Game console repair stories from a small bench in Montréal.
I buy retro game consoles that don’t work, fix them, clean them up and find them a new home. This is where I write down how each one went, with the photos to prove it.
BeforeAfterSold with "some glitches". The glitches turned out to be my TV, which couldn't follow the Genesis's wider picture mode over RF. With nothing to fix, this Model 1 got new capacitors and a triple bypass, a small board that gives it a clean picture and sound.
Read the storyThis SCPH-7501 started by playing an audio CD and Final Fantasy Origins. Then it stopped at the PlayStation logo, and the disc hub came out with the game. A new disc reader got it through an old save and one more movie.
My first attempt at retrobrighting, on a free NES that couldn't reliably read cartridges. The original connector got the games running again. Getting the shell back to grey took several days, and cost it a little of its Nintendo logo.
Sold as "doesn't recognize discs", this SCPH-9001 booted every game I put in it. A slightly slow audio CD, one pass over the lens and a soapy bath later, it's back in service.
This SCPH-9001 came from Québec City in a two-console bundle sold for parts, because neither console would read the seller's disc. Mine, it read all of them. What was left was dust, a rattle, and somebody else's handiwork inside.
The first console I brought back. A PSone covered in spark plug stickers, sold as a non-reader, with a picture full of noise. The drive was fine. The real problem was a modchip a previous owner had stuck to the board with hot glue instead of solder.
Every dollar of profit from these consoles goes toward getting my girlfriend and me to the 2027 world karate championship in Japan.
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