Strange NES problem!

[Schiggidyd]

Hey guys, I bring broken NES consoles back to life.
I encountered the weirdest problem however, with a specific console.
I can't think of any explanation!

It has to do with starting Super Mario Brothers. That's it. Literally, the system doesn't want to start Super Mario Brothers in any of it's three forms.

But when I pop in a different game, Battletoads for example, it plays fine. I can use every button, no problem!

When I pop in Mario Bros, Mario/Duck Hunt, or even Mario/Duck Hunt/TrackMeet, the start button chooses not to work for this game only.

Does this NES hate Super Mario?

Even weirder, the start button works on the menu screen of Mario/Duck Hunt and Mario/Duck Hunt/Track Meet, but once it loads to the Mario title screen, it chooses not to work!

I'M BAFFLED!

[TimTendo]

It looks like it's a problem with how that specific game interprets the start button signal, but that might have been obvious, heh.

In which case, it's definitely a hardware problem, although not one I've ever heard of. This is very strange, no doubt. I'm really sorry for not helping much, although I'm interested in how this problem began, and even more so on the solution, hopefully if there is one. If you do find a solution, you should definitely post it here, I'm curious what could be wrong here!

[Schiggidyd]

Problem solved!

I got down N' dirty and gave it's connector a more hands-on cleaning, after that, suddenly "Start" in Super Mario works again.

Fascinating, this shows me that different games use different connections to send signals through, even for separate buttons.
Mario must use a specific pin to start the game, which wasn't going through, while other games would start as normal.

[ccovell]

There is only one connection and pin configuration for games to send their signals down... The difference may lie with software debouncing routines in the game, or (something else like that.)

[Schiggidyd]

True, I just found it really strange how start would work when selecting Mario or Duck Hunt, and then completely stop working at the Mario title screen.