Troubleshooting the Hi-Def NES kit

First be sure to read these:

Terminology of the parts of the kits

Hi-Def NES FAQs page


First make sure you have a good power supply!

Those 3in1 dual wire snes/nes adapters are crap and are known to cause problems! Feed your USA nes with 9v, ac or dc, either polarity, at least 1 amp. AV Fami needs dc only with reverse polarity, again at least 1 amp.

Main board LED:

It should not be on solid, ever. That indicates a major fault.
It should cycle slowly from bright to dim if it sees a cord is plugged in to a TV. If it is full
bright with an off flash every half second, cord or TV is not recognized or cord is not plugged
in all the way or worn out or bad quality or the main board connector is dirty.

Grey or Black screen or no repsonse:

Try the simple stuff first!
Does it still work through original composite and/or rf output of the nes (no cord plugged in to
the kit)? If yes this eliminates the possible issues below skip to next section, if no try these:
Test with a known good power supply, those 2/3 in one cheap adapters are known to cause issues.
Use a different cord.
Try a different TV.
Clean your games and console cart connector if you can.

Check for shorts between pins on the interposers and solder blobs on chip pins, even if I soldered
them! No, not all pins will have continuity from chip to nes mobo, will post a list when i get it.
Be sure the ribbon cables are all the way in, they shouldn’t be easy to pull out, take them out, check
the contacts and reset them, this may help.
Do the cpu/ppu chips feel secure in their sockets? I’ve had some feel less than tight so I bent the
pins outward and forced them back in to the socket and they finally made good connection and worked
great afterward. This mostly affected red rev kits with the round pin sockets for the cpu/ppu.
Do you have 5v on the nes?

If none of that helps you need to put the nes back together without the kit and make sure it still
works. There was a step in the guide to check this after desoldering the cpu/ppu and soldering in the
sockets, did you do this?

PAL issues:

Firmware update 3.01 fixes all PAL issues.
Go to FAQ for FW and install guide.

You heard a pop or console does not turn on:

You might check 5v to gnd with a meter, if you have a short it’s likely u10 was somehow overloaded.
You can check 5V at r35, either side, to any gnd, like where the 6″ lead is soldered to gnd. If it has
continuity to gnd, remove r35 and recheck both pads to gnd, if the inner pad does not have gnd it may
still operate by using the 7805 to power everyhting again, but fist we should check other voltage
regulators on the hi-def board for shorts to gnd. U10 = 5V, U11 = 3.3V, U7 = 1.2V, U8 = 2.5V, U9 is
1.8V. Only one leg of the small regs should show gnd. U11 can be checked at L7 either side should not
show gnd.

Replacing these is not easy and not recommended and obviously will void any warranty! The only person I know doing it is Dragons Hoard Gaming. Here are the part numbers if you think you want to do it:

5V U10 Digikey link
3.3V U11 Digikey link
L8 Digikey link

To power with 7805 be sure r35 is gone and it’s pads are not shorted together, remove the power wires to Vin and GND, and reinstall 7805. The main board will now get 5V from the nes through the ribbon cables. If it still does not boot it’s likely the 3.3V reg is having issues, even if it doesn’t show shorted to gnd at L7.

EDID issues:

Grey screen on boot when using a switcher or tv/monitor EDID isn’t working correctly.
Turn off EDID and try again or hook console directly up to tv/monitor.
Known problematic switcher: Mediabridge HS1-1×3 – Cheapo little 3 port bought at frys

Video output turns yellow:

It’s lost it’s ‘blessing,’ check r36, it may have been knocked off during installation of the
screw/nut mounting. It’s a 10K Ohm resistor.

No PAL video modes on monitor:

The hi def isn’t getting the CPU clock, since that’s how it determines PAL from NTSC.
Pin 31 on the CPU interposer, that’s M2 btw, goes to pin 14 of U1, which comes out pin 10 of U1, then
goes to pin 29 of the connector.
Check if your flex cable is shorting since 30 is ground, so a 29-30 short would cause that (30 is the
end pin by pin 20 of the cpu).
Also, pin 11 of U1 is ground and the signal comes out of pin 10, so look for a short there as well.
Also, check r12 on the main board, it’s next to the cpu poser ribbon cable connector, a finger nail could easy knock it off.

Mapper specific issues:

Mapper 163 has some garbage on some screens, specifically there is apparently some funkyness that this
chinese mapper uses on title screens that the hi-def nes doesnt like at all. It’s only really used on 2
games that people are interested in: the pokemon yellow NES port and the FF7 demake.
Kevtris is aware and may get back to it for a future firmware update fix.