N64RGB (Tim Worthington) No video or audio RGB or Composite

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qnorsten
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Joined: Sat Jun 03, 2023 3:15 pm

N64RGB (Tim Worthington) No video or audio RGB or Composite

Post by qnorsten »

Update: The issue has been resolved it was a brige between pin 4 and 5 on the PIF chip.

Original post below.

Hello.
Me and my friend recently attempted to mod my N64 PAL unit with Tim Worthingtons RGB mod v3.
The unit has a NUS - CPU (P) - 01 motherboard and a DENC-NUS video encoder/DAC chip.

For cable I have a Nintendo SNES PAL RGB scart cable with luma sync from coolnovelties.co.uk.

After soldering in the RGB mod, the N64 does not seem to produce any audio or video output either with the RGB cable or the original composite cable.
Tested to connect the console directly to a tv with scart input, and through a retrotink 5X neither will work anymore.

Notes regarding the mod.
[*]Jumper J1, J2 and J3 have been bridged as I have an PAL cable
[*]Only Red Blue and Green have been soldered to the AV multiout port, as the console already should have luma sync natively? Therefor no sync signal from the RGB board have been added

Actions taken
[*]Cleaned expansion pack port, expansion pack and cartridge port with IPA
[*]Tried multiple cartridges
[*]Checked conductivity for all solder joints and connection
[*]Checked conductivity for luma from DAC chip to end of RGB cable
[*]Checked conductivity between R G B pads on RGB mod board and end of RGB cable
[*]Checked conductivity between flex cables solder joints on DAC chip and various pins on RCP chip.

No shorts detected anywhere and everything looks ok to my novice eyes.
here are pictures of all the soldering and installation https://imgur.com/a/778s6hZ

Do anyone have any idea what the problem might be? Do anything look wrong on the pictures? Is there any other check you would recommend ?

I am thinking that either something might have been shorted out/broken during the install that prevent the N64 to turn on, or some pin have lost connection for the DAC ship which prevent the sync and composite signal to reach the AV port. In that case I might just have to add a sync signal from the RGB board to the luma pin on the AV multiport.

Thank you for any input
Last edited by qnorsten on Sun Jun 04, 2023 12:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Link83
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Re: N64RGB (Tim Worthington) No video or audio RGB or Compos

Post by Link83 »

From looking at your photos it looks like there may be some solder bridges on the DENC-NUS pins (For example between the brown and red wires on pins 11 and 12, and the purple and blue wires on pins 6 and 7)

Also i'm not clear why there are resoldered pins all along one side of the PIF-NUS chip? There may be bridges between these pins. Did you perhaps accidentally solder the video data wires to the wrong chip initially?
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Kez
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Re: N64RGB (Tim Worthington) No video or audio RGB or Compos

Post by Kez »

I'll mention this just in case! The N64 will not output anything if you don't have a jumper pak/expansion pak inserted. I have fallen foul of this before while trying to test mods before reassembling.

Also this looks like a bridge:
Image
qnorsten
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jun 03, 2023 3:15 pm

Re: N64RGB (Tim Worthington) No video or audio RGB or Compos

Post by qnorsten »

Kez wrote:I'll mention this just in case! The N64 will not output anything if you don't have a jumper pak/expansion pak inserted. I have fallen foul of this before while trying to test mods before reassembling.

Also this looks like a bridge:
Image
Yes I have fallen for that trap before with my unmodded N64 where the expansion pack wasn't inserted properly.

I solved this issue yesterday (the post had to be approved here first). The issue was indeed that bridge on the PIF chip. Now everything is working as expected. I just need to find a good way to tuck the in the ribbon cable so I can add the top plastic cover over the case back.
Looks better than composite through my retrotink 5X on my LG B1 55". Still don't look super good, but the N64 can't do better. I expect the RGB to look great on my CRT tv when I finally get the room to bring that out of storage.
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bobrocks95
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Re: N64RGB (Tim Worthington) No video or audio RGB or Compos

Post by bobrocks95 »

Do you have the deblur firmware? The Retrotink 5x might be able to compensate for it, but on digital displays with upscalers the deblur is definitely noticeable.
PS1 Disc-Based Game ID BIOS patch for MemCard Pro and SD2PSX automatic VMC switching.
qnorsten
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Joined: Sat Jun 03, 2023 3:15 pm

Re: N64RGB (Tim Worthington) No video or audio RGB or Compos

Post by qnorsten »

I have the deblur firmware and enabling deblur really makes a different that in combination with RGB video is real improvement over the composite video. Never managed to track down a proper PAL S-video cable so can't compare it to native S-video output.
Will try tweaking my retrotink 5X settings later and see if I can improve it even more, but this is probably as good as it get for an N64.
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