The Blog

Sega TeraDrive IBM WDL-330P 30 MB Hard Drive Overview

Nix McRetro // 18th July 2013 // Categories: Sega, YouTube

Just some poking around at how these hard drives were put together, nothing terribly exciting but figured the internet should have more on these WDL-330P drives. I’ve managed to accumulate three of them, and they’re rather interesting little pieces of IBM hardware. The drives are 30 MB models that can... Continue reading

Damaged S-MIX on a SNES SNSP-CPU-1CHIP-02 Mainboard

Nix McRetro // 13th July 2013 // Categories: Nintendo, Repairs

Damaged S-MIX on a SNES SNSP-CPU-1CHIP-02 Mainboard

As you can see there is a hole blown through the S-MIX chip at U10. The following repair attempt will proceed in the next few weeks. I originally labelled this board SNSP-CPU-02. In my 2016 follow-up, I identified the photographed board as SNSP-CPU-1CHIP-02; the photo also shows its S-APU at... Continue reading

Super Nintendo Serial UP15971140 PPU1 Trace Repair

Nix McRetro // 11th July 2013 // Categories: Nintendo, Repairs, YouTube

Here we go repairing the traces on Super Nintendo UP15971140 that were corroded away by an unknown liquid, probably many eons ago. This is the one that was producing some rather spectacular video distortion, and after poking around with the multimeter I’ve managed to narrow things down to three damaged... Continue reading

Super Nintendo Serial UP17548016 Capacitor Replacement

Nix McRetro // 11th July 2013 // Categories: Nintendo, Repairs, YouTube

We are recapping a 1CHIP SNES today and here’s the process I follow and, as a general rule, follow whenever I do some recapping. I personally prefer radial electrolytics to SMD electrolytics. It doesn’t look as pretty, but at the time I expected them to last a little longer than... Continue reading

Tips on Removing SMD Electrolytic Capacitors

Nix McRetro // 11th July 2013 // Categories: Repairs, YouTube

Here’s what I do when removing SMD capacitors from boards. So far I’ve had two lifted pads. One was the very first I removed (whoops!) and the latest was on a SNES where corrosion had weakened the trace and pad. You can’t win them all, just hope you have a... Continue reading