What to use as a donor for Paper Mario on N64?
Picked up a decently worn copy of Paper Mario for the N64 today on the cheap. Unfortunately, many of the contacts on the edge connector have bits worn down to the copper. So the game starts after a good alcohol cleaning, but it freezes at the title screen with an "arithmetic overflow" error. Some of the traces are also a bit wonky, but there's still continuity with what's left of the contacts and the pins.
My google fu may be weak and I certainly have very little knowledge of N64 games. From searching the forurms, it seems one member has found that Paper Mario uses a unique board; if so, fml. So has anyone run across a decently priced game using the same board? I'm hoping to do the ol' chip transfer since replating seems like a prohibitively expensive option (has anyone even done this successfully? Doesn't seem like a worthy use of ~$350). The board in question is NUS-08A-01.
Bleh, I'm starting to think it's easier to fix a game that doesn't start at all than one that partially works. Looking at you, Legend of Zelda cart with mismatched sprites.
06/01 Success Edit:
I know I feel like I've hit a dead end when a googled forum post ends with no resolution, so here we go.
Hooray
I took Guntz and Pikkon's advice and swapped the chips onto a jpn pokemon stadium 2 board and now I have a live Paper Mario. Next time I may be more adventurous with a more common donor if I get another broken game on the cheap, but for now it's been nice just to get practice with soldering a bit.
My google fu may be weak and I certainly have very little knowledge of N64 games. From searching the forurms, it seems one member has found that Paper Mario uses a unique board; if so, fml. So has anyone run across a decently priced game using the same board? I'm hoping to do the ol' chip transfer since replating seems like a prohibitively expensive option (has anyone even done this successfully? Doesn't seem like a worthy use of ~$350). The board in question is NUS-08A-01.
Bleh, I'm starting to think it's easier to fix a game that doesn't start at all than one that partially works. Looking at you, Legend of Zelda cart with mismatched sprites.
06/01 Success Edit:
I know I feel like I've hit a dead end when a googled forum post ends with no resolution, so here we go.
Hooray
I took Guntz and Pikkon's advice and swapped the chips onto a jpn pokemon stadium 2 board and now I have a live Paper Mario. Next time I may be more adventurous with a more common donor if I get another broken game on the cheap, but for now it's been nice just to get practice with soldering a bit.
Comments
Originally posted by: AaronE
N64 is outside of my experience area but the Legend of Zelda cart with jacked up sprites is likely a bad ram chip in the cart. Easy fix for someone with the right tools.
Ooh, could you elaborate? When I was testing it, I found a lack of continuity between two pins on the mmc1 chip and the chr chip that showed to be connected from the pinouts I read . So I soldered in jumper wires and the results were the same despite a now present continuity; at least the mismatching is consistant. The pins were 07 to chr 12 and 08 to chr a13 if someone can tell me whether I did a smart or stupid thing.
I'm pretty new to this. I replaced a diode today and felt smart.
Command & Conquer
Jet Force Gemini
Ken Griffey Jr's Slugfest
Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The (single ROM)
Megaman 64 (single ROM)
NBA Courtside 2 featuring Kobe Bryant
Paper Mario (double ROM)
Pokémon Puzzle League (single ROM)
Pokémon Snap
Pokémon Stadium (single ROM)
Pokémon Stadium 2 (double ROM)
Starcraft 64 (single ROM)
Tigger's Honey Hunt (single ROM)
WWF: No Mercy
Paper Mario requires the NUS-CIC-6103 security chip, which is shared among the following games.
1080º Snowboarding
Banjo Kazooie
Diddy Kong Racing
Excitebike 64
Ken Griffey Jr's Slugfest
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside
Major League Baseball featuring Ken Griffey Jr.
Paper Mario
Pokémon Snap
Pokémon Stadium
Pokémon Stadium 2
Super Smash Bros.
The third requirement is a double ROM board, which so far I find is difficult to find with Flash RAM. Paper Mario has two Mask ROMs (probably because it's 384Mbit / 48MByte in size), most N64 games use just one. I checked several Flash RAM games and Pokemon Stadium 2 was the only other game I found that meets all three criteria stated above (Flash RAM, double ROM, CIC-6103).
From my three criteria, you should be able to come up with one or two donors.
Long story short, so far only Paper Mario and Pokemon Stadium 2 are directly compatible with each other, from the few cartridges I've opened.
Now for the especially desperate, you could just hand wire or stack the second Mask ROM onto a single ROM board, of which there are more donors. I guess you could also maybe hack a SRAM board to support Flash RAM, or just fabricate your own replacement board, heh.
If the OP wants to I would suggest to buy the jpn version and its super cheap.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/POKEMON-Stadium-Gold-Silver-64-N64-Nintendo-Japan-Import-US-Seller-Ship-FAST-/151543153515?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2348ad036b
What is disheartening is there aren't very many double ROM games. Now, so far I've only gone through the upper crust games with SRAM, Flash and 16Kbit EEPROM saving, but barely any have two Mask ROMs. Conker's Bad Fur Day in particular doesn't seem to have any direct donors. The best I've found is Killer Instinct Gold, and that's assuming 4Kbit and 16Kbit EEPROM chips are pin compatible on these boards. Such a donor board would require a CIC swap as well.
Now, the only two 16Kbit EEPROM carts I don't own are Cruis'n World and Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside, but I'm not expecting either of those to be double ROM games. This is all assuming there don't exist games known to be single and double ROM cases.
Some of the other Flash RAM games from the list I posted above I cannot verify either, so I for one would appreciate a check on those. Easiest way to tell Mask ROMs is to look for the game's product code. Conker's is NUS-NFUE-0.
Originally posted by: Guntz
Paper Mario requires 1Mbit Flash RAM for saving data, which is shared among the following games.
Command & Conquer
Jet Force Gemini
Ken Griffey Jr's Slugfest
Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The (single ROM)
Megaman 64 (single ROM)
NBA Courtside 2 featuring Kobe Bryant
Paper Mario (double ROM)
Pokémon Puzzle League (single ROM)
Pokémon Snap
Pokémon Stadium (single ROM)
Pokémon Stadium 2 (double ROM)
Starcraft 64 (single ROM)
Tigger's Honey Hunt (single ROM)
WWF: No Mercy
Paper Mario requires the NUS-CIC-6103 security chip, which is shared among the following games.
1080º Snowboarding
Banjo Kazooie
Diddy Kong Racing
Excitebike 64
Ken Griffey Jr's Slugfest
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside
Major League Baseball featuring Ken Griffey Jr.
Paper Mario
Pokémon Snap
Pokémon Stadium
Pokémon Stadium 2
Super Smash Bros.
The third requirement is a double ROM board, which so far I find is difficult to find with Flash RAM. Paper Mario has two Mask ROMs (probably because it's 384Mbit / 48MByte in size), most N64 games use just one. I checked several Flash RAM games and Pokemon Stadium 2 was the only other game I found that meets all three criteria stated above (Flash RAM, double ROM, CIC-6103).
From my three criteria, you should be able to come up with one or two donors.
Long story short, so far only Paper Mario and Pokemon Stadium 2 are directly compatible with each other, from the few cartridges I've opened.
Now for the especially desperate, you could just hand wire or stack the second Mask ROM onto a single ROM board, of which there are more donors. I guess you could also maybe hack a SRAM board to support Flash RAM, or just fabricate your own replacement board, heh.
Dude, thanks for the indepth reply. I'm both on a budget and loathe to destroy games morre apprciated by their respective audiences, so I'd say I'm firmly in the desperate camp, haha. Wiring it up doesn't seem too difficult. Correct me if I'm off base, but would stacking involve putting one on top of the other, bending pins that shouldn't connect, soldering the rest as is, and then wiring the bent pins to the correct places? I watched arcademaster1's video on making a star ocean repro and the backmounting of one chip directly opposite the other was fascinating.
Originally posted by: Pikkon
Nice work Guntz,I opened my jpn version of Pokemon Stadium Gold & Silver aka Pokemon Stadium 2 and your 100% right they share the exact same board.
If the OP wants to I would suggest to buy the jpn version and its super cheap.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/POKEMON-S...
Oh, that's also a solid idea. Thanks Pikkon
But yes it should be possible to wire up or stack the second Mask ROM onto the first one. I'm not sure how the N64 handles double ROMs, but there aren't any extra logic chips on such boards and both chips appear to be wired the same. I haven't tried such a procedure so I'm not saying it's 100% doable. It is always safer to use the correct board.
Originally posted by: Guntz
I don't think anyone is going to miss one copy of Pokemon Stadium Gold & Silver. Japanese N64 carts are typically not in big demand, not right now at least.
But yes it should be possible to wire up or stack the second Mask ROM onto the first one. I'm not sure how the N64 handles double ROMs, but there aren't any extra logic chips on such boards and both chips appear to be wired the same. I haven't tried such a procedure so I'm not saying it's 100% doable. It is always safer to use the correct board.
Yeah, you're right. I didn't catch Pikkon's post before I replied. I'll follow the suggested course of action and appreciate my lowered f-up probability.
Originally posted by: Mog
Post pics of the board, lets see how bad it is.
Certainly
Front
Back
I wish all the marks on the fingers were rust. They're all mostly bare copper.
http://i.imgur.com/U5vCYts.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Fbz5Mk8.jpg
No amount of cleaning or steel wool will bring back boards like that. Either you will have to get the PCB refinished or find a donor cartridge. I don't think anyone is going to miss that $3 Major League Baseball Starring Ken Griffey Jr. cart.
Once you do that, just desolder the chips labeled with "NUS" followed by some letters, numbers and hyphens. Ignore the other chips.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pokemon-Stadium-Gold-Silver-Nintendo-64-Japan-NTSC-J-Pokemon-Stadium-2-Kin-Gin-/151974930139?hash=item23626966db:gcUAAOSwpzdWtUVD
It probably did work, the OP just didn't reply back here. I've opened both Pokemon Stadium 2 JPN and Paper Mario USA, they have the exact same boards. Just make sure you are buying "Pokemon Stadium Gold & Silver" and not one of the other Pokemon Stadium games.
Once you do that, just desolder the chips labeled with "NUS" followed by some letters, numbers and hyphens. Ignore the other chips.
he updated the OP. Says it did work
https://imgur.com/jfK3Iae