Trying to FIX a Faulty Nintendo GameCube

Hi, this 'trying to fix' video shows me attempting to repair a faulty Nintendo GameCube that I purchased from eBay for £13.
Remember that this is just for entertainment and I am not an expert in these repairs. The processes in the video may not be the best way, the correct way or the safest way to fix these things.
I do love fault finding and trying to fix broken things so I hope that comes across in this 'Trying to FIX' series.
Many thanks, Vince.

[@1985HEZE]

vince condensed ebay down to one sentence .... "ebay isnt alway the best place to buy, but if i want faulty stuff , its ideal" . Should be ebay´s new slogan

[@Mymatevince]

Haha :-)

[@Scotty_in_Ohio]

My Mate Vince's "LASER" Hair Removal Service - "No job too hairy - no LASER too powerful..." Fantastic work!

[@nathanmead140]

😁

[@mathewakad2861]

Hahahaha 👍 That's gold

[@rl3d2008]

Wow! What a weird joke.

[@rmt74358]

Other than fun past repairs, your videos, TronicsFix videos have inspired me. I've fixed consoles, phones, tv's, and this week I repaired a 2008 model washer and dryer. Best 100 spent. We needed a new set and they both work great.

[@aliteraldumpsterfire672]

"Imma try and fix it" *IMMEDIATELY OBLITERATES THE BOX*

[@jamescabrie7952]

Just got home from work, made some coffee and Vince has uploaded an hour long video. My afternoon keeps getting better and better. Thank you for your in depth videos, you have inspired me to fix first before replacing my broken items. You are awesome!!!

[@Mymatevince]

Thanks so much :-)

[@colefreddy1]

My favourite gameconsole of all time, so underrated

[@prozac4545]

Just a tip, the GameCube's hub is also an "eject" button. It saves you from having to rip the discs out. Keep up the great videos!

[@GadgetUK164]

Great job! Not what I expected - hard to believe that plastic piece came unclipped on the inside! Yes, 0.3K is 300ohms. They will nearly always be very similar from factory - maybe someone adjusted your other Game Cube previously, or maybe this one had been adjusted previously. But it is possible that they were set differently at factory too. The mistake lots of people make on the net when talking about "how best to adjust these" is basically incorrect and inaccurate. ie. They talk about an ideal resistance value to set the pot (variable resistor - hence VR prefix on the board) to, but often they are talking about when making an adjustment to get the unit to read burned discs, and it makes the assumption that the laser is good as new and behaves identically to the unit they took their resistance from. For that most part that can work, but is it not the proper way to adjust the laser voltage and as a result the laser could be a % off its ideal value. I've got a follow up to my recent GC video coming soon, and I will probably swap the laser out at that point too and perhaps talk about some of these things. When the laser diode weakens it wont affect the resistance measure on the pot! Slightly increasing the voltage on a dieing laser can bring a little life back, but its already on its "failure curve / coming to the end of its life expectency" and too much of an increase only accelerates its demise.

[@GadgetUK164]

Also (unless I am mistaken) when you tested the "bad laser" with the good board, it didnt work - that may well be because the resistance was set for the "good laser" - does that make sense? Generally many lasers can be very close in their characteristics from factory, but there are variations. That's the whole purpose of the pot. I suspect both of those lasers have a lot of life left still, but they each need a slightly different voltage to work properly. That's the primary reason why when people start throwing around "ideal resistances" - it's just a benchmark, or a common resistance that "might" be good for "most people", but not all, and going off a general value like that could mean you end up under or over voltaging your particular laser. At the end of the day replacement lasers are cheap but the original ones are better quality.

[@Mymatevince]

All brilliant advice Chris, yes it was a nice easy fix in the end. In hindsight I should have used some Molycote grease on it :-) I presume because the multimeter is autoranging it flicks between 0.3K and 300ohms. It would be nicer if it kept the same range until it crossed over 1000ohms and then went to 1.01K ohms instead of changing within the same range. I just watched a couple of your videos on the GameCube where you read the laser using your oscilloscope. Have you got or intend to do a video on how to use a scope? I was given one (one that you connect to a PC) but I have zero idea on what anything means. I would love you to do a really basic tutorial on 'how to use a scope for beginners' (as if you are teaching a 10 year old!!!!) It could be explaining different waves and what they look like, different setting etc. as it all seems very confusing. I am sure I can't be the only one who finds it confusing. Looking forward to your follow up GameCube video :-)

[@keithwhisman]

My Mate VINCE I agree, we used them in the army for setting frequencies on weather balloon radiosonds (the little box packed with instruments hanging from the bottom of the weather balloon string train) so we could track and receive the data from the instruments. For what you’re doing an oscilloscope would really come in handy especially for working on old radios, stereos and TVs.

[@therealgrizzly]

@@Mymatevince RetroRGB have done a couple videos about oscilloscope they are aimed at the beginner but also have some depth. kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZnSqpYJjjJ1_bbs kzbin.info/www/bejne/mZDJmn9jj8SKn8k kzbin.info/www/bejne/b6TLdaxmjsdkick My guess is that you probably would learn at least something from them and it´s a damn good retro games/hardware channel in general if you didn´t know about it before.

[@nathanmead140]

@@GadgetUK164 but the originals are from broken systems (i never buy parts that are OEM unless they were extras because that means a broken system has to have parts taken from it that could be used with non oem parts to fix it)

[@donwilson]

I did the same exact process repairing my garbage bin GameCube a few months ago, including pot tuning and rail greasing. It's such a rewarding feeling when you get it to read a game again. Edit-forgot to mention, if you want to waste a couple hours, completely disassemble the outer shell and disk cover and try to put it back together again, it's an enormous pain.

[@Akegata42]

I love working on Dreamcast and Gamecubes. The engineering in those machines is just amazing. It's good enough that I sometimes feel a craving for opening one of them up just to get my hands into it again.

[@CrosswaIk]

Interesting that this was a case of you almost knowing too much and thinking you had the problem solved. Whereas if you had noticed how loose those black clips were, you could have pulled them off and found the fault immediately. I love this content

[@kidstar64]

Nice find. I love how all the videos are very genuine. It fun to watch along as you try and track down issues. Keep the videos coming ;)

[@bob900868]

Another great video Vince. I like how you ask "No that can't be right, Can it" or "Do you think it will work this time?" I usually find myself answering you.

[@herewardofliverpool1662]

lol

[@aliteraldumpsterfire672]

Same

[@brutlern]

Lovely. Really enjoying these "Fix it Vince" videos.

[@krzi-o5619]

Watching him try to grab that spring with the tweezers was making my ADHD kick in LOL. Love watching these videos , keep up the awesome work Vince. 👍👍👍

[@gamingunit]

Nice fix. It's shows that you need to check everything first before doing something. It's a great lesson for all of us. Great video!

[@leruty]

Beautiful video! It seems to be such an easy fix! Also the GameCube is a very pretty and sweet little console :D Easy to work with, just loved watching the almost one hour long video, no regrets!

[@andrewclegg9501]

Exactly same fault on a Gamecube my friend just picked up and took a hit during shipping. Messed around with pot, then searched on here and up pops Vince. Realigned rack and spring, set pot back to what it was, and its working fine. Thanks Vince.

[@Graytail]

Yet another fix under your bet, nice one Vince ^_^ I've not had to touch my gamecube, but now I know it should be pretty easy to get in and check the mechanicals should I need to

[@MojojoJenkins]

Another great video, man! New sub here and lovin' this series 😎

[@bforsyth76]

I don't want to sound critical but the problem was obvious if you had been watching the laser move with the disk mounted. Keep up the good work and love the videos.

[@computernostalgia6293]

I found one at a garage sale for $5! It has a few scratches on it, but not bad considering it works.

[@miked2662]

Thanks for the video dude, I have a working Gamecube but it’s silver and I really want an indigo console as I had as a teenager. Been thinking of buying one that needs repair and fixing it. Btw, nice Tag Heuer.

[@emanuelnewman1700]

Thank you soo much!!! I've been waiting for you to fix my favorite console!

[@Vermilicious]

You might lack some knowledge, but through a simple process of elimination you seem to be able to fix quite a few problems. Well done.

[@Labyrnthdom]

Love your videos man. I do the same thing. Compare if possible and see what others have discovered and checking those discoveries as well. Keep them coming man. And pay no attention to the so called negative comments of the proclaimed professionals. Some of them just want to stand on a box and beat their chest like a zilverback. Trying to oppress the diy guy.

[@TerraWolf_Teratio]

Vince you are not the only one around the world who has an English accent. Many many people in this world speak the English accent

[@Smartphonekanalen]

What a nice system to work with. Good built quality. I used to have one.

[@MaxRager80]

The Game Cube is such an awesome little system.

[@keithcoltron3171]

Hi Vince, I was screaming at my monitor noticing that the Laser wasn't moving on it's slide but anyway you got there in the end, very well done.

[@andymee4947]

Another great fix Vince love your videos mate

[@tempestfury8324]

Late to the party, I know, but hopefully this helps a little from what I've read.... The resistance values changed between the original GameCube (dol-001) and the second dol-101. If I remember correctly: 001 had a resistance value setting of 450-600 ohms. By contrast the newer dol-101 (without digital output) had mfg setting of only 150-250 ohms. I'm not sure if it's because Nintendo started using weaker lasers, or if they realized they need more current. Advice to anyone not familiar....that's a very tiny by powerful little potentiometer! Remember to go counter-clockwise to reduce current and add resistance (measured in ohms). And don't use a good game for testing!

[@cowboyluigi5275]

so for the 101 model, how much would a recommended amount be for resistance?

[@tempestfury8324]

@@cowboyluigi5275 : You didn't read the entire comment. Resistance for the dol-101 is between 150-250 ohms.

[@cowboyluigi5275]

@@tempestfury8324 but anything under 200 will burn the disc, right? or is that only with the dol-101?

[@tempestfury8324]

@@cowboyluigi5275 : If it's a 001, the recommended resistance is greater than 450 ohms. Not sure how else to explain it. What are you attempting?

[@jjeproductions6197]

You rule at repairing stuff.

[@jeremygowan8891]

Great video. Thanks for doing it. I followed the steps and was able to repair mine. The resistance may be a bit low, it tested at 285, but it is back in specs it was around 640 when I measured it. Thanks again.

[@BCProgramming]

This should be good- I've fixed like 11 of these so I might actually be familiar with what you are looking at too. One interesting misconception about them surrounds the "laser pot"; it is usually attributed with controlling the power that the laser gets, but that is not true! It is a common CD/DVD Drive element known as a "signal" pot. It controls the current level coming from the eye (that sees the reflected light) which is the cut off between detecting a 1 and a 0. This can be needed if the laser is failing , though I suspect that conclusion might get lept to more often than is needed.

[@Mymatevince]

Thanks for the info. I didn't ever think about it reading 1s and 0s..... If I am honest I do not actually know how a laser itself and the discs work. I understand how a record works but when it then comes to tapes and discs I am lost!!!!!

[@urbbs09]

My 19 year old niece picked up a gamecube pretty cheap ($20) from or local letgo from a seller who told her it worked fine. He had positive reviews however after getting used cords from our local video game store she turned on the gamecube and started playing resident evil. The 3 times she turned on the console it randomly shut off after 30-40 minutes of play time. I'm fairly confidant just like a cpu and the heatsink the Nintendo shuts down the console to prevent the chip from frying. My thoughts are either it's clogged and I'll need to clean it(hoping) or that the thermal paste is old and not conducting as well as s bad heatsink fan. Hate to order something I don't need but would hate to not have it when I get to it this weekend/ upcoming week. Thank you and much appreciation! Sorry for the repeat question but trying to figure this out

[@Groglor]

glad i watched this to the end. same exact issue. the little screw that holds down the rod. The rod jumped out. Just unscrewed it and popped the rod back into place. cleaned a few hairs out.

[@MoonrockFall2]

I bought a gamecube off goodwill and i dont own a multimeter and I did what you said where I just test and adjust, test and adjust, I may have taken a few years off of the life of the laser, but eventually I got it to read a disc every time. cheers, awesome video

[@paullefur6213]

Nice job mate !!! your vids are so great to watch, maybe i will take the plunge and buy some faulty tech, got nothing to lose be enjoyable to try

[@richarda1797]

I've noticed when British accented English speakers have two sounds with one ending in a vowel and the other beginning with one they insert an 'r' as a bridge between the two sounds. "Aye 'ad an idea'r'about that" "kilo ohms" you inadvertently add the 'r' in-between the vowel sounds. Love the video!

[@nikitasdimopoulos703]

Best channel ever ...........Way to go mr Vince

[@scoobytim129]

Another great vid and I love the gamecube its a great little system I've accumulated 4 now and I just can't part with them. Keep up the good work.

[@Bradenjoseph1]

Hi Vince! Love your vids and just watched this one. I’m sure someone has pointed out but the laser runs on Power which is voltage times current so best to read those across the laser instead of just changing the resistance which assumes they’re getting the same input power. Also agree with previous commenter about labelling bad and good with tape or a grease pen! Keep up the good vids! Cheers from canada.

[@ramen1551]

Your video saved my gamecube i bought for $15, had the same problem with that piece of plastic. Thank you so much!!!

[@mrsestherhouse]

success! great video as always Vince👍

[@lisaforbes3807]

Great video. I work with lasers and gears. Just a suggestion, when I am working on determining good or bad board, I take a black sharpie marker and mark each board either G and B or Good and Bad. Helps me keep track. Then just take some alcohol and the ink comes off easy.

[@Mymatevince]

Great advice, I will start doing that as once I start moving things around I find it really easy to mix them up. Thank you Lisa :-)

[@lisaforbes3807]

@@Mymatevince you're welcome! 🤗

[@AlvinMarin.]

Great fault finding would have never thought it was the plastic getting unclipped

[@TheOTKGameplay]

Great one Vince, really enjoy it :D

[@dildochairs8547]

Seeing a lot of comments saying the console isnt expensive its the controllers and games. Dont let this discourage you from buying one. I go to a local goodwill and other thrift stores. Have managed to find super mario sunshine for $20 at one as well as mario golf toadstool tour for $10, SSX tricky for $10, and less exciting titles like madden and tiger woods golf. Theres games out there, online is probably the worst place to buy as most people will there will have high prices

[@FireballXL55]

Nice fix Vince. Most electronics guys just say k like 10k or 22k . Yes .3k is 300 ohms but it is still double the value of yours.

[@Mymatevince]

Thank you :-)

[@andyb7374]

Job well done!!! Nice music at the end there too!

[@cleanz]

Loved this video vince! The gamecube always had a special place in my heart. Keep on Fixing the (old) consoles ;)

[@StevenIngram]

Regarding CD drives, they read the location of the files from the file access table on the disk and then try to position the laser to read them. If it can't reach the target position, it throws an error and the laser returns to its park position. :)

[@Okurka.]

Table of contents; they're not FAT formatted

[@markfleming7705]

Another fantastic, fun video, thanks vince keep it up :)

[@efkastner]

What a satisfying fix! Nintendo and little plastic gears again... you prevailed this time :) There may have been a bit of foreshadowing on the problem. When you moved the laser sled by hand at 4:14, it seemed like it wasn’t smooth - it was more like it moved in two big chunks.

[@Mymatevince]

Yes, Nintendo for once didn't beat me!!! Yeah at the beginning it definitely crunched a bit when I moved it especially when I powered on the GC. That would have been a telltale sign to those used to fixing these consoles :-)

[@efkastner]

Still working my way through your back catalog, can't wait to see all the Nintendo battles :)

[@etiennevanharen3893]

Finally a GameCube fix. I was waiting for that. A very Nice fix. What a lovely little machine it is. I might find me one for my collection. Keep it up Vince.

[@rays7437]

I bet it was drop damaged. That's cool Vince

[@wassupjg]

Nice one Vince, love these trying to fix electronics videos, wish you showed more of the soldering bits in real time though and not sped up!

[@SonicFreak77]

I love watching your stuff. the length makes it even better. Keep it up buddy!

[@Mymatevince]

Thanks mate :-)

[@emberblaze69]

Perfect timing. I’m supposed to be repairing some GameCubes for a guy and I already know a little about pot tweaking but I’m glad you uploaded this so I have something to watch before I do attempt to repair them.

[@tamerakel]

Very nice thanks for all the videos!!!

[@josephneale10215]

Another Awesome video as always

[@wellHumouredCheetah]

Yes! What a great video! I love your repair vlogs, they got my tinkerer bug itchy and now I'm waiting on two faulty Psps to arrive :P Keep up the great work mate!

[@johnheaton6705]

Great video, really enjoyed it, if you re-watch it and compare the laser traveling of both you can see the mechanism not travel as far on the broken one before you realized what was wrong, I'm no expert for sure (yesterday I had 'GamCube day' litterally as it took me nearly 3 hours to chip one plus I changed the LED for a rainbow one) but I think it does a disc check before it attempts to boot the disc, just to self test it's own mechanism.

[@nicolos.3489]

The Wii Shop will be close at 07:00 A.M. R.I.P Wii...😞😢😭

[@osamasonfan]

RIP

[@Alexander_l322]

Homebrew

[@osamasonfan]

Alex jones true

[@dado2872]

Don't remind it to me

[@joshm264]

Rip :(

[@urbbs09]

My 19 year old niece picked up a gamecube pretty cheap ($20) from or local letgo from a seller who told her it worked fine. He had positive reviews however after getting used cords from our local video game store she turned on the gamecube and started playing resident evil. The 3 times she turned on the console it randomly shut off after 30-40 minutes of play time. I'm fairly confidant just like a cpu and the heatsink the Nintendo shuts down the console to prevent the chip from frying. My thoughts are either it's clogged and I'll need to clean it(hoping) or that the thermal paste is old and not conducting as well as s bad heatsink fan. Hate to order something I don't need but would hate to not have it when I get to it this weekend/ upcoming week. Thank you and much appreciation!

[@spooktasticaparanormal]

Well done Vince great job.

[@jmarynicz]

Regarding your multimeter readings, most auto range sensing meters will change at around the 2xxx point. So anything more than 200 Ohms will show has 0.2 - 1.19 K Ohms anything less will show has 0-199 Ohms, so you started with 3XX Ohms but that displays has 0.3XX K Ohms, turned it down, as soon as it got below 0.2 K Ohms (200 Ohms) the auto range sensing jumps it to displaying Ohms and not K Ohms.

[@Mymatevince]

Thank you, that makes complete sense now as I didn't know why it changed the range when it hadn't left the 0-1000 ohm range :-)

[@rwdplz1]

Tried the board swap trick earlier with a couple identical Sony MZ-E3 Minidisc players, boards both good, laser mechanism bad in the one unit.

[@bino191]

This is one of the best fix it video's ive watched you do......I thoroughly enjoyed it , it was very entertaining from start to finish........amazing fix i would never of guessed it would of been a mechanical fault rather than electrical.......wtg vince well done........and thankyou for sharing.....really good entertainment.....!

[@nickbrick21]

I had a feeling that the problem with the console was what it was at the 4:20 mark when you moved the laser up and it started to grind. Good find on it :D

[@BodziuM]

Great job again!

[@neomanderx3]

Hey Vince, just a tip here. When I work on electronics, I keep a roll of masking tape handy, and use it to mark which boards/items are good or bad. Removes the potential for something being mixed up.

[@tumbles8350]

Or just write on the board in sharpie, can't do any more harm if it's already fucked.

[@CLC-1000]

Nice to see you got it working.

[@Mymatevince]

Yeah, it was a good to see the problem on this one :-)

[@gexo7829]

Wow, that's amazing! I live in Italy and a gamecube working with audio/video cable and controller it cost about 70-80€ or more than that :/ And a not working console at this price is really impossible D: (You are so lucky! :)

[@MastelCat]

Vince you should make a review of your soldering station! I also have 853D solderig station and it's a really good station

[@mahlapropyzm9180]

The Vincemeister wins again!

[@Jack29165]

I always say killer grams, I never even knew anyone said keelow grams lol

[@stevenwalsh3052]

Same

[@KorAllRBare]

Ditto

[@herewardofliverpool1662]

I`m the same lol

[@Operational117]

In Norwegian, we say "Sheeloo grams".

[@boxman139]

I've never met anyone that hasn't said it that way. Funny how the minority of people who say it that way seem to watch his videos.

[@BadBlenderProjects]

My guess was off (I thought it might of been a motor problem since the faulty GC sounded worse spinning up) though it's nice that it was a simple fix.

[@tprshadowlp6306]

Awesome! Lovely fix 😊

[@TheDemoniusX]

I love these. they are ASMR type of videos. See you on the next one!

[@AlvisWuNewYorkCity]

Great work on fixing it =)

[@mullinsjm1]

Yay! A retro console fix it vid!

[@maxpain895]

Nice repair,turned out to be an easy fix.I want to suggest a repair product for you,it is called Hirundo glass repair kit.This was originally for windshield /windscreen repair,I know a little british,lol,turns out it works fantastic on cracked phone and tablet screens.I have a friend that repairs phones and tablets,he has been using it and so far so good.Thought maybe something you would like to try out down the road.

[@coltonbosse58]

Yay been waiting for this

[@herewardofliverpool1662]

I`m from Liverpool and we often say "Killagram" lol...As usual I learnt a bit more knowledge from your videos:) .....Always check the mechanism first:)

[@poeskey]

I was wondering if you could link the soldering iron and the rubber mat that you use. I've been trying to find a good cheap entry level soldering iron to use for project repairs and am not sure which one to go with.

[@otacon4065]

amazing mate, i used to take apart my ps2's and 360's etc and mod or fix them. you deserve to have more views and subs!

[@DragonProtector]

wow amazing :). Very simple cleaning did the job lol

[@PMcDFPV]

Not sure if you wanna get into the mod stuff, but in watching your skills grow..... and help mine! thank you so much.... you have the ability to, and its quite fun :)

[@kennymorton2416]

good work great vid . where can i get your blue work mat ?

[@DaMu24]

As much as Vince wants to take apart this Gamecube, I don't want to hear my doctor say "You know, I hope these antibodies don't make you feel better, because I kinda want to perform surgery on you."

[@coondogtheman]

#1 rule, check everything mechanical first before heading to the electronics.

[@steveh9229]

Enjoyed this Vince & Double Dash is the best Mario kart in my opinion I also have 2 GameCube consoles & the black console stopped reading discs only 2 months old still have it in it’s Mario kart box so basically still brand new but I couldn’t get a direct replacement at the time so went out & purchased a purple console that came with Donkey Konga & still have that too

[@trevs1218]

Hi Vince, now that you got the Gamecube working you should look into the HDMI mod. I've seen videos of people taking out the digital out connector and replacing it with an HDMI port. I'm looking into it myself but it would be cool if you were to try it out as well!

[@Mymatevince]

Thanks for the idea :-)

[@christianh.6598]

You do a really great Job , really good. Go on i like your Videos so much ist a Kind of Logical thinking i really like so much

[@paullefur6213]

Nice job matey kudos to you !!

[@baleia]

My GC has similar problem, I tried messing with the potentiometer but had no luck, I thought about buying a new laser and swap but it might be that my GC has the same problem as yours do Thanks for the video, I'll check the laser first

[@arnoldwalt4962]

Vince my favorite Tech guy... How are you doing brother

[@neblin7]

Very nice fix!!!!

[@TheSlysterII]

Great video as always Vince, and a great fix too, although I am worried that with all this hair you are finding, you will leave this vocation, and start up your own "How to fix your wig" or" My Mate Wig.com channel lol! :)