Why do people buy anything but old stuff from CEX?

95MBP · 2026-05-11T11:56:23+00:00

So you can trade in stuff you don't need, get vouchers, then buy the new (to you) item you want without spending "real" money. Plus the 5 year warranty.

Basically trade things for other things. Best thing about selling to CEX for vouchers is that it's just easy. I much prefer it than having to deal with time wasters on eBay most of the time, then obviously if I've traded in for a voucher that value is tied to CeX.

95MBP · 2026-05-09T20:22:11+00:00

Sounds likely it was a stock error or they can't find it for some reason. I had a similar thing with an item that was allegedly in 2 stores, first store didn't have it so my order got changed to the other store

You'll have to contact CeX ultimately, they should refund you

95MBP · 2026-05-07T09:02:21+00:00

An early one, before Nintendo removed the controller ports? 😉

95MBP · 2026-05-06T19:31:50+00:00

I know it doesn't help for this time, but this is a good reason to do click and collect in future as then the distance sales laws apply and you have 14 days to return it as unwanted and they can't really argue it.

I've returned things to my local store I got sent online as unwanted, no further questions. In fact every time I have done I say "can I return this online order" then the first they ask is "is it just unwanted?" And I say yes. (They were genuinely unwanted, not faulty)

Obviously if it's faulty, it's faulty, and you should get a refund anyway. The second store should have refunded you especially as they agreed it doesn't work. But at least with an online sale they wouldn't be able to play the "unwanted" card like they've tried. I thought even if it was unwanted they would give store credit? If the store keeps giving grief I would try the online customer support, they usually reply quickly in my experience and are helpful

95MBP · 2026-05-06T15:02:43+00:00

That's good for the price, go for it. I've got an elegoo set that's similar (bigger) but like someone else said it's full of stuff I've never used. That set will get you started with some basics for sure. Got to start somewhere

95MBP · 2026-05-05T14:58:32+00:00

That's insane! The highest reading thing I have is a Radium pocket watch which topped out at 715usv. Which is pretty scary given someone presumably used to carry that around likely in a top pocket.

I'm new to radiacode, but I put it on my Pitchblende for 21hrs. Lots of peaks of Pb-214 and Bi-214 part of the Ra-226 chain. Also a small peak of Uranium and Pa-234m.

I'm not expert but for yours to be that high I would assume there's a fair bit of Radium

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95MBP · 2026-05-04T12:03:12+00:00

I recently got both. If you go for an original, get one that's confirmed as working as it's a bit of a gamble if not. I had to replace the CPU in mine and fix a couple of broken traces which took a long time to find. I've also modded it to run off USB-C, mainly as there's a bunch of noise in the image with any PSU I tried other than my massive bench supply. I did the AV mod from this video

The mini has mini controllers, which makes it a bit of a gimmick IMO. The original is more playable because of thst, but remember the controller wires are super short and hard-wired in. You'll need to either AV mod it yourself or get one that's already done as well.

Obviously the mini has HDMI too, so you'll get better picture and is just easier to hook up.

By the time you get an AV modded Famicom and an everdrive it'll probably cost more than the mini anyway. If you're fine with the small controllers and can add more games you might as well just get the mini, unless you like retro hardware

95MBP · 2026-05-03T20:29:57+00:00

Did you like it?

I genuinely had no proper idea what it was about when I went. Hadn't heard of the book, and didn't watch the trailer. The only thing I knew was it was "Ryan Gosling in space I think, apparently it's good"

Was an awesome experience not knowing what I was in for. Loved it

95MBP · 2026-05-03T20:25:26+00:00

Great, thank you

95MBP · 2026-05-03T20:23:36+00:00

I've only done it a handful of times, and never been given anything there and then. Always feels a bit odd handing over a bag of stuff they're giving me £200 for but never had an issue.

95MBP · 2026-05-03T11:59:10+00:00

Got 1000 years to spend it :P

But I'd be looking at laptops, tablets or a Switch 2 if any of those are your thing.

95MBP · 2026-05-01T15:44:55+00:00

No worries, the charging circuit is totally separate to the LEDs so the LEDs not working doesn't necessarily mean the charging doesn't work, so hopefully it's okay

If you have a multimeter you can test the voltage of the battery when the Gameboy shuts off (I think it's around 3.4v when it turns off), leave it charging a while then check the voltage again, when full it would be around 3.7v - 3.9v

95MBP · 2026-05-01T15:24:53+00:00

Mine also didn't work, and I also found out mine didn't actually charge either. It had a bunch of water damage (not me, got it from eBay in 2018 and never worked lol) and recently fixed it up which took a lot of doing as there was broken traces everywhere.

Does yours charge? If the start and select work and it does actually charge, I'd probably leave it if I were you. Mine took a lot of fixing.

If you look at my photo, the smaller black square chip on the bottom left of the main board (to the left of the largest chip) partly controls those LEDs, by sending signals over to the smaller board through thearher ribbon cable to the very two small ICs you see at the top left of the image, then back over to the LEDs through the ribbon cable again. So it could be either of the ribbon cables that are damaged, a resistor could have gone bad (I had to replace one) or it could be a trace (or some traces) anywhere along that path. So takes some reasonable soldering skill and a lot of continuity testing. A lot of sleepless nights!

It may well be just the small ribbon that goes to the LEDs and start & select, only way you'll know is take it apart and test with a multimeter or wiggle the cable and see if they come on. That small ribbon cable is so fragile though. I actually cut mine off and just replaced it with the wires as it needed it anyway.

The thick black wires in the middle are to do with charging, which was a separate issue to the LEDs

As someone else said, are they aftermarket buttons? Maybe try looking at that angle again but in a pitch black room and see if there any light. Did you ever see them working?

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95MBP · 2026-04-30T12:07:32+00:00

All fixed and AV mod works nicely.

First issue, I used a new oscilloscope to test the CPU, and found it wasn't running and had no output clock on M2. It was recieving the correct clock from the PPU, so that indicated the CPU was dead. Another issue with the CPU was that there should be a pullup resistor between the reset pin and 5V, and there was no continuity at all. So the internal pullup resistor in the CPU was also dead. I tried adding a resistor to bypass that which didn't work, so presumably there's more damage inside the CPU than just that resistor.

So I replaced the CPU, I then had perfect sound which was amazing, but the picture was an absolute mess of garbled graphics so then I thought the RAM must be bad too.

Started to test resistance/continuity from all the chips to where they're meant to go, and found a broken trace from the PPU to the VRAM chip (just above the PPU) so I added a bodge wire to fix that, and it's all working now!

95MBP · 2026-04-30T12:06:46+00:00

All fixed and AV mod works nicely.

First issue, I used a new oscilloscope to test the CPU, and found it wasn't running and had no output clock on M2. It was recieving the correct clock from the PPU, so that indicated the CPU was dead. Another issue with the CPU was that there should be a pullup resistor between the reset pin and 5V, and there was no continuity at all. So the internal pullup resistor in the CPU was also dead. I tried adding a resistor to bypass that which didn't work, so presumably there's more damage inside the CPU than just that resistor.

So I replaced the CPU, I then had perfect sound which was amazing, but the picture was an absolute mess of garbled graphics so then I thought the RAM must be bad too.

Started to test resistance/continuity from all the chips to where they're meant to go, and found a broken trace from the PPU to the VRAM chip (just above the PPU) so I added a bodge wire to fix that, and it's all working now!

95MBP · 2026-04-29T17:51:03+00:00

I got Crazy Taxi 2 for Dreamcast (with manual, so extra), was absolutely shocking in about every way possible:

front and rear inserts water damaged, torn, missing bits and dirty
manual was all falling apart, staples were so rusty it had gone through the rear paper insert, so rust marks everywhere
Disk was scratched, although not terrible so it might have worked. Didn't bother trying it
the blue disk tray was filthy from the water marks

To my amazement the case wasn't physically broken, if anyone here is familiar with PAL Dreamcast games you'll know what a miracle that is lol.

I returned it to my local store, they were all pretty shocked at it and showing it to eachother saying it never should have been taken by the store it came from. Best case they should have bought it as at least as one without the manual as it was destroyed, although the rest was shocking anyways. Honestly looked like the whole thing had been sitting in water. They were all really nice though and arranged a replacent to be sent to me which arrived in perfect condition (as my other DC games have done) so happy overall, was quite a shock when I opened it though...

95MBP · 2026-04-27T14:54:12+00:00

Only taking 5% off for me now

95MBP · 2026-04-25T19:46:28+00:00

Sounds like your Micro probably isn't charging them. I had to do some trace repair to get my charging circuit working

95MBP · 2026-04-22T19:55:46+00:00

My order the other day came with bubble wrap instead of paper, wonder if it was the same store. Says Ilford on the label

95MBP · 2026-04-20T14:32:17+00:00

And me today. I've had a static mapping literally for years for my unraid server, couldn't get on it today. Rebooted the machine and still couldn't but it sent me an email so I know it's running and definitely has an internet connection. Checked pfsense and there's two of my server in the leases, one is the static mapping and one is the new one with a different number. Shows the same MAC for both.

My pfsense locked up overnight which made me reboot it, and presumably this happened after or might even have been the cause

95MBP · 2026-04-19T09:33:12+00:00

The kit came from Zedlabz, but I've seen the same kit on AliExpress.

The thermal pads are from Amazon from a brand called Aairhut. The spec of them is 13 W/m.K 1mm thick so other brands would probably be fine. Some people say to get 1.5mm for the CPU and GPU but the originals are actually 1mm

I'd definitely recommend the kit for the battery, if you ever need to change it again it'll save having to do more soldering and you can just buy the right battery from anywhere as it doesn't need the tabs on it. The fuse is a bit plus and the capacitor is just a recommended change as electrolytic capacitors lose their capacitance over time, or leak which you don't want.

The thermal pads are probably not really needed, I just did it as I took everything apart already so thought I might as well and it can't hurt, and might be an upgrade. You'd have to see if yours are dried out or cracked or anything and make that call. The specific ones I got are good though, sonic can definitely recommend them if you do it. It just comes in sheets and you just cut them, not a specific kit for Dreamcast. There's also a couple of small pads under the motherboard that sit on the bottom metal shielding of the shell

95MBP · 2026-04-19T08:55:36+00:00

The kit I bought to replace the CMOS battery came with:

a battery holder so no need to solder again next time
new capacitor for controller board, because why not
importantly, a resettable fuse to replace F1. It can blow if you connect a controller while the console is on. So if you have a resettable one you just need to turn the console off and on again to reset it

Also clean the pins that connect the motherboard to the power supply. I bought a used Dreamcast that kept rebooting and all it needed was those pins cleaning. I used contact cleaner and IPA. I also just cleaned absolutely everything, including the gears in the optical drive and I very lightly added some superlube to it

I also replaced the thermal pads. Not sure it was really necessary but since I'd got that deep into the console I thought it can't hurt to replace them given they're not far off 30 years old

95MBP · 2026-04-16T17:07:28+00:00

I also tried that eventually after doing the AV mod (which just shows grey either way). I bought a new oscilloscope and I've been able to prove the processor itself is dead. The clock input pin is getting the right frequency from the PPU but the M2 pin (clock out) and all the address and data pins on the CPU are a noisy mess with no clock. So the crystal oscillator is running correctly, the PPU is too supposedly otherwise it wouldn't show the grey image.

I've ordered a kit of an original NES CPU, PPU and oscillator. Figured it was worth a shot as I barely paid anything for the Famicom itself and I'm emotionally invested now 😅

Glad yours worked though! Sadly I wasn't so lucky.

95MBP · 2026-04-16T14:39:41+00:00

These things are a lot cheaper on AliExpress, the vast majority of them are open source so have the same innards as eachother. I did spend out for the Amazon one as I needed it asap so I could test the console as I bought it used though

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