In between a few more extensive service requests came this one to simply refurbish but leave stock a GPM-02 SNES. Customer confirmed the machine was fully operational which I vetted with my SNES burn-in test cart, but its a good thing they sent this in when they did as several of the SMD caps were leaking and starting to eat away at nearby traces on the board!
While the shell was fully intact it was quite dirty outside and VERY much inside, as per the usual the front controller plate was also yellowed. I don’t charge for my retrobright service as its hard to guarantee results but they paid for cleaning so I got the shell completely torn down and soaking then scrubbed and set to dry overnight.
Next morning I tossed the entire shell in the retrobright box for a 12 hour treatment, when it came out I noticed an improvement in the faceplate but it was still not 100% back to OEM gray, and in my experience some plastic will just not do a full reversal. But looking better is still a net win!
Got all the capacitors removed from the board and then neutralized the leaked electrolytics and cleaned the entire board top and bottom with ISO and brush. I also removed the cart slot connector and deep cleaned that before final assembly! They had elected to have a Full Recap Service done so I installed all new caps from Console5, cleaned up all extra flux and turned my attention to cleaning all the shielding.
Before re-assembling the internals I removed and replaced the voltage regulator with a brand new 7805 and also put some new thermal paste on the heatsink.
Gave it a quick fire up with burn-in test cart and once it showed all green, got sticker signed and affixed to top shield!
The top shell on these is a bit of a pain to reinstall but got everything back together and gave the shell one final wipe down and then 2 coats of UV protectant to restore the plastic shine/luster.
Once on the bench, let it run for a few hours and tested with some games including DKC! An easy but important job and…
Order complete!