My N64 keeps resetting itself! What do?

[MrNelson]

So as of late my N64 is deciding to reset itself after a few minutes of gametime. It happens on every game too. I fired up Star Fox and it resets midway through Corneria, it resets before the first battle in Custom Robo, it resets during the first race in Excitebike, etc. And after the initial reset, it keeps doing it every second until I turn it off. I've had it for the last 12 years (and have been the sole owner), and it didn't start doing this until a few weeks after I opened it up to dremmel out the plastic so I could play imports. Any idea on how I could fix this without buying a new system?

[weaponepsilon]

So as of late my N64 is deciding to reset itself after a few minutes of gametime. It happens on every game too. I fired up Star Fox and it resets midway through Corneria, it resets before the first battle in Custom Robo, it resets during the first race in Excitebike, etc. And after the initial reset, it keeps doing it every second until I turn it off. I've had it for the last 12 years (and have been the sole owner), and it didn't start doing this until a few weeks after I opened it up to dremmel out the plastic so I could play imports. Any idea on how I could fix this without buying a new system?

Dumb question, but did you make sure that ALL of the plastic dust was gone? I'm assuming you had ground it down. If there are any broken bits of plastic, it may have lodged itself somewhere. Like your cart connector.

[MrNelson]

Yes, that was the very first thing I did before I put it anywhere near my system. I wiped as much of the dust as possible off of that hunk of plastic before I screwed it back on.

[weaponepsilon]

Did you clean the cart slot, or at least blow it out? Did you take it apart when you dremeled it? Maybe a cracked solder point somewhere if you did.

[MrNelson]

No, I didn't clean out the cartridge slot, but I did take the system completely apart when I did this. I removed the Jumper Pak (I don't have the Expansion Pak lol) using a butterknife. I took off the case, and removed the cart slot from the top half of the system so I could have an easier time getting at it.

[weaponepsilon]

No, I didn't clean out the cartridge slot, but I did take the system completely apart when I did this. I removed the Jumper Pak (I don't have the Expansion Pak lol) using a butterknife. I took off the case, and removed the cart slot from the top half of the system so I could have an easier time getting at it.

Get a can of compressed air and blow it out. The resetting usually is indicative of a bad contact on cart systems. If you have a cleaning kit, use that too.

[MrNelson]

Alright, I'll give that a shot when I get the chance, and I'll also check the capacitors because that seems to be another thing that can cause the resetting that I saw while I was searching for answers.

[Suikoman444]

I had an issue not too long ago where mine was doing the same thing. It would heat up and then turn off. It ended up being the controller somehow, because using any other controller fixed the problem.

[NE146]

I say get another one.. aren't they like 5 bucks these days?