I brought my NES out of retirement around 10 years ago and it had the blinking light problem. I was told about boiling the connector but thought I was getting pranked and just chucked it and bought a 3rd party connector. It worked fine for quite a few years but ended up getting replaced again but it lasted less than half as long. I replaced it again in June this year and it lasted about 3 months. Because I was tired of replacing the connectors with declining quality I bought a bulk lot of old 1st party connectors. They arrived this week and so far I've tried two of them. They were either giving grey screens, garbled screens or would only work with the cartridge up. After boiling them they worked much better, some games take a couple of goes but most work straight away. I'm a true believer now. 😁
Thank you Sir. Your videos helped me get my old NES working. I was holding out for the new NES Classic, but when they became unobtainable, I went back to the old original. Never would have guessed boiling water would solve all my problems.
As for adjustment to make the cart stay seated when you press it down? Try loosening the outer case screw on the the bottom that sits under the front/center of the console. The only screw that isn't in a corner. It should only a single turn or so. Eventually the loading tray should stay seated every time.
The screws is not the problem, you have to make sure that the dock overlaps the motherboard, so a tiny part of the dock gets under the motherborad when you put it back together.
Thanks for this great video! I have repaired and refurbished hundreds of NES consoles and 72 pin connectors and have many different methods which all work but after boiling a few 72 Pin connectors I have managed to salvage many of them! It really works. Now I boil all my connectors and I'm 99% on fixing them. Thank You so much. I don't know the science but I assume the boiling removes all dirt and grime and everything dirty to a polished shine. You DA MAN! Thanks!!!
awesome. I emailed w/ a PhD materials scientist and he said it's possible that the heat is straightening the pins back to their original positions. I don't think it's really about the cleaning action but maybe. The ones that boiling doesn't fix you can manually straighten the pins. I made another video on that.
The boiling water certainly will clean the connector somewhat. So it's combo action. I still would advise the Isopropyl alcohol soaked cloth covered plastic card cleaning method afterwards -- no such thing as too clean.
+dave s (EightBitKnight) I found out after I made the video that there's no need to suspend the part. As long as there's water in the pan, the highest temperature will be the boiling point of water.
Well to answer your problem about the cartridge tray not staying down, when you reassembled the unit at the front do not tighten the screws all the way down. Once you've tested the tray without the cover and the cartridge stays down i would advise to back out the screws about another quarter to a half turn so that once you place the cover back on you shouldn't have any issues.
Hey 8bitjunkie, nice video. The problem you're having with the tray not sticking is usually caused by too much or not enough tension in the front, center screw on the bottom of the NES. That's why it worked fine without the cover on. Try adjusting that screw for more consistent results. I liked the idea of gathering statistics. I think that the take-away from the statistics is that a boiled 72-pin connector will help the NES read clean cartridges more consistently, but even the cleanest 72-pin connector can't read a sufficiently dirty game.
Hmm... interesting. That sounds like it might have been part of the problem. But what do you think about this: with the tray taken completely out, it was behaving basically the same way - maybe latched 50% of the time. After studying it for a while, I shimmed the right side of the tray with a plastic card and now it works 100% of the time. Thanks!
8bitjunkie Ah, with the lid removed, if the issue still occurs then it's most likely a problem of the front 2 screws on the tray being over-tightened. Loosening them up a couple turns will normally resolve that problem. The back 2 screws need to be fairly tight though in my experience. :)
The problem is not tension; it's that you need to hook the cartridge tray under the motherboard when you reassemble everything. I fix countless NES systems at work and most of the time if it's been disassembled previously, the person has not reattached it properly and this can result in the cartridge tray deforming and being much harder to put back together properly. The screws should be screwed in completely and the tray should have its lip hooked under the motherboard.
just a tip, I recently thought of this myself, the contact pins of the cartridges oxidise over time which is why they need to be cleaned, what I did was I went out to a local grocery store and bought some sandwich bags, now you may ask why, but think of it sandwich bags are airtight so when you put something like a game cartridge into a sandwich bag and the bag is sealed up no air can get in at the contact points to cause them to oxidise.
Interesting. I thought about doing this. But instead I manually pulled out the top pins and bent them down a little to increase the pressure they put down on the cart. (you can pop them out if you press on the top of them. There's a line of holes on top that show how the top pins stay in.) They flatten out over the years and can cause contact issues. It helps that you don't leave a cart inserted for an extended period of time. Pull them out when the NES isn't used and that will help it last longer. (it's also pretty important to keep the carts clean) I found my NES at a pawn shop a week or so ago for around $80 (but was able to talk them down to $70) and the Mario game I got for it refused to work. But after I did that, it worked every time I inserted it. :D There may be extreme cases where you have to fix the bottom pins to but didn't have to touch those on mine. :P The interesting thing about the NES I got at that pawn shop was that it already had the lockout chip disabled and the doofus who did it wired the controller ports backwards when he put it all back together. Player 1 port was connected to the player 2 port on the motherboard. lol. Not sure how he managed to do that when you don't really have to fully disconnect the board to do the mod. You don't even have to remove the board from NES. Just have to remove the RF shield and it's accessible from there. :P
Perhaps a few years ago. but now a days that's what a full NES system runs for. Probably would cost more elsewhere. There was a retroshop selling a NES for similar price but it didn't come with lightgun and only had one controller I think. :P
Fixing lock out chip is only a band aid fix, and quite an invasive band aid. Boiling is easy and it works. I fixed 2 NES to both read games almost perfectly. Tip: I find NES games read better the further you have the game from the back of the NES. Anyone else notice this?
I would stab a hobo to have my gold Zelda cart back. It seems like the second me and my brother moved out of our parents' house, my mom just put our childhood into trash bags and threw it in the dumpster... Luckily, I just so happened to be dumpster diving my own parents dumpster one day a few years ago and found an SNES, Sega, N64, 2 Game Cubes, and a NES/SNES Yobo thing - but the carts were nowhere to be found. What are the odds? I've dumpster dove them exactly one time. Also, recently, I mentioned to my cousin about wanting to reunite with my old consoles and he was like: "There's a Nintendo and a Super Nintendo just laying in my yard..." - I was like what in the holy hell... The ingrate had been shooting the SNES with a BB gun and had more-or-less destroyed it. And the NES, while unharmed by the BB gun, had eaten it pretty bad from the elements. This is the same cousin who took our grandpa's original Beatles White Album and frisbeed it off his second story balcony along with several other records, shot out the windows of some of his old antique cars, and ruined the ignition of my grandpa's baby - a 1965 Mustang - with a screwdriver while, I assume, attempting to "borrow" it.. (granted, he was super young and had scary little supervision for most of his life). And as a matter of fact, I think this cousin might have ended up with most of my old consoles as hand-me-downs as I upgraded to newer stuff.. Prob my NES and SNES in his yard lmao...The past few days, I've had the NES apart cleaning it, re-soldering all the joints, re-wiring broken wires, etc.. When I first started on it, it was full of dirt/mud, bugs, corrosion, rust, & chewed up wires - the solder was black and wouldn't melt at first and the pcb had blotches of black filth all over it... All of this highlights my level of desperation to re-acquire my old consoles. lol. Truly, 99% of people, regardless of electronic repair skill, would have considered it a lost cause - and rightfully so... Anyway, fixing said connector is what brings me here... Damn... that was a tangent... I've been typing for like an hour lol... I become very talkative and afford absurdly detailed accounts when I take my pills (which are already starting to wear off, this comment has taken so long to type..)...lmao... Oh well, all in good fun... Carry on
I've had an issue with the brown (gray, in my case) screen whenever starting Legend of Zelda through my old Game Genie. Works fine without the GG, and all other games work fine both with and without the GG, so I'm chasing connection issues. I'm fairly certain my NES, which I've rebuilt from scratch using a NESessity 1.4 and Hi-Def NES kit, still has the OEM connector since I saw no evidence of the console having been opened up in the past. So as part of my troubleshooting I'll be doing the boiling trick (seems about 30 minutes is the ideal time for the metal to "relax" back to its manufactured position the best), followed by cleaning it and all my cartridge and GG connectors with DeOxIt F5. Next step will be replacing the small caps in the LoZ cartridge, which will suck since my son will lose his game save after I've already replaced the battery, but a necessary sacrifice if he wants to use the GG......
The reason why your slot wont stay down is because you tighted the screws too much. Just loosten the screws a bit and it should work. Great video by the way. Super helpfull.
clipping the lockout chip removes one hassle in the diagnostics, because even if you did everything else...how do you test the chip? clip it. after clipping and cleaning and stuff, i know mine is down to pin contacts, so time to do dentistry on the pins.
Boiling alone might work on a dirty connector, but in my experience it does nothing for a connector that's lost the tension in its pins. And it's mighty simple to re-tension them. I go ahead and do that, then boil. This results in working connectors 100% of the time. If I had to choose one way or the other, though, it would be re-tensioning. The cleanest, most immaculately spotless connector in the world is worthless if the pins aren't making contact with the pins of the cartridge.
+ShmupShmupPewPew I don't think boiling does much in the way of cleaning. The heat expands the metal and causes the springs to stiffen slightly. If they were slightly loose, then boiling works. If they were very loose, you have to bend them back; I made another video on how to do that. I guess I could test that theory if I had a lab oven that could heat at ~100 C without going over; the plastic will melt at temperatures slightly over that.
This doesn't seem like it's any less work than just bending the pins back up with a safety pin or toothpick. That's clearly the superior fix, so I don't see why anyone would even bother with boiling it.
JustTheRandomStuff - Just one game doesn't work on your Game Boy or your Game Boy console doesn't work in general? Either way I don't think boiling the contacts will help anything. If it's just one game, run a q-tip soaked in 90+% isopropyl alcohol over the contacts. If it's the Game Boy itself, it depends on what's wrong with it, but if the connector is dirty, I just spray them with contact cleaner and that works 90% of the time.
8bitjunkie It's just the one game. I got it in a trade on reddit, but it only works sometimes. I've tried rubbing alcohol and Brasso, but they didn't work. Someone on /r/Gameboy suggested surgical fluid, but I don't even know where to get that. Someone else suggested Windex, but I haven't tried it yet. The game in question is Pocket Bomberman, but I don't just want to buy one on eBay, because they are currently going for $5+
JustTheRandomStuff not sure what surgical fluid is... but if you've cleaned it with alcohol and brasso and it still doesn't work, it might just be busted. sorry!
I've bent pins back with superior success. You don't even have to push the cart down and it reads perfectly 99% of the time. And best of all, it won't bend the pins again. Also, snip the region chip while you have it taken a part. No more blinking and no trouble loading.
+Ted Soto Yep, I have another video on bending the pins when boiling didn't work that well and a video on disabling the 10NES chip. I prefer to do them in that order as the least to most invasive fix. Thanks for watching
+8bitjunkie Same here. I work for a shop that sells retro games and consoles, (I'm employed to clean all carts and to attempt to fix malfunctioning consoles; usually NES). I've worked on probably 75-80~ NES consoles so far, and I'd say sufficient boiling (at high enough heat, and for 10-20 mins depending on grime) has fixed most (I'd guess around 70%) of them. The rest were fixed with boiling and bending, although a few couldn't be salvaged as they were so mistreated during their lifespan that it simply wasn't feasible. Surprisingly, replacing the 72 pin connector isn't preferred because the aftermarket versions are often cheaply made (they're often manufactured out of cheaper metals susceptable to corrosion; they often grip carts too tightly and have to be adjusted and worked on right out of the pack, and the biggest issue: we have to sell the console as refurbished, which doesn't net us more money, because the connectors are cheap, despite spending money fixing it.) Try boiling!
8bitjunkie I have! I couldn't back the project sadly, but I'm glad others saw the potential. It reminds me of a fix I heard of a while back involving bending the 72 connector pins so greatly that you'd never have to push a game down again, as the pins were set perfectly without tilting. Well except that it's not a jury-rigged fix on a "ZFI" connector. I haven't really looked into it's quality or anything yet, but it's still exciting. I'm thinking of ordering one and testing it out when I get the chance. I might be able to work them into my repair-work in some way if they're quality (it might be tricky, but I'm sure that I can find a way!), but until now I've held off hoping to hear what the backers have to say about it and to test it out.
I know why. The spring loader has been screwed down too far. If you loosen the front it springs better and if you loosen the back at the same time the game will play when pressed down. It's a science. People say it's in the pins, but it's not.
not trying to be a know it all but what I would have done although I know you said you cleaned at least some of them games before, I would have cleaned them again before re running the test after boiling the 72 pin connector. think of it if your 72 pin connector was already dirty prior to boiling wouldn't some of that dirt have already come off on your cartridge connectors in the previous test? I bought my nes on ebay last april with 11 games, when I received it all I was getting was the flashing red light and the flashing screen, after watching video tutorials on youtube I got some contact cleaner sprayed into the 72 pin connector by opening the door and pointing the straw towards the connector sprayed some of that, then I opened the games and cleaned the contacts with window cleaner, magic worked first time and I didn't even switch the system off and on 10 or 20 times. anyway good video. I have a copy of tmnt 3 manhattan project on its way to me and a copy of knight rider.
hi, thanks. I had already cleaned the 72 pin connector with contact cleaner and it still didn't work which is why I tried to boil it. Contact cleaner is amazing though. Boiling it doesn't really clean it I don't think but the heat straightens out the pins which is why it works. If I had cleaned the games before the 2nd test, everyone would think that's why they worked and not the boiling.
+otto von bismark either the lockout chip has been disabled or you have something else wrong. If the lockout chip isn't disabled, my guess is that doing anything to the connector won't solve the issue. If it is disabled, then cleaning your games and boiling the connector might fix it.
My 72 pin connector was trashed. I had cleaned it, boiled it, boiled it again and cleaned it... Nothing worked. I finally broke down and bought a new 72 pin connector. It's crap! Holds the games so tight I have to litterly use a pair of pliers to get the game out. As you can imagine Im not using my NES anymore so I don't mess up my games.
+xReviveMeFoolx sorry it didn't work. Did you check out my other video "When Boiling NES 72-Pin Connector Doesn't Work, Experiment Fixing Blinking Nintendo by Bending Pins"?
What is the idea behind boiling plastic with metal?! You are lucky that this type of plastic is not melting at water's boiling point. Also, the metal+water combination sounds awful. What's the result you are expecting from that?
Not lucky - we know the boiling point of water and the melting point of ABS plastic. The contacts are made of, or plated with a metal that doesn’t readily corrode even when exposed to water. If they weren’t, they’d corrode badly over time just from exposure to humidity. The reason this technique often works isn’t well understood but as you can see from the video (and many other videos and reports) it’s often effective.
@@8bitjunkie8Since my first comment I tested it myself in 3 occasions, with the first I was a little over-excited with the pin bending so I bought a replacement. Later I figured it wasn't the bending the problem, it was just that I tested it with an out of region game... So yeah, I can confirm that the method is working. But don't try the hydrogen-peroxide + heat treatment to retrobright DMG Gameboy, that's a different type of plastic... Or be very careful or you'll end up like me :)
please send me ultrasonic cleaner and I'll try it. realistically - I don't think boiling the connector does much cleaning. the effect seems to be cause by the heat straightening the pins back into shape. although that would be a good test to try: ultrasonic in hot water vs boiling water w/o ultrasonic.
There is not adjustment on the “carriage” just get it aligned correctly and you can tighten the screws all the way down. If they don’t go all the way down it’s misaligned. Ask me how I know 😅 ha ha good luck guys
There one problem with boiling the pins is that it advances the rust and mold in the pins,it may look cleaner but if you don't dry it well it may short out the whole nes but either way let's face it this console is more that 30 years old and the only way to make it work again is changing the pins for new ones or remove the rust of the old one.
Angel Colón The pins are actually made of NON ferrous metals that does not, under the laws of physics, rust. They will tarnish or under extreme cases, oxidize. A new 72- pin conn. will not always solve this problem. I thought the same thing so I wasted 10 bucks on something that did not work. Most of the new conn. that are made aftermarket are super cheaply made and actually made of tin that will corrode by electrolysis, then say Goodbye motherboard, no more NES. I boiled my og conn and it works like 1989. Props to 8bitjunkie.
didn't exist when I made this video. I've wanted to buy one and make a video on how to do the install but they've never been in stocked when I checked (including just now)
spend the 10$ and buy a new pin protector instead of boiling it... smh... the best method for cleaning pins is the eraser method.... no residue... cant tell you how many times i bought games online and it comes with a shitload of twinkle or other polish all over the place.
every indication is the replacement connectors are vastly inferior to the originals. it's worth a few minutes to try to refurbish the original nintendo part. If someone uses polish, they should thoroughly clean it after with alcohol or contact cleaner. there should be no residue when finished. The eraser method is great.
***** the boiling is not to clean the connector; it is heat treating the metal which causes mechanical straightening to occur and perhaps also some positive metallurgical effects
yeah i have since changed my mind on the pin replacements and dont recommend changing them, but refurbishing the OEM ones. but not boiling them like this guy does..
I brought my NES out of retirement around 10 years ago and it had the blinking light problem. I was told about boiling the connector but thought I was getting pranked and just chucked it and bought a 3rd party connector. It worked fine for quite a few years but ended up getting replaced again but it lasted less than half as long. I replaced it again in June this year and it lasted about 3 months.
Because I was tired of replacing the connectors with declining quality I bought a bulk lot of old 1st party connectors. They arrived this week and so far I've tried two of them. They were either giving grey screens, garbled screens or would only work with the cartridge up. After boiling them they worked much better, some games take a couple of goes but most work straight away. I'm a true believer now. 😁
Thank you Sir. Your videos helped me get my old NES working. I was holding out for the new NES Classic, but when they became unobtainable, I went back to the old original. Never would have guessed boiling water would solve all my problems.
great!
Awesome video, thanks for making it! (I'm the guy on reddit who said to give it a go.)
Maybe should have watched this before I bought a 72-pin connector, but it works fine so I'm not complaining.
As for adjustment to make the cart stay seated when you press it down? Try loosening the outer case screw on the the bottom that sits under the front/center of the console. The only screw that isn't in a corner. It should only a single turn or so. Eventually the loading tray should stay seated every time.
The screws is not the problem, you have to make sure that the dock overlaps the motherboard, so a tiny part of the dock gets under the motherborad when you put it back together.
Thanks for this great video! I have repaired and refurbished hundreds of NES consoles and 72 pin connectors and have many different methods which all work but after boiling a few 72 Pin connectors I have managed to salvage many of them! It really works. Now I boil all my connectors and I'm 99% on fixing them. Thank You so much. I don't know the science but I assume the boiling removes all dirt and grime and everything dirty to a polished shine. You DA MAN! Thanks!!!
awesome. I emailed w/ a PhD materials scientist and he said it's possible that the heat is straightening the pins back to their original positions. I don't think it's really about the cleaning action but maybe. The ones that boiling doesn't fix you can manually straighten the pins. I made another video on that.
The boiling water certainly will clean the connector somewhat. So it's combo action. I still would advise the Isopropyl alcohol soaked cloth covered plastic card cleaning method afterwards -- no such thing as too clean.
This the best NES boil video. Idk why this video isnt the first one when you search this.
Paper clips and a skewer works to suspend it. Thanks for this awesome tip!!
+dave s (EightBitKnight) I found out after I made the video that there's no need to suspend the part. As long as there's water in the pan, the highest temperature will be the boiling point of water.
Well to answer your problem about the cartridge tray not staying down, when you reassembled the unit at the front do not tighten the screws all the way down. Once you've tested the tray without the cover and the cartridge stays down i would advise to back out the screws about another quarter to a half turn so that once you place the cover back on you shouldn't have any issues.
Ruben Mejia he needs to tuck the the tab on the bottom of the tray under the circuit board while sliding it back. What a dumbass
Guy-den.
Not Gay-den.
Jenny Lewis had it right all those years ago.
+lookitskazzy you are correct. force of habit.
Hooray, she's a silver lining
I have cartridges that haven't read in a decade or ever that now work first time! I say this trick works!
Boiling never worked for me. It became easier to just buy a decent quality placement 72 pin.
Hey 8bitjunkie, nice video. The problem you're having with the tray not sticking is usually caused by too much or not enough tension in the front, center screw on the bottom of the NES. That's why it worked fine without the cover on. Try adjusting that screw for more consistent results.
I liked the idea of gathering statistics. I think that the take-away from the statistics is that a boiled 72-pin connector will help the NES read clean cartridges more consistently, but even the cleanest 72-pin connector can't read a sufficiently dirty game.
Hmm... interesting. That sounds like it might have been part of the problem. But what do you think about this: with the tray taken completely out, it was behaving basically the same way - maybe latched 50% of the time. After studying it for a while, I shimmed the right side of the tray with a plastic card and now it works 100% of the time. Thanks!
8bitjunkie Ah, with the lid removed, if the issue still occurs then it's most likely a problem of the front 2 screws on the tray being over-tightened. Loosening them up a couple turns will normally resolve that problem. The back 2 screws need to be fairly tight though in my experience. :)
Super Derek Not with just the lid removed, but the entire tray taken out - not screwed in at all.
The problem is not tension; it's that you need to hook the cartridge tray under the motherboard when you reassemble everything. I fix countless NES systems at work and most of the time if it's been disassembled previously, the person has not reattached it properly and this can result in the cartridge tray deforming and being much harder to put back together properly. The screws should be screwed in completely and the tray should have its lip hooked under the motherboard.
Chupperson thanks, I'll check that out.
Should I bin the pins back or forget about binding them or should I just boil the 72 pin connector ?
just a tip, I recently thought of this myself, the contact pins of the cartridges oxidise over time which is why they need to be cleaned, what I did was I went out to a local grocery store and bought some sandwich bags, now you may ask why, but think of it sandwich bags are airtight so when you put something like a game cartridge into a sandwich bag and the bag is sealed up no air can get in at the contact points to cause them to oxidise.
+Paul Hetherton
the contacts are gold plated, so it cant be oxidation. its just dirt in the air aka dust
Interesting. I thought about doing this. But instead I manually pulled out the top pins and bent them down a little to increase the pressure they put down on the cart. (you can pop them out if you press on the top of them. There's a line of holes on top that show how the top pins stay in.) They flatten out over the years and can cause contact issues. It helps that you don't leave a cart inserted for an extended period of time. Pull them out when the NES isn't used and that will help it last longer. (it's also pretty important to keep the carts clean)
I found my NES at a pawn shop a week or so ago for around $80 (but was able to talk them down to $70) and the Mario game I got for it refused to work. But after I did that, it worked every time I inserted it. :D
There may be extreme cases where you have to fix the bottom pins to but didn't have to touch those on mine. :P
The interesting thing about the NES I got at that pawn shop was that it already had the lockout chip disabled and the doofus who did it wired the controller ports backwards when he put it all back together. Player 1 port was connected to the player 2 port on the motherboard. lol. Not sure how he managed to do that when you don't really have to fully disconnect the board to do the mod. You don't even have to remove the board from NES. Just have to remove the RF shield and it's accessible from there. :P
Jesus Christ almighty, you paid too much, unless it was new in box with the original shrink wrap still on.
Perhaps a few years ago. but now a days that's what a full NES system runs for. Probably would cost more elsewhere. There was a retroshop selling a NES for similar price but it didn't come with lightgun and only had one controller I think. :P
Fixing lock out chip is only a band aid fix, and quite an invasive band aid. Boiling is easy and it works. I fixed 2 NES to both read games almost perfectly. Tip: I find NES games read better the further you have the game from the back of the NES. Anyone else notice this?
I would stab a hobo to have my gold Zelda cart back. It seems like the second me and my brother moved out of our parents' house, my mom just put our childhood into trash bags and threw it in the dumpster... Luckily, I just so happened to be dumpster diving my own parents dumpster one day a few years ago and found an SNES, Sega, N64, 2 Game Cubes, and a NES/SNES Yobo thing - but the carts were nowhere to be found. What are the odds? I've dumpster dove them exactly one time. Also, recently, I mentioned to my cousin about wanting to reunite with my old consoles and he was like: "There's a Nintendo and a Super Nintendo just laying in my yard..." - I was like what in the holy hell... The ingrate had been shooting the SNES with a BB gun and had more-or-less destroyed it. And the NES, while unharmed by the BB gun, had eaten it pretty bad from the elements. This is the same cousin who took our grandpa's original Beatles White Album and frisbeed it off his second story balcony along with several other records, shot out the windows of some of his old antique cars, and ruined the ignition of my grandpa's baby - a 1965 Mustang - with a screwdriver while, I assume, attempting to "borrow" it.. (granted, he was super young and had scary little supervision for most of his life). And as a matter of fact, I think this cousin might have ended up with most of my old consoles as hand-me-downs as I upgraded to newer stuff.. Prob my NES and SNES in his yard lmao...The past few days, I've had the NES apart cleaning it, re-soldering all the joints, re-wiring broken wires, etc.. When I first started on it, it was full of dirt/mud, bugs, corrosion, rust, & chewed up wires - the solder was black and wouldn't melt at first and the pcb had blotches of black filth all over it... All of this highlights my level of desperation to re-acquire my old consoles. lol. Truly, 99% of people, regardless of electronic repair skill, would have considered it a lost cause - and rightfully so... Anyway, fixing said connector is what brings me here... Damn... that was a tangent... I've been typing for like an hour lol... I become very talkative and afford absurdly detailed accounts when I take my pills (which are already starting to wear off, this comment has taken so long to type..)...lmao... Oh well, all in good fun... Carry on
I'm sorry for your loss. Sad. I hope you get your NES working. Adderall is a hell of drug.
So, what's the fix on the tray not staying down? Because that's one of the vast number of issues mine is having...
read through the comments; several people explain it. it has to do with certain screws being too tight or too loose
Blalack77 BEST. Reply. Ever!
Take care of your toys Sid
Thats what I would say.
Funny enough I just had a neighbor throwing out their kids games and dumpster dove them.
I've had an issue with the brown (gray, in my case) screen whenever starting Legend of Zelda through my old Game Genie. Works fine without the GG, and all other games work fine both with and without the GG, so I'm chasing connection issues. I'm fairly certain my NES, which I've rebuilt from scratch using a NESessity 1.4 and Hi-Def NES kit, still has the OEM connector since I saw no evidence of the console having been opened up in the past. So as part of my troubleshooting I'll be doing the boiling trick (seems about 30 minutes is the ideal time for the metal to "relax" back to its manufactured position the best), followed by cleaning it and all my cartridge and GG connectors with DeOxIt F5.
Next step will be replacing the small caps in the LoZ cartridge, which will suck since my son will lose his game save after I've already replaced the battery, but a necessary sacrifice if he wants to use the GG......
The reason why your slot wont stay down is because you tighted the screws too much. Just loosten the screws a bit and it should work. Great video by the way. Super helpfull.
Jerr Cyr hey thanks, yeah some other people pointed this out to me too. Glad you liked the video!
thanks, I'll check it next time I work on one.
Nice video, great testing and many useful tips. Thumbs up, you've got yourself a new subscriber. ;)
thanks!
If your system is clean but your games are not what do you think is happening
Olson the screw under the game slot like one rotation and that will fix your problem of the slot not staying down
Ty so mutch!! I boiled the pin connector and it works 100% now :)
+Tobias Karlsen awesome!
Has anyone tried the Nintendo NES 72 pin connector boil method to restore any other console cartridge reader?
clipping the lockout chip removes one hassle in the diagnostics, because even if you did everything else...how do you test the chip? clip it. after clipping and cleaning and stuff, i know mine is down to pin contacts, so time to do dentistry on the pins.
Boiling alone might work on a dirty connector, but in my experience it does nothing for a connector that's lost the tension in its pins. And it's mighty simple to re-tension them. I go ahead and do that, then boil. This results in working connectors 100% of the time.
If I had to choose one way or the other, though, it would be re-tensioning. The cleanest, most immaculately spotless connector in the world is worthless if the pins aren't making contact with the pins of the cartridge.
+ShmupShmupPewPew I don't think boiling does much in the way of cleaning. The heat expands the metal and causes the springs to stiffen slightly. If they were slightly loose, then boiling works. If they were very loose, you have to bend them back; I made another video on how to do that. I guess I could test that theory if I had a lab oven that could heat at ~100 C without going over; the plastic will melt at temperatures slightly over that.
I used this to fix two NES consoles, thanks!
+RetroVGworld awesome!
+8bitjunkie One keeps giving me a blinking game screen now, I'm gonna disable the lockout on that one but the other still works like a charm! :)
So is it OK to just throw it in the water
or do you have to build the V to get it off the bottom and sides
so it will not touch the bottom or sides
you can just throw it in there.
have you had to boil again since making this video?
This doesn't seem like it's any less work than just bending the pins back up with a safety pin or toothpick. That's clearly the superior fix, so I don't see why anyone would even bother with boiling it.
my nes does not work anymore. tried boiling the machine and it worked. wow!
FTW!
Boil the shit out of it! Fuck yeah!
Fuck That, I Breaded and deep Fried mine, With homemade tarter sauce, I spit out the terminals but they rest was yummy!
I have a Gameboy game that doesn't work. Do you know if, if I'm careful, boiling the contacts on it would make it work again?
JustTheRandomStuff - Just one game doesn't work on your Game Boy or your Game Boy console doesn't work in general? Either way I don't think boiling the contacts will help anything. If it's just one game, run a q-tip soaked in 90+% isopropyl alcohol over the contacts. If it's the Game Boy itself, it depends on what's wrong with it, but if the connector is dirty, I just spray them with contact cleaner and that works 90% of the time.
8bitjunkie
It's just the one game. I got it in a trade on reddit, but it only works sometimes. I've tried rubbing alcohol and Brasso, but they didn't work. Someone on /r/Gameboy suggested surgical fluid, but I don't even know where to get that. Someone else suggested Windex, but I haven't tried it yet. The game in question is Pocket Bomberman, but I don't just want to buy one on eBay, because they are currently going for $5+
JustTheRandomStuff not sure what surgical fluid is... but if you've cleaned it with alcohol and brasso and it still doesn't work, it might just be busted. sorry!
sd31117 I haven't gotten it to work yet, but I'll try that.
sd31117 Didn't work
I've bent pins back with superior success. You don't even have to push the cart down and it reads perfectly 99% of the time. And best of all, it won't bend the pins again. Also, snip the region chip while you have it taken a part. No more blinking and no trouble loading.
+Ted Soto Yep, I have another video on bending the pins when boiling didn't work that well and a video on disabling the 10NES chip. I prefer to do them in that order as the least to most invasive fix. Thanks for watching
+8bitjunkie
Same here. I work for a shop that sells retro games and consoles, (I'm employed to clean all carts and to attempt to fix malfunctioning consoles; usually NES).
I've worked on probably 75-80~ NES consoles so far, and I'd say sufficient boiling (at high enough heat, and for 10-20 mins depending on grime) has fixed most (I'd guess around 70%) of them. The rest were fixed with boiling and bending, although a few couldn't be salvaged as they were so mistreated during their lifespan that it simply wasn't feasible.
Surprisingly, replacing the 72 pin connector isn't preferred because the aftermarket versions are often cheaply made (they're often manufactured out of cheaper metals susceptable to corrosion; they often grip carts too tightly and have to be adjusted and worked on right out of the pack, and the biggest issue: we have to sell the console as refurbished, which doesn't net us more money, because the connectors are cheap, despite spending money fixing it.)
Try boiling!
+Retro Sega World Have you seen the Blinking Light Win?
8bitjunkie
I have! I couldn't back the project sadly, but I'm glad others saw the potential. It reminds me of a fix I heard of a while back involving bending the 72 connector pins so greatly that you'd never have to push a game down again, as the pins were set perfectly without tilting. Well except that it's not a jury-rigged fix on a "ZFI" connector.
I haven't really looked into it's quality or anything yet, but it's still exciting. I'm thinking of ordering one and testing it out when I get the chance. I might be able to work them into my repair-work in some way if they're quality (it might be tricky, but I'm sure that I can find a way!), but until now I've held off hoping to hear what the backers have to say about it and to test it out.
last time I checked they weren't shipping new orders yet, but I'm planning on getting one and doing a video review
I tried fixing my nes and it works perfectly everytime as long as i don't press down the game
I know why. The spring loader has been screwed down too far. If you loosen the front it springs better and if you loosen the back at the same time the game will play when pressed down. It's a science. People say it's in the pins, but it's not.
not trying to be a know it all but what I would have done although I know you said you cleaned at least some of them games before, I would have cleaned them again before re running the test after boiling the 72 pin connector. think of it if your 72 pin connector was already dirty prior to boiling wouldn't some of that dirt have already come off on your cartridge connectors in the previous test?
I bought my nes on ebay last april with 11 games, when I received it all I was getting was the flashing red light and the flashing screen, after watching video tutorials on youtube I got some contact cleaner sprayed into the 72 pin connector by opening the door and pointing the straw towards the connector sprayed some of that, then I opened the games and cleaned the contacts with window cleaner, magic worked first time and I didn't even switch the system off and on 10 or 20 times. anyway good video. I have a copy of tmnt 3 manhattan project on its way to me and a copy of knight rider.
hi, thanks. I had already cleaned the 72 pin connector with contact cleaner and it still didn't work which is why I tried to boil it. Contact cleaner is amazing though. Boiling it doesn't really clean it I don't think but the heat straightens out the pins which is why it works. If I had cleaned the games before the 2nd test, everyone would think that's why they worked and not the boiling.
hi have a fixed Red Light without cartridge in... anche guess? i m trying boiling too
+otto von bismark either the lockout chip has been disabled or you have something else wrong. If the lockout chip isn't disabled, my guess is that doing anything to the connector won't solve the issue. If it is disabled, then cleaning your games and boiling the connector might fix it.
does anyone know if I can do this with a 62 Pin Connector for a supernintendo?
My 72 pin connector was trashed. I had cleaned it, boiled it, boiled it again and cleaned it... Nothing worked. I finally broke down and bought a new 72 pin connector. It's crap! Holds the games so tight I have to litterly use a pair of pliers to get the game out. As you can imagine Im not using my NES anymore so I don't mess up my games.
+xReviveMeFoolx sorry it didn't work. Did you check out my other video "When Boiling NES 72-Pin Connector Doesn't Work, Experiment Fixing Blinking Nintendo by Bending Pins"?
+xReviveMeFoolx ua-cam.com/video/5F8aItYuu1k/v-deo.html
+8bitjunkie yeah, I tried that as well. I just ordered an original refurbished 72 pin connector off eBay.
great idea
What is the idea behind boiling plastic with metal?! You are lucky that this type of plastic is not melting at water's boiling point. Also, the metal+water combination sounds awful. What's the result you are expecting from that?
Not lucky - we know the boiling point of water and the melting point of ABS plastic.
The contacts are made of, or plated with a metal that doesn’t readily corrode even when exposed to water. If they weren’t, they’d corrode badly over time just from exposure to humidity.
The reason this technique often works isn’t well understood but as you can see from the video (and many other videos and reports) it’s often effective.
@@8bitjunkie8Since my first comment I tested it myself in 3 occasions, with the first I was a little over-excited with the pin bending so I bought a replacement. Later I figured it wasn't the bending the problem, it was just that I tested it with an out of region game... So yeah, I can confirm that the method is working.
But don't try the hydrogen-peroxide + heat treatment to retrobright DMG Gameboy, that's a different type of plastic... Or be very careful or you'll end up like me :)
8 year old video. Still great info
My 72 pin came out dirtier
20 minutes for this? really?
djsheep ya! 20 minutes for this Crap!?
Why don't just throw the connector into an ultrasonic cleaner (with hot water and a ultrasonic cleaner solution) ? For sure the best method ....
please send me ultrasonic cleaner and I'll try it. realistically - I don't think boiling the connector does much cleaning. the effect seems to be cause by the heat straightening the pins back into shape. although that would be a good test to try: ultrasonic in hot water vs boiling water w/o ultrasonic.
There is not adjustment on the “carriage” just get it aligned correctly and you can tighten the screws all the way down. If they don’t go all the way down it’s misaligned. Ask me how I know 😅 ha ha good luck guys
I've done everything. Cleaned inside and games, replaced 72 pin, and removed the 10nes chip. Now all I get is a black screen.....nothing! ):
what did it do before you removed? the 10nes chip? Did you remove it or cut the pin?
I removed it. Before I was getting was a blinking blue screen. Now I get nothing at all.
right, well you can't just remove the chip. There's one pin that needs to be cut and the rest of it left it. It won't work w/o it.
I did exactly what was shown in other videos about it. They said it had to be cut out. I watched a guy remove it.
this is my video on how to disable the 10nes chip: ua-cam.com/video/sCPoHklnnNk/v-deo.html
bro did exactly it says not to do on the back of the zelda cartridge, it says no not power on and off rapidly lol it can break the battery in the game
Don’t worry, I’m a professional
can I just use 91% isopropyl alcohol to clean the pins on the motherboard?
Yep
Clean your games and you’ll be fine
time for a new connector they are cheep
There one problem with boiling the pins is that it advances the rust and mold in the pins,it may look cleaner but if you don't dry it well it may short out the whole nes but either way let's face it this console is more that 30 years old and the only way to make it work again is changing the pins for new ones or remove the rust of the old one.
Angel Colón The pins are actually made of NON ferrous metals that does not, under the laws of physics, rust. They will tarnish or under extreme cases, oxidize. A new 72- pin conn. will not always solve this problem. I thought the same thing so I wasted 10 bucks on something that did not work. Most of the new conn. that are made aftermarket are super cheaply made and actually made of tin that will corrode by electrolysis, then say Goodbye motherboard, no more NES. I boiled my og conn and it works like 1989. Props to 8bitjunkie.
try and avoid putting dirty games into your NES, especially if you just cleaned it.
Just buy the nes blinking light win problem solved!!
didn't exist when I made this video. I've wanted to buy one and make a video on how to do the install but they've never been in stocked when I checked (including just now)
8bitjunkreeeeeeeen
0/10 for me >:(
+Andrew Willingham bummer. did you clean your games? if so and it still doesn't work, you might try this ua-cam.com/video/5F8aItYuu1k/v-deo.html
what the hell?
Mitch McCann you didn't think it was going to work?
i mainly don't think it'll last, i bet all of it will corrode faster.
spend the 10$ and buy a new pin protector instead of boiling it... smh... the best method for cleaning pins is the eraser method.... no residue... cant tell you how many times i bought games online and it comes with a shitload of twinkle or other polish all over the place.
every indication is the replacement connectors are vastly inferior to the originals. it's worth a few minutes to try to refurbish the original nintendo part. If someone uses polish, they should thoroughly clean it after with alcohol or contact cleaner. there should be no residue when finished. The eraser method is great.
***** the boiling is not to clean the connector; it is heat treating the metal which causes mechanical straightening to occur and perhaps also some positive metallurgical effects
Fubar MMA problem with that is a lot of new 3rd party replacements are cheaply made and will actually fail quicker
yeah i have since changed my mind on the pin replacements and dont recommend changing them, but refurbishing the OEM ones. but not boiling them like this guy does..
do you just bend the pins back?