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?

Just a wild guess: Shortages? Did you try another controller?

Well.... I know that! I guess I didn't ask my question quite appropriately. (I've been working on this (the whole project) for the last 7 hours.) I guess what I was really asking is if there is a common mistake that I could have made. But I guess I'll just disconnect the whole controller / parts and try to narrow down the error.

Sounds like you're wiring it wrong. Are you soldering it to the original points on the n64? If so from left to right they are 3.3v(red) data(white) then ground(black). Most controllers follow the same configuration. Check with your multimeter first though.

Those symptoms arise when the data line on the controller is held low. Check for any shorts to ground, try the controller in another n64 to isolate where the fault is. Its unlikely that the N64 controller has broken to the point that its constantly driving the line low so you've probably had a small bit of solder fall on your board shorting data to ground.

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!)

I know right. I kept all my stuff completely separate from all the new stuff I buy so I do not get any of it mixed up.