Recently, I’ve just rediscovered my parent’s old SNES. The thing’s original in-box, and with how well taken care of it’s been over the past years, it might as well have been fresh off of the factory. However, there’s something weird that happens when I try to boot it up. I have two game cartridges, Mario World and Street Fighter 2. When I try to play Mario World, it’ll load the opening up until Mario throws the shell at the block, at which point the screen either goes garbage or black. If I spam start, I can get into the level select without issue. I’m even able to load into levels, but the odd thing is that it’ll let me play up until I collect a coin or stomp an enemy, at which point the screen will either go garbage or black again. When I attempt to load Street Fighter, it’s nothing but a black screen. I’ve opened up the board a few times now, and I’m not seeing anything to suggest a blown fuse or damaged connection. The problem persists through both RF out and AV cables.
The most common thing is to use something like glass cleaner (like Windex) with cotton swabs.
Just lightly spray one end, give both sides of the pin connector on the bottom of the cart a good wipe with the wet end, then dry with the dry end.
I've had to repeat it with a few swabs for some very dirty carts.
If the console is still partially working (as it sounds like with Mario), that's usually the problem.
Ummm yeah there's a differnce. Windex is actually used to clean things. While an IPA does have alcohol in it (and quite honestly myself would use it as a cleaner before drinking one) I am pretty sure that the other ingredients in an IPA aren't good for a video game cartridge.
RetiredPush Square Moderator and all around retro gamer.
New development, I’ve cleaned Super Mario World with Windex as suggested. It still crashes at the first block, but now the screen goes weird in different ways and plays random game noises instead of continuing the music. Still nothing with Street Fighter 2.
In all the years I've been part of the online classic gaming scene dating back to about 1997, I've never heard of Windex for cleaning cartridge contacts. Always has been isopropyl alcohol (70% is fine, but the higher the better) on a q-tip and if that's not getting the job done, crack the cartridge open and take an eraser to the contacts.
Back when the SNES was Nintendo's premier console and you bought a cleaning kit at a videogamer retailer, it would've been isopropyl alcohol in the bottle. Not Windex or a clone of it. Not saying one is better than the other, just that it surprises me to see another solution recommended that I was previously unaware of, yet apparently is fairly widespread.
Some folks think cleaning cartridge contacts will fix most any issue with a classic console, but alas that's not the case (Although it's always a good 1st step to take when diagnosing such issues). Components do fail over time and the Super Nintendo is no stranger to it. Problems are increasingly cropping up as they age and things like the PPU fail or drift out of spec due to degradation.
Plus as a long-time Super Nintendo owner, I can't ever recall a cartridge only sort of working. Unlike something like the NES, incomplete contact on the SNES from my experience typically results in a non-booting game that requires the game to be ejected and reinserted rather than halfway working. So when bizarre behavior like this crops up, it's sadly typically a sign of something like the CPU beginning to fail.
If you happen to own a SNES multicart, try running a diagnostic rom on it.
Ummm yeah there's a differnce. Windex is actually used to clean things. While an IPA does have alcohol in it (and quite honestly myself would use it as a cleaner before drinking one) I am pretty sure that the other ingredients in an IPA aren't good for a video game cartridge.
I've read this a few times now and still can't tell if you're being serious or not. Well played 😂
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Topic: SNES is broken, but not in a normal way?
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