Saturn Action Replay 'ruins' the cartridge port?

About the Saturn AR cartridge, I have owned one for some time and its alleged that it ruins the pins in the cartridge port because the board is too thick and makes it fickle overtime. However, ever since I bought mine online, it has actually always been fickle when it comes to making contact with the pins. Either there is something else unusual about it that does that, or the previous owner of my Saturn did something to it, but I can usually get it to work pretty easily by reseating it. Also, if the pins were really bent by the AR, it shouldn't be bent far enough that the AR wouldn't work because they'd still only ever be spaced as wide as the AR board and could still touch the pins as before. Just my observation.

My understanding is that any type of cart (Official Mem Cart, 1/4 MB RAM Carts, the Action Replay) ruins the Saturn's cartridge port if they are inserted/removed enough. I guess it's just of exceedingly poor design or something. From what I've heard, you're pretty much recommended to never remove the carts once you put them it, or at least limit it as much as possible.

Tiido explained the issue to me: The AR contact are made of a material that corrodes extremely fast so it is not actually the Saturn's cartridge port that's to blame but the AR's pins.

Not all third party carts have the 'thick' circuit board that damages the Saturn cartridge port (Interact carts are horrible about this though). The AR I have fits easily because it has the right thickness PCB. I've owned it for two years; no corrosion. I can't think this is a serious problem.

Man I can't wait until I get a switch installed!

The CD Plus, ST Key, Gameshark and the early black cased Action Replay carts by Datel are the main culprits here, the newer beige or black action replays are perfect.

Baring in mind a lot of Saturns that were owned by young kids originally have probably had the carts hammered in with total disregard to what it may do to the connector.

I have the later beige Action Replay. Bought it brand new, used it in my perfectly operating Saturn. In no time at all my standard Sega back-up memory cart was very tricky to get to work. Had to insert and reinsert until it happened to work.
At this point even my Action Replay is tricky to get to work. Though for any cartridge, once I get it to work and leave it in place it continues to function with no issues.

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8581

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Originally Posted by Zz Badnusty

I have the later beige Action Replay. Bought it brand new, used it in my perfectly operating Saturn. In no time at all my standard Sega back-up memory cart was very tricky to get to work. Had to insert and reinsert until it happened to work.
At this point even my Action Replay is tricky to get to work. Though for any cartridge, once I get it to work and leave it in place it continues to function with no issues.

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Same thing happened to me, though my AR isn't brand new. It's rather annoying because I play more domestic games than imports, so I really don't want to fuck up my cart slot to the point of being unuseable.

I had to sand off the tin coating from my AR cart's contacts to get it work again... tinning contacts is a bad thing to do...

This is my experience:

My saturn came from my friend who bought it brand new for 50 bucks back in 98 or so, only ever played xmen vs street fighter in it with the st key and the ram cart that came with the game.

My first action replay I bought I had to insert maybe 6 times and shuffle it a bit to get the saturn to recognize it. It was a bit loose and almost "fell in" to the cartridge port. I sold that action replay later.

I used the st key for a short time, however the swapping of cartridges for ram cart games got annoying fast so I bought another action replay, this time a brand new one from PlayAsia.

The new cart fit perfectly and worked the very first try. It also worked with a fighting game my friend had that supposedly is not compatible, can't remember which one though. So basically my advice is, get a brand new action replay or at least only stick in carts from a trusted friend.

Did you all see that fan made SFC styled Final Fantasy animation from 4 or 5 years ago?
Instead of the standard characters it featured a party of game systems.
One of the Saturn spell attempts resulted in a failed memory/cart slot.
It was genius!

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Originally Posted by TmEE

I had to sand off the tin coating from my AR cart's contacts to get it work again... tinning contacts is a bad thing to do...

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Bare copper is better?

I only own an action replay and it's going to stay there until I shell out to have my Saturns modded. Then I'd consider selling it in favor of direct saving carts.

After many years of good service (late 90's/early 2000's) , my PAR 4 in 1 (with comm connection) finally died. I tried cleaning the contacts on the carts with isopropyl alcohol, moved the cart up and down in a sort of "grinding" action, and tried the pull it up a mm or 2 trick, but nothing. At first I thought my cart slot got busted, but it worked fine with an official SEGA back-up ram cart. Also, before it died on me, the saved games in the 4 in 1 memory disappeared (a possible indicator?). Is it safe to assume to the cart is truly dead and just go ahead buy a new one or is it possible to revive it?