Hardware So, the SNES is slightly overclocking every year.

[Myoon_Island]

Apparently, the Super Nintendo has been overclocking slightly every year. And it's just been found out now. What are your thoughts?

Here is the article: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/su...ook-until-2025-for-the-snes-fandom-to-notice/

 

[Cranesbill]

I don’t like how some news sites treating it like good news

Oooh your SNES is faster the older it gets

When in reality it’s being put in more strain, risking it to be broken. I’m sure it’s some simple fix, but it is gonna be concerning on how more of these are gonna be affected in the future.

 

[tech3475]

I wonder if this is related to the failing IC issue? One of my SNESs died for no apparent reason and IIRC the SD2SNES diag report says there is a clock issue, even though the master clock is fine.

 

[RAHelllord]

I don’t like how some news sites treating it like good news

Oooh your SNES is faster the older it gets

When in reality it’s being put in more strain, risking it to be broken. I’m sure it’s some simple fix, but it is gonna be concerning on how more of these are gonna be affected in the future.

I don't think the clock shifting is causing too much strain on the hardware at this point, so far the biggest deviation found is merely a 0.57% increase in effective clock speed, which is barely any extra power and thus heat going through the circuitry.

But yeah, eventually it might get bad enough to cause the IC to burn out, so hopefully someone figures out what part is causing it, and that there will be replacement parts that can just be swapped in for it.

 

[Afeohtan]

Compare that with the fact on how some early models fail because of capacitors was it? Something about them being based on an incomplete design.

 

[tech3475]

Compare that with the fact on how some early models fail because of capacitors was it? Something about them being based on an incomplete design.

Sounds like you're thinking of 'capacitor plague', which is different to capacitors leaking due to age and wasn't an issue until after the SNES.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague?wprov=sfla1

 

[skawo]

Sounds like you're thinking of 'capacitor plague', which is different to capacitors leaking due to age and wasn't an issue until after the SNES.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague?wprov=sfla1

Well, the early SNESes very much have leaky caps either way.

Whether this contributes to the failure of the ICs on the board, is not so certain. I would say that it's just a certain batch of the chips that goes bad (most notoriously the CPU-As) - the ICs in earliest SNESes, with CPU-(norev) are usually fine, despite the caps disintegrating.

 

[tech3475]

Well, the early SNESes very much have leaky caps either way.

Whether this contributes to the failure of the ICs on the board, is not so certain. I would say that it's just a certain batch of the chips that goes bad (most notoriously the CPU-As) - the ICs in earliest SNESes, with CPU-(norev) are usually fine, despite the caps disintegrating.

I was referring more to the 'incomplete design' part of their comment, which is to my knowledge the common reason given for the plague.

I personally go with the silicon degrading over time as I've seen similar elsewhere e.g. C64, etc. I have a couple of Mega Drives where the sound mixer/amplifier (CXA1034P) has partially failed.

On a side note....guess what revision CPU my faulty SNES has.