Reason why n64 wont boot after connecting controller?

[ihakr]

I've been working on my portable Nintendo 64. It is going great. I had to break apart the controller and rewire it. I rewired it, then hooked it up to the nintendo. When I turned it on, it would turn on and would display a back image. (My display will not even light up if there is no signal, so there is a signal.) But, if I disconnected the controller, it would boot up the game and display it correctly with its full color and sound glory.

Any ideas what could be wrong with this controller?


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[bentomo]

I've had this problem before. The data line is shorted to ground in my case, check all over the controller for shorts.

 

[ihakr]

hey I decided that somehow the controller board was bad. After I cleaned the whole board and disconnected all of the buttons it would still result in the same error. But when I connected the controller port back on then connected a "virgin" controller, it would boot up right and I could play my games. The bad controller may have been from cutting the board wrong. After finding out that my local store was all sold out of controllers, I was bummed. (I wasn't about to take apart one of the controllers from my childhood). Luckily I found another n64 controller board from another project that didn't work out. So I'm back in business!

Would anyone know of any good guides for cutting an OEM nintendo 64 board so it is smaller? (I cut off the D-Pad and AB and C buttons on the original board. I don't want to make the same mistake again!)

 

[Basement_Modder]

Actually, the way to trim an OEM is to cut off the d-pad and A/B/C button wings... You may have shorted something else out.

 

[mymixed]

I've had this problem before. The data line is shorted to ground in my case, check all over the controller for shorts.

Thats what happened to me. Spent an hour checking shorts and found a piece of solder on the data and ground. Then it worked!

- mymixed