Nintendo NES problem

[camarothunder]

I woke up this morning, hankering to play with my old Final Fantasy game. Put the game in my NES and turned it on. To my surprise, I can see my game on screen but with several vertical lines on it. I was like... what the heck?? I just cleaned my Final Fantasy game. So I went out and grab another cleaned game and put it in. Same result. So I took apart my NES console and check it out. I had a brand new 72 pins installed few weeks ago. I took the 72 pins off and check the contact areas on main board, which I had it cleaned at the same time I got new 72 pins installed. Contact areas is little bit dirty so I cleaned it again. Then I got everything back together again and retest my system. It shown a game on screen with vertical lines at first but I shut it off, pull game cartridge out and then put it back in. Turn on my system and it work fine. I'm baffled by this. I have cleaned the crap out of my system and games. Is this a sign that my aging system is ready to go?? Did I forget something? I have attached a photo with this thread and no, I don't play "The Little Mermaid" game. I just have to test it.

[NayusDante]

The pins might not be aligned properly. Make sure the connector is seated right and no pins are touching the wrong contacts.

[Jehusephat]

I remember something similar happening to my first SNES. One of the chips responsible for performing a specific kind of graphical function died, and I ended up seeing lines and errors in a few games, while others played normally. There were images in Earthbound that seemed to be a higher resolution (640x480?) than other images, and those would appear garbled. I would also see lines cutting through Bust-a-Move that looked -exactly- like the ones you're seeing on your NES. The way I discovered that it was my system was to try playing the same games on a friend's SNES. They worked fine. You could also try playing an alternate copy of the same game on your system to see if the errors are reproduced.

[BetaWolf47]

That happened on a crappy copy of Little Nemo I had. Only that game though. You may have something blown on your NES's circuit board, such as a capacitor that connects to a pin or graphics.

[MachineGex]

That is usually a sign of dirty or bent pins. You may have gotten a bad 72 pin. It may have bent alittle bit after playing some games.

The next time it does that, check it on several games. If you see the same lines with more than one cart, you got a bad 72 pin. I have seen an almost 50% failure rate in some of the cheap brands of those 72 pins.

[BetaWolf47]

That is usually a sign of dirty or bent pins. You may have gotten a bad 72 pin. It may have bent alittle bit after playing some games.

The next time it does that, check it on several games. If you see the same lines with more than one cart, you got a bad 72 pin. I have seen an almost 50% failure rate in some of the cheap brands of those 72 pins.

He did check on several games, all with the same result.

[PapaStu]

**shimmied to Tech and Resto**

[MachineGex]

He did check on several games, all with the same result.

I thought he said he tested it on another game. I didnt see where he checked several games. I must have missed that part.

Anyhow, it still is a sign of a bad 72 pin. I would start there. That is very common compared to a board problem and is a whole lots easier and cheaper to fix. If you have the old 72 pin and it worked somewhat, you could put that back in and see if it works. Or, take back the 72 pin and get a replacement and see if that works.

[b1aCkDeA7h]

Same thing happened to a friend's NES that I was fixing. I bent some of the pins out of place so all I needed was a safety pin to realign the pins in the connector and now it's perfect.

[iloveguns]

That happened on a crappy copy of Little Nemo I had. Only that game though. You may have something blown on your NES's circuit board, such as a capacitor that connects to a pin or graphics.

+1 i think its a broken circuit board.

[Compute]

I'll throw a hat in the ring for bent pins/bad contact. The most issues I"ve had with this kind of stuff have been from bad contact. I would not rule out damage from electrostatic discharge, though.