Out of the 49 (soon to be 50!) systems I offer services for, N64 will always be one of my favorites. Not just because I love the console itself but because these things are like tanks, incredibly reliable and well-built while also being super easy to disassemble and work on.
Had this N64 request come in looking for just a straight refurbishment – recap and cleaning, but having recently added some free options to my N64 listing the customer decided they wanted a customer power LED too after I offered it as an add-on!
As always if cleaning service is selected, I begin by tearing down the shell and separating into separate parts including the cart slot, flaps, etc. and get them soaking and then washed, rinsed and dried! Knowing the thermal pads will be replaced I also remove the 3 heatsinks, deep clean and toss old pads and pop the cart slot connector off the motherboard to clean under there. Most console cart slots get pretty gross but something about the N64 in particular it just gets REALLY nasty under there, deep and thorough scrub with ISO and brush is needed… usually multiple passes!
With the cleaning out of the way and mainboard separated I get out the hot tweezers and make quick work of removing the stock caps, then wick away the remaining solder and scrub and clean the entire mainboard top and bottom side. I already had an N64 cap kit on hand from Console5 so go all the new caps installed then cleaned up unspent flux and hooked the board up for a quick test. Powered on and video/audio was good. It’s crucial to make it a VERY short test without having the heatsinks attached you don’t want to overheat or damage one of the main IC’s!
Used the super handy thermal pad cutting templates for N64 from GamerGhosts ( https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7266034 ) and with a sheet of 1MM Arctic MX pad material, got them cut and placed on the chips.
Customer wanted a color matched LED so grabbed a 5MM Green LED from stock and quickly swapped that in for the stock red!
Knowing console was working I signed off on a sticker and applied to lower metal shield. When it comes to re-assembling an N64 with new thermal pads, I like to screw together the cleaned up top shielding and heatsinks together, then remove top plastic off thermal pads and carefully bring top assembly down while lined up correctly until it’s making good contact with the pads. This is because in my opinion you don’t want to be setting the heatsinks down with pressure and then have then move as you screw them in (no matter how aligned you think you have them you will be off a little bit) and risk any tearing of the new thermal pads which could compromise heat transfer.
With all the top shielding and heatsink parts re-attached, customer had passed on the offer for region free cart slot so re-assembled the top shell, closed system up and fired it up on the bench for a few hours to check heat and operation. Seemed all good so played some Mission Impossible and that’s another order halfway done!