Ah, the NES! Who in our generation doesn't have fond memories of the fabled grey box? I was fortunate enough to have an ex-coworker give me and old NES she found in her attic (thanks Donna!). Of course I was super excited. But who doesn't also have memories of cajoling said grey box to work properly? Power flashes, blue screens, grey screens, a mesh of pixels...The old gal could be finicky. When I tried plugging it into my TV, I got this:
We all had our own rituals. I favored blowing on the cartridge, and then wedging a second cartridge into the slot to hold the first one down. Of course none of this really helped, but sure made us feel like we were doing something, right? As it turns out, the problem isn't in under-stuffed slots or dirty games. Well, your games ARE dirty, but that isn't the real issue. The main problem is a design flaw in the parts Nintendo used to construct the original consoles. When the cartridge goes into the slot, it slides into a socket where the ROM board comes into contact with 72 pins held in place by tiny springs. Unfortunately these connector springs were made from a cheap nickel alloy, and frequent insertion and removal of cartridges would eventually wear down over time until they no longer held the connector pins in place. That, combined with accumulating dust and dirt, is what caused your console to stop reading your games.
Fortunately, this is a really easy problem to fix. Replacement cartridge connector sockets are readily available online, along with cleaning kits and specialized tools for doing surgery on your console. I had the good fortune to have an old NES given to me by a coworker (thanks Donna!), and after languishing in an attic for who-knows-how-long, you can imagine it wasn't in the best condition. So I ordered up a complete repair kit from NintendoRepairShop.com and got to work (with help from their excellent tutorial).
First step was to remove the casing so I could access the gooey innards for surgery, using the toolbit included in the repair kit.
Next, removing the RF shield (the silvery metal piece) using a regular screwdriver.
Now we're gettin' somewhere. You can see the "mouth" of the pin connector at the end of the cartridge slot. But before I could remove the old connector, I had to unscrew the entire assembly from the casing.
The two cables to the right simply unplugged from the circuit board, and the entire assembly was free, and the cartridge bay slid right off.
The 72-pin connector can then be removed with a little carefully applied force.
I used a little compressed air to clean out all of the dust, and then moved on to cleaning the contacts on the motherboard using the cleaning paste included in the repair kit. I didn't think the contacts were that dirty at first sight, but after just a few seconds of scrubbing I came up with this:
Eeeeugh. No wonder I was getting the blinky grey screen.
Once everything was clean and tidy, I put everything back together and plugged it back in to the TV. The moment of truth....
SUCCESS! There's something a little bit ridiculous about playing an 8-bit game on a 1080p flatscreen with full surround-sound. It actually looks a little messy around the edges, since the TV is at a way higher resolution than the 30-year-old console can support. But it's still Nintendo. It's pretty amazing how well I remember all of the warp zones in Super Mario Bros., but I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday.
Anyways, this was a super easy repair job that anybody could do. So if you're feeling nostalgic and want to play some Dr. Mario, it's easily worth the $18 for the repair kit.
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