So, I picked up an SNES in a lot of gaming items today. It is the first revision with that full SHVC sound module inside. I bought it because it felt unusually heavy, and there were 3 wires hanging out of the expansion port- the wires are connected to one of those standard CPU wire harnesses like you’d power a computer’s fan with. Being so heavy, I thought maybe it was some crazy hard drive mod. In addition, the serial number sticker is a smaller silver variety and closer to the front side of the bottom panel (not the black and white paper sticker like my others have).
AND the Nintendo service sticker on the back is printed in red ink, with some laminated cover which I’d never seen before- plus it looks different from my others as well.
Upon opening it, there’s no hard drive haha…but the three wires are still a mystery. Two go to the expansion port pins on the PCB’s top side, pins 20 and 23 which are voltage and ground (or vice versa). The third goes to pin 10 on that chip behind the reset switch, maybe the Nintendo F411 IC? I don’t have it with me at the moment, but I think that pin was for the reset signal itself.
It seems like a really early system, could these wires be for some kind of testing purposes? Like a remote reset function or maybe to power some add-on peripheral?? Otherwise, the board looked like a standard revision as far as I can tell . I took some high-res pics which I’ll post later today…
edit: I forgot to mention that the wires look to be soldered fairly professionally, and were neatly zip-tied to the plastic columns inside where the system screws together. The wire by the reset button isn’t actually on the chip itself, the #10 pin seems to be soldered through to the PCB bottom, and a trace runs about an 1/8″ to where the wire is actually connected in another through-hole pad.
