Solved Fried Gamcube savable?

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Hey guys

So I have a NTSC-J GC lying around and the reason for this is simple.

A year or so back, when I obviously wasn't very switched on, I bought this GC and decided to test if i powered on. But being the moron I was back then I just used a regular wall adapter (I live in europe where the sockets are 230V) instead of a step-down converter. You can probably guess what happened.

A quick pop and that was it for the cube, or so I thought.

I decided to buy myself a GameBit for my screwdriver and I opened it up. To my surprise all of the components, especially the pcbs, seemed unharmed. I'm not sure about the regulator daughter-board though (the caps look like they're leaking).

I also found what I think "popped". There is a power switch on the back of the cube, between the slits under the video ports. The solder on this switch + the hot glue keeping it in place melted and it came off. Now I see two yellow wires coming from under the heatsink on the MOBO and I don't know if I can just reconnect them and try it out. Please could you guys give me some advice. Here are the pics from my teardown:

- Main question: Do I just resolder the switch or is the regulator damaged?

Thanks in advance
 

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jefflongo

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I'm not sure what the switch is for? I doubt it's a power switch, more likely a region switch mod? Anyway it's hard to assess damage but if I were you I would test the outputs on the regulator board separately and see if it still works, if it does then there's no harm in just trying to boot the GC again.
 
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Thanks for the quick reply Jeff. Yeah I honestly think the previous owner installed a region mod, can't find anything about there being a switch there in the stock version.

I'll check the outputs of the regulator board once my multimeter arrives (such a noob didn't have one yet). I'll be back
 

Stitches

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Pls photo

of top of mobo

where the yellow wires go
 
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I fix for you my friend.

No but seriously, it looks to me like a region mod switch. Not surprising seen as I live in Europe and this was a Japanese GC.
 

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cheese

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That switches between NTSC-J and NTSC-U, pal is a whole different board, whereas us and jp are just a resistor in a different place. I'd check the fuse on the reg board, that most likely is your culprit. I'd just take the yellow wires off and leave it as whichever region you want
 
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Thanks a lot for all of your answers guys! I'm currently debating with myself whether or not to bother fixing this thing. Pretty close to start my first wii portable and currently got myself head-deep in that. So I might pick up the project at a later date.

But thank you to all you guys for all the advice. I've written those down on a post-it which I've stuck to the GC so I don't have to come here asking about it again.

Have great one!

btw, can someone mark this thread as solved/closed or whatever?
 
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