just wondering if anyone had any experience with these, my nes was on the fritz and i tryed to bend my connector back in place but with poor luck. I just hope the one i ordered on ebay is good quality. hopefully this will fix my problems.
Printable View
just wondering if anyone had any experience with these, my nes was on the fritz and i tryed to bend my connector back in place but with poor luck. I just hope the one i ordered on ebay is good quality. hopefully this will fix my problems.
Don't waste your time bending pins. Look at the feedback for ones on ebay some are junk and bowed when you get them (the $1-$2 ones). If it's a realistic price and people said great quality that's your part.
Bending isn't the only (or even the main) problem: it's dirt and oxidation. Before option for a replacement I'd try cleaning and/or polishing it first. Unless you messed the pins up already.
For cleaning use a credit card with a soft/sturdy (fairly thin) cloth over it dampened with alcohol both on the cart and motherboard ends of the connector assembly, and also use an eraser on the board connector followed by rag/swab with alcohol to remove any rubber bits.
For polishing, replace the cloth with fine (1000 grit or higher) sand paper and carefully worth over the connector (and the motherboard end as well if necessary). It's good to have that sandpaper around when you need to polish other corroded/oxidized contacts too. (some carts need it rarely and soem other things)
Disabling the 10 NES chip also helps (no blinking), carefully pop/pry off pin 4 on chip 3193A (for US/NA models). Technically you're supposed to cut and ground the pin, but simply cutting it works without any issues apparently. (works for me and I've never heard of problems from not grounding)
If that doesn't fix it, the you'd need a replacement connector. The gold ones might be a little better, but I don't think it makes too much difference. The common is that they're too stiff and must operate with the ZIF tray in the up position (stresses the board when down), thus stress is unavoidable for the Game genie.
yeah i already ordered the 72 pin connector off ebay, i do have a old high frequency cleaning kit that ive used and its helped some, but i would like a more permanente fix, i just hope the pins on the new connector arent that stiff.
OK, but polishing (with no bending at all) turned my non-working connector into one that's worked fine for a little over a year now. (with clean games at least)
One other thing that gets games working that's not often cited is to wiggle the cart back and forth to seat it properly. (not pull it out to the edge and not cramming the cart down and wedging it there)
That and clean games.
I replaced the socket in my NES with one of the newer, non-ZIF ones and honestly, it didn't help much. Games that were giving me problems before were still giving me problems and as an added bonus, it's now also much more difficult to insert / remove the games.
I've had better luck with my 72 pin replacement, it seems. When you pull off the old one, make sure you clean the connection on the motherboard, it's probably is nasty.
My cart slot is so tight that you don't even have to press the cartridge down, just insert the game and hit the power button. Assuming the game is clean it works the first time, every time. I have been told that it will loosen up with time.
I bought a 72 pin connector thing on ebay I've never had any problems with green screens or flashing lights since.
i was kinda worried about it being so tight oh well, i like that link deo gave with the refurb, anyways this is the one i bought. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=350364077723 hope it ends up okay.Quote:
Originally Posted by GohanX
Its not so tight that it requires Hercules to remove it or anything. It still takes more effort to remove a Genesis cartridge.
Funny thing about mine is that it is finnicky about working in the down position but always works when up. I've been told it will loosen up after a while, but I like it the way it is now.
I buy 72 pin connectors from The Eight-Bit Kid of ebay and they work better than new and they only cost $4.75 a pop.
MAKE SURE YOU CLEAN ALL OF YOUR CARTRIDGES' PINS WITH ALCOHOL BEFORE YOU USE THEM IN YOUR NEW CONNECTOR.
You can quickly and easily dirty and damage your new connector with dirty cart pins if you don't clean them first. This happens to most people who get new connectors, and are always confused when their new connector works just as poorly as their old one.
well if this new connector doesn't work well then i'll try one of his then, and i have cleaned most of my cartridges just not all of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by sean
72 pin connectors help, but after installing quite a few I am more concinced they are a waste of money.
I have found that using fine grit sandpaper on the pins follwed by a thorough bath with 91% isopropyl does quite nicely. Worst cases require using a magnifying glass to look at the pins and pry them up slightly with a jeweler's flat-tipped screwdriver. This normally makes a system work good as the day it was new.
As was said earlier, disabling the 10NES chip will do away with the flashing screen at startup.
Yeah, but if the connection is bad, the game still won't run. My 10NES was disabled years ago but dirty games still don't run ... they just don't flash when they're failing now.Quote:
Originally Posted by tz101
Gone over them all with a rubber eraser? (disassembling the carts, obviously)Quote:
Originally Posted by 0x15e
Sometimes additional polishing is still needed, or it could be the motherboard side of the connector that's dirty/oxidized. (more polishing there)
I do think replacement connectors are overrated and have other disadvantages (namely non-zif types being too tight and stressing the board, especially with a game genie).
My NES was totally non-working back in the early 2000s it went from requiring a lot of cleaning on the carts to needing several tries, to needing the cart held down with a cassette case, to not working at all. (didn't have a cleaning cart though)
A a half hour or so disassembling the unit, removing the connector, polishing and cleaning it up along with a 10NES disable and it worked like a charm. (or at least as well as it had in the mid 90s)
No pin bending whatsoever. (though it did take me a bit more time than that as I didn't resort to polishing right away -didn't even have the right supplies)
Yep. PCB out, alcohol, then eraser, then alcohol again. Those contacts are clean.Quote:
Originally Posted by kool kitty89
I don't remember if I actually cleaned the connector on the mainboard, though. If I ever pull the NES back out of storage, I'll give that a shot.
I've used a safety pin with a hooked tip to bend the pins in proper position and then used a Dremel with a brass brush to clean it. Never had any problems with games and I've done this to at least 3 connectors.
I think I bought mine from http://www.nintendorepairshop.com/ and it worked great.
Well mine came in a couple hours ago, i installed it and it is a bit tight, zelda 2 wont work no matter how much i clean it, i think the game might be shot. but all the others are okay. in retrospect if i could do this all over again, i would just not bend my pins on the original connector and just clean and sand, but since i got the new one i'll just use it till it gives me problems and probably get one from that 8-bit kid as someone posted earlier
I had lousy luck with the ones from an eBay seller. The connector looked good, but I could barely get any games to work. I exchanged it and same issue. Went ahead and bought the full kit from the Nintendo repair shop and now the system works great.
Worth noting (if you are in the US) is that I believe that the polishing compound in the kit is little more than thinned Mothers Aluminum Mag polish :D
Rob
I did the 72 pin replacement about 2 weeks ago. Carts are held snug and my light never flashes but I do have issues getting games to work. I still had to blow on some carts. Last nite I got my security bit and took appart my 4 most used carts (Battletoads, SMB, SMB3 and Link2) and cleaned them with a soft eraser and some rubbing alcohol. Now they work slightly better (no blowing) but I keep having to reseat the cart a couple of times before it works. Thoughts? Aside from Link all work when initally seated but I get visual corruption.
Make sure you've seated the tray that holds the game correctly. There is a tab that needs to go underneath the motherboard. I had mine in correctly...still didn't address the issues with my new connector, though. It only works in the "up" position, although it works 100%...
This is a pretty old thread, but since it's already been necro'd...
Blowing in the cart doesn't do anything. If something isn't coming off of the connectors from you rubbing it with an eraser and a cotton swab with alcohol, then I guarantee the speed of your breath is not going to knock off whatever is causing the problem. I've replaced the connector in both of my NES systems (over a year ago) and they have worked amazingly well ever since then. The old connectors were so lose that games would literally just slide into the system before pressing them down. Now the connections are tight and games just work. Every now and then I'll get a white screen (have lockout chips disabled), but I just have to reinsert the game and it's good to go. I can't recommend performing this simple procedure enough.
I bought mine from here: http://www.nintendorepairshop.com/pr...r-Repair-Part/
FYI, the original connectors are ZIF....zero insertion force. They're supposed to slide right in. My main NES has zero resistance when I insert carts and the connector works amazingly well. I had problems with it at one point but I think it was due to a couple of games that were badly oxidized...it seems to have recovered.
The new connector I put in a newly acquired NES is super tight...so tight that I don't have to push down...and if I do, the game usually won't work. I don't like it, but it works.
I help a shop out with repairs Nes's are one I do on a regular basis. Due to the amount of returns, mostly due to customers having filthy games and the fact these new connectors don't like to be pressed down, I disable the tray so it can't be pressed down. I also supply a sheet on how the customer should clean their carts and keep the fuckers clean!
Interesting. Mine have never had an issue with being pressed down. Maybe there are multiple groups making the connectors?
Definately, they seem to be all based out of china but I heard of some really crap connectors. I bought from one of the more reputable sources. I'll probably disassemble everything and clean it with rubbing alcohol and reassemble.Quote:
Originally Posted by beigemore