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Did Blowing Into The NES Cartridge Really Work?

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Re: Did Blowing Into The NES Cartridge Really Work?

#51

Post by mwctahoe »

scott_s wrote: post #23
aristus wrote: post #5

As a wee lad in the last millennium I was an authorized Nintendo repairman. Blowing on the cart sometimes worked, if there was errant dust or fluff in the way. But in the long run the salty moist air would cause a corrosive layer of gunk on the contacts. Normal procedure was to open each cart and clean them with a good eraser then an alcohol wash. The bigger problem was bad design in the original NES. The cart plugge…

Blowing on the cart sometimes worked, if there was errant dust or fluff in the way. How do you know it was the blowing, and not the act of removing and reseating the cart? That's rather the point of the article.

if there actually is dust and blowing actually takes it out of the cartridge then it works. the article was saying most of the time it wasnt dusty so there was no point to blow on it but we all still do it, hell i've done it on CD's, flash drives, power connections, pretty much everything electronic if a quick unplug replug didnt work i have tried blowing in it and eventually it works though blowing doesnt help it makes me feel like im doing something to help it work.

Re: Did Blowing Into The NES Cartridge Really Work?

#52

Post by amalcon »

krisneuharth wrote: post #45

I always found that if blowing no longer worked, that I could plug it into the Game Genie loader and it would usually work. I suspect because the fit into the Genie was much tighter and the pins were less worn or corroded.

Definitely. Around my old neighborhood, Game Genie was a highly prized accessory if only for that reason. Cheating was all well and good, but having your Nintendo actually work? That was the real advantage!

Re: Did Blowing Into The NES Cartridge Really Work?

#53

Post by emillon »

pixelbath wrote: post #36
TimGebhardt wrote: post #12

Or if you're really brave you could just replace the 72-pin reader: http://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-NES-Cartridge-Slot-Replacemen... https://nuxx.net/wiki/NES_72-Pin_Edge_Connector_Replacement I did it on mine in college -- and then I did it for my suite-mate after he noticed that I never had any problems with my NES -- and then I did it for everyone on my floor who had an NES... :) Works like brand new.

Alternatively, if you're really, really brave, you could do what I did: disassemble the NES down to the header, and use a small screwdriver to bend the pins slightly back into position. However, it is easy to bend them too far, and increase the insertion force required to actually load the game. Or worse, snap off one of the contacts. I did this with an NES that I purchased for $5 off eBay (over 10 years ago), and ha…

That's not really being brave ; I mean, it's not dangerous. The NES is very serviceable.

Re: Did Blowing Into The NES Cartridge Really Work?

#54

Post by pserwylo »

willstepp wrote: post #40
CWilliams1013 wrote: post #29

The trick that always worked for me was to insert the cartridge and then pull it out just enough to where the near edge of the cartridge would just barely scrape against the console as it was pushed down. This was far more effective than blowing on the cartridge.

I did that too! Man, this article is taking me back...

Taking you back?

My house mate and I are currently moving through our Killer Instinct phase on SNES, and I just lent my NES to my 18 year old sister and her boyfriend who borrow it regularly.

I'm taking this article very seriously, as I am from the family of people who blew in the cartridges (and the console) up until I read this :)

Re: Did Blowing Into The NES Cartridge Really Work?

#55

Post by meatpopsicle »

Holy crap, everyone is wrong. I didn't think I'd see this day on HN.

The reason people resorted to blowing in the cartridges is because of the CIC chip. The so-called "Lock-Out" chip on the NES is responsible for the Blinking power button and games not working.

"Sometimes," I hear some of you say, "You'd take the game out, put it back in, and it'd sometimes work. Why?" Well, imaginary question-asker, because the a faulty CIC will work sporadically. if the code passes the CIC check, it continues without issue. if the CIC fails halfway through your game, your game doesn't stop working. If you power cycled the system, then you'd notice the CIC failure. Blowing on the cartridge worked for the same reason doing 200 pushups will make water boil.

Nesdev.org has a decent amount of information about this chip on their wiki, if anyone's interested.

TL;DR - clip two pins on the CIC chip, never blow in a NES cartridge again.

Re: Did Blowing Into The NES Cartridge Really Work?

#56

Post by dhughes »

aristus wrote: post #5

As a wee lad in the last millennium I was an authorized Nintendo repairman. Blowing on the cart sometimes worked, if there was errant dust or fluff in the way. But in the long run the salty moist air would cause a corrosive layer of gunk on the contacts. Normal procedure was to open each cart and clean them with a good eraser then an alcohol wash. The bigger problem was bad design in the original NES. The cart plugge…

When I worked for my uncle's video game business in the mid 1980s I often had to remove the ROMs/EEPROMs from coin-op video games and used an eraser as well to clean the corrosion off the legs.

The PacMan series were the worst and the single data and power connector would always fail, often scorching the PCB causing the traces to lift and come loose. The legs on the EEPROMs on Ms PacMan I worked on fell off I think they were just pressed on, they were a weird gold colour. That was a bad day.

Re: Did Blowing Into The NES Cartridge Really Work?

#57

Post by scott_s »

mwctahoe wrote: post #51
scott_s wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blowing on the cart sometimes worked, if there was errant dust or fluff in the way. How do you know it was the blowing, and not the act of removing and reseating the cart? That's rather the point of the article.

if there actually is dust and blowing actually takes it out of the cartridge then it works. the article was saying most of the time it wasnt dusty so there was no point to blow on it but we all still do it, hell i've done it on CD's, flash drives, power connections, pretty much everything electronic if a quick unplug replug didnt work i have tried blowing in it and eventually it works though blowing doesnt help it ma…

Blowing may have worked at getting the dust out of the cartridge - assuming you observed it - but that doesn't establish that the dust was the cause of the problem.

Re: Did Blowing Into The NES Cartridge Really Work?

#59

Post by agumonkey »

xentronium wrote: post #44
agumonkey wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me pedantic while being clueless at the same time, the western NES design introduced the problem, since the original famicom had vertical insertion cartridge already right ?

In Russia we had so-called Dendy[1] (hardware clone of Famicom made in Zelenograd) which had that exact vertical slot. Guess what, we used to blow into our cartridges too when they didn't work. [1] Actually, history of game consoles in Russia in early 1990s is quite curious. Nintendo themselves weren't interested in our market, so Russian-Chinese manufacturers promoted their clone quite freely. I believe it was even…

Thanks I never heard about Russian market and that you were left without original NES ! I only knew about few South America clones.

Re: Did Blowing Into The NES Cartridge Really Work?

#60

Post by nollidge »

meatpopsicle wrote: post #55

Holy crap, everyone is wrong. I didn't think I'd see this day on HN. The reason people resorted to blowing in the cartridges is because of the CIC chip. The so-called "Lock-Out" chip on the NES is responsible for the Blinking power button and games not working. "Sometimes," I hear some of you say, "You'd take the game out, put it back in, and it'd sometimes work. Why?" Well, imaginary question-asker, because the a fa…

I'd say they're not wrong as much as just not addressing that particular complaint.
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