N64 & Security Chips ?

Black IcE

Earl's Long Lost Brother,
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I have been in the process of reviving some dead N64 games. One of the ones was a Goldeneye that would not boot. I swapped the mask rom to a NBA Live 99 cart that would boot. After doing, Goldeneye booted up fine. The only other chip in the NBA board was the CIC-NUS-6102 security chip, which I assume went bad on the original board. Is it common for these things to go out ? Also are there any other sources for them besides harvesting them from sports games ?
 

HeavyMachineGoob

My poontang misses Lenn Yang's wang
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Sometimes the CIC goes bad, other times it's the circuit board that goes bad. There are several different N64 CIC chips, none interchangeable as far as I know. The 6102 is the most common.

There are 5 known CICs for NTSC N64 games.

NTSC:
CIC-NUS-6101
CIC-NUS-6102
CIC-NUS-6103
CIC-NUS-6105
CIC-NUS-6106

The CIC-6102 chip is considered the standard NTSC security chip. The vast majority of releases use this CIC, so they won't be specifically listed here, for it would be a list of over 250 games. If a game is not on the below lists, it uses the CIC-6102.

The following game uses CIC-NUS-6101:

Star Fox 64

The following games use CIC-NUS-6103:

1080º Snowboarding
Banjo Kazooie
Diddy Kong Racing
Excitebike 64
Ken Griffey Jr's Slugfest
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside
Major League Baseball featuring Ken Griffey Jr.
Paper Mario
Pokémon Snap
Pokémon Stadium
Pokémon Stadium 2
Super Smash Bros.

The following games use CIC-NUS-6105:

Banjo-Tooie
Conker's Bad Fur Day
Donkey Kong 64
Jet Force Gemini
Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The
Mickey's Speedway USA
Perfect Dark

The following games use CIC-NUS-6106:

Cruis'n World
F-Zero X
Yoshi's Story

Hope that helps.
 
Last edited:

Black IcE

Earl's Long Lost Brother,
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You did answer another question as to if they are interchangeable, which you said they aren't. One other thing I was wondering during this process is do any chips exist that would be a drop in replacement or require minimal rewiring in case a mask rom is bad ?
 

HeavyMachineGoob

My poontang misses Lenn Yang's wang
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There doesn't exist a drop-in or rewire replacement for the CIC or the Mask ROM(s). N64 CICs are custom Nintendo chips and the Mask ROMs are sort of custom as well. They are for the most part NOR type flash memory, replaceable with the right technology and know-how, but anyone who does have those is making N64 flash carts instead of repro carts. Yeah, it would be easier to make a new PCB than adapt regular NOR flash into an official N64 PCB.

Basically, the only source for replacement CICs and Mask ROMs is from other carts.
 
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