SNES Noise

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TheDrifter363
Posts: 39
Joined: Sat Feb 15, 2014 11:44 pm

SNES Noise

Post by TheDrifter363 »

Hey guys,

I have this SNES, from 1995. It's my childhood noise. I've noticed, I think since this year, some strange noise, especially on solid black backgrounds. It's especially noticeable in FF6. It doesn't matter what video cable or PSU I use, the noise is still present. I tested with a SNES mini over composite video, and I got no noise. At least none that I could see at that moment. Got some links to share, check them out. See what you guys think. Thanks for all the help!

For reference, I am using a Meanwell Switching 9V PSU. It has a center negative adapter, then an adapter to fit the SNES plug. I tested everything with a multimeter before plugging that in. The fuse has been replaced in the SNES, and I just did an electrolytic cap replacement, since I thought the noise was coming from those caps. They were replaced according to the instructions on the console5 website, using through hole electrolytics, which were cut down to size with their legs forming little feet. I didn't wanna get the SMD caps, as I only have a traditional soldering iron, not the hod air soldering station. Leaded solder for everything. That's about it for anything I've done to the SNES.

SNES Noise

Also this is my SNES before those capacitors I replaced. Oh! I also changed out that 7805 for a 78S05 with a 470uF electrolytic on its output. Console5 recommended that.

My SNES
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Link83
Posts: 342
Joined: Tue May 21, 2013 2:39 am

Re: SNES Noise

Post by Link83 »

Sorry to break this to you but your childhood SNES is a SNS-CPU-APU-01 revision which is well known for suffering from video interference problems :(

There are some post here mentioning the issue:-
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=43689&p=1120608#p1120608
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=41943&p=810193#p810193

and one potential solution which might help make the problem slightly less bad:-
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=61072&p=1282429#p1282429
Last edited by Link83 on Fri Dec 27, 2019 3:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Taiyaki
Posts: 1050
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2014 11:31 pm

Re: SNES Noise

Post by Taiyaki »

Yeah most analogue consoles might display some noise when running on an lcd, I mean it's definitely not uncommon. That being said if on a crt you probably won't be seeing much of it if any.
TheDrifter363
Posts: 39
Joined: Sat Feb 15, 2014 11:44 pm

Re: SNES Noise

Post by TheDrifter363 »

Aww crap! Really? There's no way to fix it besides lifting that ppu pin? Oh man, I don't wanna do that, not on these memories! Lol. I thought maybe adding capacitors somewhere would help. I saw a post or something about diagonal lines and adding ceramic capacitors to the decoupling capacitors on the CPU,etc. I wanted to get some opinions about that. But if this is a totally different issue that can only be fixed by lifting that PPU pin, I can't. Well thanks anyway Link83. I appreciate the help. Man! I shouldn't have changed out the caps. Kept it pristine! Hehe. It's ok, maybe I've helped its longevity.

I'll have to RGB mod my SNES mini then. This old SNES will go to storage. Maybe one day, people will figure out how to minimize the noise. I'll keep a lookout on these forums and elsewhere.

Edit: Wait, so LCDs exacerbate noise? You can't see it as much on CRTs? Huuuh.....how about that. I might have to keep that in mind for later.
fernan1234
Posts: 2175
Joined: Mon Aug 14, 2017 8:34 pm

Re: SNES Noise

Post by fernan1234 »

Do you have an SD2SNES? One thing to try is to load games from the SD2SNES, which significantly reduces this kind of noise, all other things being equal.
TheDrifter363
Posts: 39
Joined: Sat Feb 15, 2014 11:44 pm

Re: SNES Noise

Post by TheDrifter363 »

fernan1234 wrote:Do you have an SD2SNES? One thing to try is to load games from the SD2SNES, which significantly reduces this kind of noise, all other things being equal.
Oh yeah, I totally have a SD2SNES. It's great. Good for testing romhacks and stuff. Noise is still there, in fact I couldn't find a difference of it being lighter on the sd2snes versus the original carts. It all looked the same to me. Eh, I don't mind. At least I have a goal to strive for, for the mini.
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