What happened to this SNES?

[George1]

So I bought a "for parts" SNES on craigslist. Seller said it had a broken power connector and claimed that he couldn't test it, which to me reads as "working SNES for a steep discount". Well, I lost that gamble! Here's everything wrong with it aside from the common power connector problem.


* Distorted audio. Recognizable but a bit "off"

* Distorted video. Recognizble. (in this case, switching to an OEM power adaptor mostly cleared it up. I tried a working SNES and the 3rd party adaptor did not introduce any distortion that I could detect for that machine.)

* Non-functional power LED (root cause undetermined)

* Blown fuse (I temporarily jumpered this with a 1A glass fuse for testing purposes)


There was also something rattling around inside: a 22uF electrolytic capacitor with only a few mm of its legs left. Didn't look like that ones on the board. I looked it up and the SNES doesn't use a capacitor like that. Weird.


Any idea what caused all this damage? I've got a couple of theories, but I'd like to ask the audience first.

Thanks

[Rickstilwell1]

If a capacitor that doesn't belong there was in there, it is possible someone tried to repair it or mod it and failed.

[8-Bit Archeology]

console5.com has a good layout of the board to check on components. If someone messed with it. That site will help you locate any discrepencies.

[George1]

Yeah, console5's TechWiki is a great resource. That's how I confirmed the interloper cap. It also gave me the idea to try an OEM adaptor.


I'm kinda hoping someone will come along and say "these symptoms are consistent with [whatever]". I like repairing gaming gear, but with so many faults and without a clear idea about what went wrong, I think I'm just going to have to write this one off on my nonexistent books rather than doubling down on a bad bet.

Ah well. At least no one jumped in to say "I don't know but try changing the caps." For that I thank you all.

Have some novelty smilies: Yeah, I bet noobs don't post that one all the time...

[Niku-Sama]

these symptoms are consistent with some one not knowing what the hell they are doing inside a SNES?

better?

might be fixable if you could figure out where the caps legs were left on the board but its possible it was junk left behind when some one was trying to fix the power port

[ninjistar]

So I bought a "for parts" SNES on craigslist...

*SNIP*

There was also something rattling around inside: a 22uF electrolytic capacitor with only a few mm of its legs left. Didn't look like that ones on the board. I looked it up and the SNES doesn't use a capacitor like that. Weird.

I recently had a similar experience finding odd objects in a potentially-junked SNES console. I picked this up at a thrift store "as-is" with no power/av/other connections. It had some damage to the front of the case and rattled a bit. I took a gamble, but I thought for sure it would be dead. After I opened it up, I found about 10 beads (some bigger with letters) from what must have been a broken bracelet, a penny, and pieces of the case inside. It was unwilling to die and fired right up!

I hope you can find out what the problem is, George1. It seems certain that someone tampered with it or planned to. Is there any debris on the board? I wish I had some solid guidance to give to remediate this problem...