+Gary Voight Right, that and they would be brass. That would be a very convincing clone if it weren't for the screws and weird 'passed' sticker on the bottom. The case is spot on visually. If it never needed to be opened, most people wouldn't even realize it was fake.
Hey dude, I just wanted to say that I really admire your videos! Buying "junk" from eBay and making restoration videos is a really awesome and inspiring idea! Even if it turns out that all it needed was a quick cleaning to get it working again, it's still always fun to watch because I learn so much from your videos. You actually inspired me to buy my own faulty DS Lite for $12 on eBay a few months back. It turned out that it was dropped and a tiny little chip (about the size of a pencil tip) next to the power jack was broken off the circuit board, so I soldered it back on and cleaned it all up, and now I have a great little beater system that can play DS and GBA games for only $12! I love it! So basically, thanks for putting these videos up, man. You helped me gain interest in pursuing a new hobby that I never thought I was capable of. My friends and family actually bring me their consoles when they stop working now, and I haven't found one that I couldn't fix yet! Keep doing what you're doing man, and I'll watch every video you post!
Great Videos. I repaired my first Original gameboy with the faulty screen using your video as a reference. Now I cannot stop buying junk to fix. I think I may be addicted!
I'm glad to hear Nintendo is 'rumored' to be going back to cartridges with their NX. Cartridge systems are nearly indestructible and basically never wear out. I never liked it when gaming went all discs, as any system that uses moving parts WILL wear out.
I can assure you, cartridge system can wear out. The original front-loading NES comes to mind. Anything with spring contacts wears out as they lose tension.
Your videos are so entertaining I also love weird and wacky video consoles and audio systems ,after watching your videos on repairing eBay junk I haven't your expertise I now know that cleaning these consoles is a large part of the repair please do not ever stop posting these videos thank you
I love the SNES. You've got to get yourself Super Metroid, Super Mario World, SMW2: Yoshi's Island, Star Fox, Final Fantasy II and III, and Chrono Trigger. I think that would be a great place to start. Great videos, by the way. Your channel has encouraged me to repair video game systems as an amateur. For some reason, it is therapeutic for me.
Got one of these in a faulty job lot a few months back. I’d assumed it was a clone because I’d never seen i before. Then I got my hopes up when I checked eBay, then my heart sank when you opened up your console and said it was a clone. I’ve just gotten round to opening my console up and it’s genuine. A genuine faulty SNES Jr 🎉
Get Super Metroid! My favorite game of all-time. Super Mario All-Stars+Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart and Zelda A Link to the Past are other great games to seek out too. You may have to replace the batteries in all of them though, since they're over 20 years old now.
SNES games you MUST OWN. 1. SMW2: Yoshis Island - The best platformer ever made and one of my favorite games of all time. 2. Super Mario World - This is a no brainer just a great platformer. 3. Legend of Zelda: A link to the past- The best 2D zelda game ever made arguably the best Zelda game ever made. 4. Donkey Kong Country Series- All 3 there all great 5. Secret Of Mana- one of the best Action RPGs on the SNES insanely fun also has awesome Co-Op 6. Mega Man X- One of the best mega man games 7. Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts- Fan fantastic action platformer. 8. Zombies Ate my Neighbors - The best Co-OP game ever created. 9.Super Mario All-Stars - This is just a pack of the 3 original mario games plus the original mario 2 that was only released in Japan (its hard as nails) 10. Super Punch out- Just loads of fun. 11. Earthworm Jim- the funniest platformer ever 12. Contra 3- its contra its good GET IT. 13.Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time- Best beatem up on SNES. 14 Super Castlevania 4 - Not the best Castlevania ever but its still damn good. 15.Super Mario RPG: Legend Of The Seven Stars - THE OG mario RPG is great. 16.Earthbound- If you ok with spending 100-300 dollars on 1 game its the most surreal experience you will ever have. 17.Star Fox- Started one of my favorite series on the planet. YEA IM A FURRY SO WHAT BITE ME! 18. Super Metroid- One of the best metroids there is really big game and realy fun. 19. Chrono Trigger- A JRPG with some really interesting combat mechanics and a great story. 20.Final Fantasy VI- one of the last great 2D Final Fantasy's.
The lack of tabs in the cartridge slot were a dead giveaway that this was a clone. You probably already knew this, but the North American SNES had a physical lock out (in the form of tabs in the cartridge slot that would fit inside of slots on the cartridges) that prevented one from inserting a Super Famicom or PAL SNES cartridge. It's easy to break the tabs off (not to mention a popular mod, so much so that I kind of wonder why they even bothered including the tabs on the Junior, it was pretty common knowledge by 1997), but this console showed no signs of modification.
Martin, I repair these all of the time here in the states. Ours (so I would assume all of them) use a 4.5mm game bit head screw. I pick them up all of the time "broken" and 9/10 times they don't work due to people not cleaning the cartridge port correctly, only maybe 1 or 2 out of the 20-30 I've had I actually needed to do real repair work such as replacing caps or a voltage regulator. Also interesting is where the chip you would draw RGB from is nearer to the power source.
I watched you for a couple of days now and I must say I love it! Very informative, inspiring and generally pleasant to watch :). I also would love to see hardware mod tutorials for us newbies. Once again awesome content keep it up!
I'm from the US and very surprised to see at least two videos where you received an item in a liquor / alcohol box. This is prohibited here and the carriers won't even accept them with the logos visible.
I used to work at a post office in the UK. By law we have to ask every single customer what's inside the box. Doesn't matter what the box has printed on it, what the person answers is the important bit. You can actually post strong alcohol here too, so long as there's less than a litre, and it's not above 70% ABV
That was a crusty one for sure! Just shows how robust these old consoles (and their clones) can be. Fantastic choice of wrist watch btw. I am using the same model myself :D
+Polaventris Haha, yeah these hardware clones seem to be pretty bullet proof! You'd expect some of the caps to have at least leaked by now, but nope :) And this one looked like it had been sitting in a shed for a few years! F-91W, cheap, indestructible and stylish! No point wasting your time and money on anything else! haha
I really enjoy watching you fixed up junks from ebay. Let's say, video card is considered as part of game, my request here is if you could pick a fancy faulty video card and have it fixed. Thanks.
One of all time favorite SNES games is Uniracers, it's one of the few games that I actually dust off my SNES to go back and play. It's worth checking out.
I bought an original Gameboy (1989) with a mint box complete with manuals. The Gameboy was listed as having a non working screen. And I suspected it was the contact glue that had come loose on the screen ribbon. Bought it and sure the screen didn't work. Sound worked fine. And then I turned on the contrast wheel. Screen was just fine :D Nice vid man. Game tip Super Metroid, Mario World, Actraiser to name a few. Tons of greats on that system.
Always good to see you! Glad to see you didn't get a clunker, haha. Pretty impressive fake sans the screws! SNES game recommendations...there are tons of great games (many of which are unfortunately quite expensive), but HyperZone, F-Zero, and the original Star Fox are some that shouldn't hurt your wallet. I particularly love Star Fox because, although it doesn't run exactly great, the game is challenging, has a great atmosphere, and has an incredible soundtrack. The version of Lylat in the SNES version is so bizarre and sinister compared to what came afterward. Definitely worth playing!
I'd like to see you do an RGB mod for sure. I have a SNES Jr and would like to do it myself. Your tutorials on these things are great (like your front lit Gameboy mod video).
Soaking in vinegar for a few hours will take the rust off those screws easily. Note that it will also take *any* oxide off metals including black oxide coatings.
I once bought a "broken" SNES Jr. on Ebay. The seller said it wouldn't turn on. I figured I could fix it, but when it arrived, it worked just fine. My guess is that the seller just turned it on without hookiing it up to a TV and didn't see a power LED. There is no power LED. :D
I've never opened up an SNES, mini or otherwise, that was held together with tri-wing screws. They've always been 4.5mm gamebit screws. But, yeah, right off I could tell that was a clone when you opened it up. Even before, the power switch and reset buttons are too smooth. They did go to a lot of trouble to make it pretty close to the real thing.
+BlastMode7 It's really hard to tell, but it also looks as though it doesn't have the tabs for region lockout. It's entirely possible that someone else already cut those out (everyone should do this anyhow), but it looks like it lacks the plastic cartridge guide all together, which I would say is a major red flag for something being a counterfeit. I will say that other than the chips being practically without labels it looks pretty close to what a real SNES mini looks like.
YAY! Glad to see you popping up regularly again on here. Hope life is treating you well. you should do a proper gaming setup tour onces its properl;y set up again :-)
One reason why it might have popped up in your area is the SNES Mini didn't have those tabs they original SNES' had to prevent you from playing out of region games so a lot of people buy these systems to play NSTC in PAL regions and so on and so forth.
A Kmart clearance priced these at like 5 dollars a piece when I was younger. They had Killer Instinct and tons of other games for a buck or less. I bought every single one. Gave a ton of friends SNES units with a small collection of games. Should have left them in the closet unopened for all these decades...
I got one of these. It was not a clone but it was a pain to replace the rusted cart slot. Next time I will use a heated solder sucker to remove it in one piece instead of several..
While that is almost certainly a clone, the screws aren't a good way to tell. Those of us crusty old farts who grew up with things like that Often liked to fix our own gear. In the process we often replaced the annoying proprietary screws with phillips heads like the one's you found. Mostly because we didn't want to deal with having to remove the Tri-wing or Gamebit screws more than once. Because of that, the screws aren't a good indicator.
While true, SNES sold 49 million units and clone systems were produced in at least the few hundred thousand, so it's statistically unlikely you'd find a console someone repaired and also replaced the screws.
I would sugest the classics, like Super Metroid, Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, A Link to the Past, Donkey Kong and Mega Man X series, but it's a bad time to collect for the SNES, the prices are way too high. But if you don't mind picking up games without the box or with little scratches, you can have fun, tho.
I know this is an old video, but my favorite SNES game is the launch title - Super Mario World - one of the best 2d platformers ever made, and then also Megaman X - both of which you can get super cheap (pun intended). I had one of these as a child and its a great console :). Also I couldn't help feel sorry for some customer who actually called the help line on the back of the unit - and the tech at Nintendo who had to deal with these knockoffs.
+jukeman I can't really win. If I show all that stuff people then complain the vid is too long and boring. If I don't include those parts then people complain I left them out! haha Cleaning connectors and motherboards is pretty much the same for all electronics. I've included those sections in other repair vlogs and done specific videos on the topic in the past. Nowadays I try to avoid including footage that isn't really unique to the console being repaired. Thanks for the feedback :)
RetroGameTech :-) Yes it will never fit everyone, but these connectors were very rusty and I'd like to see how you've cleaned them:-) I know you did a video how to clean hardware in the past:-)
Old hardware clones like these interest me a lot... I wonder in what ways they differ from the original hardware, and how that affects the games and the output in comparison.
+Runefox Same here. I think it's amazing a group of people were able to reverse engineer a current gen system then manufacture their own and sell it for less!
Saddly in southamerica, there are more SNES JR Clones than Originals SNES JR, but the clones are much better, RGB, S-Video and if you mod the console can have Component video, and the console is region free, so some clones that has sharp and sony video chips are the same quality of the nintendo snes jr, others with generic chips are ok, i had one SNES Jr Clone with gamebits screws, and a great RGB signal :)
ExtraRice0016 i Don't know depends on the console, for example i had one Snes jr made by Nikita (uruguayan company) that had a generic encoder but the brazilian snes jr had Sony encoders, chinese snes jr maybe had genéric ones :/
Correction to what was said about tri-wing security screws, all home systems prior to the Wii, used a security screw with a bulb head with spokes. Larger but similar to the screws in the SNES cartridge of Wayne's World.
Nice, another system to add to the collection. Will be interesting to see if it was an issue with the power connector, that prevented the system from booting for the seller, or the 25 years of dust and rust XD I haven't bought much on eBay over the last couple of years game wise, just the odd cheap DVD or blu-ray, as I've mostly been playing via PC. But actually just yesterday I ordered Demon's Souls, had tried it years ago when it was in PS+ but was a bit dismissive at the time. But more recently I've gotten into the Souls series, so it will be interesting to revisit it. Was actually surprised to see a couple of Japanese copies going cheap too, which would probably be a terrible idea for me (for what will essentially be my first playthrough) but hopefully they will end up in collections of big fans of the game.
+DaveSimonH I think it was just the dust and rust causing the problem :) . Will stop in at Maplin next week and pick up the correct power plug, just to make sure. Demon Souls was just too much for me, haha. Frustrations to the max!
I just picked up one of these two. Plan on modding it and making it a portable. I am going to have to remove my cartage slot though because even after cleaning the slightest little bump causes the game to lose contact. I have gotten an official one not a clone luckly. I would be interested in seeing if this clone will play games with the FX chips. That was the only reason I was worried about a clone.
hi how are things. very good video 😀 a question. I have that same clone console, the ignition works perfectly and the games run normally, but the problem is the control inputs, it crosses for a moment, it works a few minutes after. sometimes it stops working. Do you think that you have a solution and what would be the problem?
