Conference rusure::nintendo

My brother had a similar problem with some of his older cartridges.  Plugged
it in and got nothing but white.

He cleaned the console and the cartridges and they all started working again.

Have you tried cleaning them up?

t

    I checked the contacts - they look clean.  How does one test/clean them
    ?

    L.

I'm not sure about the  testing.  But most stores that sell the cartridges also
sell the cleaning kit.  It's generally around $10 here in the US, and is 
a worthwhile investment.  The Nintendo made kit allows you to clean both the
cartridges and the system box.  

There are other kits out by other manufacturers, but I'm not sure they clean
out the console.

t

    I opened the cartridge (with needle nose pliers but you really need
    those special "star" sockets) to clean the contacts since I was
    getting flaky and intermittent operation. I used 91% isopropyl
    acohol (I know nintendo says not to use alcohol to clean contacts)
    and have had no problems since (use a lint free cloth).
    
    BTW, it had one of those 5 year batteries so I measured the voltage
    to be around 3 VDC. The number on the battery indicated it might
    be a 3.2 Volt battery. It certainly looks replaceable but it is
    soldered in. It's about the size of a nickel. Also the entire
    circuit board only takes up about 1/3 of the cartridge. It has
    5 ICs (4 28 pin and 1 16 pin) and a couple of discrete parts.
    Threee of the ICs looked standard, 2 looked programmable.
    The board was marked 1987 so I don't know how much energy the
    battery has lost over the 4 years.

    
    re: -1
    
    This might be a stupid question but, what's the battery for?
    
    Shane
    

    Re .5:
    
    The battery supplies power to the RAM that holds information about
    saved games.
    
    
    				-- edp

    I've got a Nintendo version of tetris that just blinks the power light
    and flashes the screen when I plug it in. Could this be dirty contacts
    too? I've had others that do this on occasion but after a "reseat" they
    work ok. Also sometimes they will come up on the screen with wide
    vertical lines and funny shaped characters where the normal characters
    are supposed to be. I've had this unit for a couple of years without a
    cleaning so I guess it's due.
    
    Cowboy

    re. -1 
        Those were the kinds of things that were happening to us
    before we cleaned all the games and the deck. Now the only
    time we have problems are with rental games. A little cleaning
    and they usually work too. I got a kit designed for the game
    set but isopropyl and cotton swabs would probably work fine.
    Enough people have used them in this notesfile with no problems !!
    
    Jim C.

    Pfantone (I think) makes a cleaning kit that cleans both the cartridges
    and the NES unit.  It's called Captain Clean.  It doesn't have the
    Nintendo seal of approval but it was only about $10 at Spag's in
    Shrewsbury, MA.

    FWIW:

    The "Karate Kid" had screw fasteners.  I disassembled it and cleaned
    it thoroughly.  Inside was a very simple PC board with 3 chips on it
    (2 were obviously ROMs).  No visible sign of anything wrong, but it
    still doesn't work.

    The SMB-II I had to break open.  The PC board was more complicated -
    with an extra many-leaded chip (battery ?).  Again, I cleaned it and
    didn't see anything wrong, but, again, it didn't work (after putting it
    in the conveniently available Karate-Kid cartridge.

    I haven't bothered with the 3rd one ("Renegade").

    L.

	... of fairly heavy use, and got a lot of relief with alcohol
and a clean cloth.  I'll have to look for the cleaning kit. One thing that
can be a "gotcha" is going in the game box cartridge socket too heavy-handed!
Those "leaves" have sharp points in the back that catch a swab and somtimes
have to be bent to get it free.

	However, I also suspect that the cartridge socket in the box
may also be getting too "soft", as some games fit noticibly looser than
others, and sometimes take minutes of manipulation to get a proper seat.
Has anyone ever replaced one of those?

>	However, I also suspect that the cartridge socket in the box
>may also be getting too "soft", as some games fit noticibly looser than
>others, and sometimes take minutes of manipulation to get a proper seat.
>Has anyone ever replaced one of those?

I have restored a number of Nintendo units for friends and relatives by
simply prying up the bottom tabs on the socket with a tool the looks like
an ice pick with a right angle bend about 3/8 from the tip. Used to use
that tool in soldering, I think you can still get them at Radio Shack.

Mick

	... at my local R. S.  My eyes don't have the near-vision adap-
ability they used to though, and just the thought of twiddling with about 50(?)
of those pins give me a headache! :>)

    Had an interesting thing happen last night on my NES. Put in the
    Lee Trevino golf game and the video was fine but the sound was gone !
    Turned off the game deck, pulled the cartridge in-and-out a few times,
    turned the game back on and viola ! Totally blank screen on the tv but
    great sound. Tried cleaning the deck and cartridge with no change,
    tried several other games with same results, blank screen but great
    sound. So in true field service tradition I took the darned thing apart
    but couldn't see any bent pins or other noticeable damage. Put it all
    back together and it works fine !!!!  FM I guess.
    
    JIm C.

>	... at my local R. S.  My eyes don't have the near-vision adap-
>ability they used to though, and just the thought of twiddling with about 50(?)
>of those pins give me a headache! :>)

Not really that difficult you just have to do the bottom row about 25 pins. And
a small screwdriver like the ones for eyeglasses works too.

Just unplug, remove back screws, then remove the metal cover and the connector
is in the back and looks like this:

       Wedge the screw here and pry up slightly, to much and the tension
       make the cartridge difficult to remove.
        \
         \   
         | - | - | - | - |.......

About 10 minutes work then twenty to find the screws!!!
 
Mick