[Repair Log] Naomi 1, the easiest fix ever?

[doccaz]

So, some packages arrived from Japan today: a Naomi 1 and another NetDIMM, to complement my saga (or torture?) of repairing a Naomi 2 earlier...

Got this one pretty cheap in an auction, and it looks *really* clean, which is VERY unusual:

As soon as I got it out of the box, I heard something rattling inside. Oh-oh:

The heatsink and fan were loose and kicking around.... the heatsink was just held together with double-sided tape and a couple of dabs of hot glue
Since it was immaculately clean, with no fingerprints around and even the screws were "factory tight", I reckon that it came like this from Sega.

But wait, what is this little peg on the corner of the heatsink?

It's... an electrolitic capacitor ripped out from somewhere. I start to think this will be a looong night looking for ripped traces/components...

Well, it turns out that the capacitor was from nearby and was *cleanly* taken off the board, no ripped traces. Even the capacitor itself is perfect, measured it and it's fine. It's C102.

Soldered it back, removed the double-sided tape from the heatsink with isopropanol and added some blue thermal tape:

Checked around, no leakages at all, the supercap is fine. Even the motherboard battery still has charge. Plugged my working NetDIMM and... it booted first time!

The only thing left is to buy another case fan, as this one is very loud.

Amazingly, the clock was set correctly, and there is some bookkeeping info:

So, this Naomi received 6871 coins and 48 service credits over 400 days and 5h of uptime. That's 9605 hours of use.

If was running, let's say, 8 hours a day... that would be 1200 "real days" or a little over 3 years (!!!) I guess I got very lucky with this one

 

[doccaz]

Coincidentally, I had mistakenly written an EEPROM with the multi-BIOS for Naomi 1 while I was dealing with the Naomi 2 a few months back. Good thing I kept it, just installed it and it is working.

As for the "new" NetDIMM I got... well it doesn't boot. I guess it's time to change the buffer chip and maybe the BIOS again.

 

[doccaz]

And to complement this thread: the Netdimm I mentioned had a fried Sega chip, even after replacing the BIOS and buffer chip, it did not work. I wrote another thread on that.

In other news, I changed all the 40mm fans on both my Naomis for Noctua 5V PWM ones. I didn't take pictures, but it was quite easy (just had to re-pin the connectors -- the blue wire stays disconnected). Now they're *way* quieter now

 

[prefabpeti]

The Noctua are fantastic, so quiet. I found just re-wiring to use the old plugs held better (with new JST terminals), rather than swapping the 2 wires around worked best for me. Did you have to use washers/longer screws?

 

[doccaz]

The Noctua are fantastic, so quiet. I found just re-wiring to use the old plugs held better (with new JST terminals), rather than swapping the 2 wires around worked best for me. Did you have to use washers/longer screws?

Yes, you need screws that are a little longer (just a couple mm more) and slightly larger (it's 1mm larger, you need a washer). I found out that you can alternatively just fill the fan's holes with liquid tape and use the original screws. Let it dry, and you now have "special anti-vibration screws"