it's there driven all right let me see if I can just stare I mean I'll show you properly later but let's just have a quick look now there you go look at it fantastic what a result so now I'm going to put this back together screw it all up give it a clean and that's it yeah amazing so now what I'm going to do is just do that let's turn it off and let's just turn it straight on and see if it goes straight to the game I won second us because I didn't say I put the lid down afterward let me turn that off let's do it there yeah there you go what a lovely fix so yeah I didn't have to muck around with the calibration at all but at least I know that for next time you know at least I know I've learned something there fantastic so obviously it was just not allowing it to move properly and it just gave up rather than I suppose it couldn't read the disk because it couldn't travel maybe the full length after disk and it was just given up on it well let's put this back together [Music] well okay so that's it all cleaned up and it has come up absolutely lovely look at that come up really really really clean so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to move around my working one and give that a good clean and then we're going to test this out right okay so they're both back together now I just want to try my one big image because remember I both had them apart so let's just see see if the system working fine right okay yes that's definitely working right now let's try the one here in fact this one has come up so nice it's actually in much better condition than my one there cuz my was quite faded but that one's come up really really good well okay so let's swap everything over and I will check the memory card as well on this one here we've the disc outfit just for time well okay yeah so it's recognizing that there's a memory card bear now let's pop the game in let's go up they were going home there is what a result but the sounds working fine I've just got the volume down because on some of these old Nintendo games they are prone to getting copyright strikes yes working absolutely fine well there we go what a results so happy with that and it's come up absolutely beautiful really really good condition so what a lovely fix really nice console lovely to take apart just everything it just it looks so easy to swap parts out on this just the front comes off separately the back does that power supply everything just looks really easy just to wear just modular just to take a parts what with other ones there so I think these would be lovely systems to work on and on this one here it wasn't a laser foot whatsoever it was just the track that was moving up and down you know the motorized bit and you seen it was just not so I think what's happened is this got dropped because there was a slight bit of damage to the side and I think the shock of that just knocked that little bit out of place and ever since then it hasn't worked that's what I reckon anyway so for this one really really enjoyed it and yeah nice clean simple easy fix is a shame I haven't I do have spare controllers other third party cheap ones I know I can get an AV Lee very cheap I'm not sure how much of the power supply is I might look into it because then it's another whole set up which would be a lot easier to sell so yeah that's it for this one I would definitely get more GameCubes in the future to fix because I think they're I think they're really interesting ones so I hope that you enjoyed it if you did appreciate it if you give it a thumbs up and please subscribe for more trying to fix videos take care bye now

Channel: My Mate VINCE

Views: 253,053

Rating: 4.889791 out of 5

Keywords: trying to fix my mate vince, trying to fix series, trying to fix a faulty nintendo gamecube, nintendo gamecube not reading discs, games not working on nintendo gamecube, how to adjust laser on nintendo gamecube, gc discs not spinning, nintendo gamecube faults, how to fix a gamecube console, fixing video game consoles, learning electronics, fixing broken ebay items, repairing electronics, repairing games consoles, simple fault finding to fix things, DIY fixing things

Id: rjW9nPTXao4

Length: 56min 14sec (3374 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 30 2019