Help with badly corroded SNES game

[Spleeze]

I just picked up a copy of Turtles in Time for the SNES and when I got it home I realized it was extremely dirty.
I took the cart apart to clean it, and the contacts were covered with green corrosion as well as what looks like some rust.

I don't have the cart with me now but I can post pictures later if needed.

After some scrubbing with contact cleaner and even a little bit of sandpaper on the contacts, everything 'looks' good, but the game won't work in my SNES.

Any ideas? I have a copy of Madden that is in great shape, and I was thinking about trying to swap the eproms on the boards. Has anyone done this before and had success?

Thanks!

[xelement5x]

Did you try it in your SNES before cleaning it? If so you might have gotten gunk on the contacts of your console so you could try giving them a clean to see if it helps. It's possible a trace on the board was corroded as well, so you might want to check the continuity on them.

[Spleeze]

I'll be able to post a picture later today, but there is one part of the board where a trace looks 'rusty'. I wouldn't be surprised if I find some issues there.

I didn't try it before cleaning it to be honest. The cart was so dirty, I really didn't even want to plug it into my SNES.

[Gameguy]

Has anyone done this before and had success?

I remember someone here swapped the chips from a copy of Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom and getting it to work. If the traces on a board are bad you can swap the chips onto a new board, as long as the boards are compatible with each other it should work.

[bust3dstr8]

Rom swapping would probably be the easiest way to fix this if you have tiny traces that are corroded. Just make sure
you have the correct memory mapper and RAM sizes.

[Spleeze]

Thanks for the replies everyone. This weekend was very busy and I haven't had a chance to upload any pics of the two PCBs I have.

One is the turtles in time as mentioned above, and the other is some version of Madden.

Even though the boards look identical, can anyone direct me to how I can confirm that the memory mapper and RAM sizes are the same?

Thanks again!

[SparTonberry]

I don't think TMNT even uses cart RAM, so that shouldn't be a problem.
I THINK (but I'm not certain) that the PCB name determines the mapping (starts with SHVC- for NTSC original, SNSP- for PAL. I'm not sure if Majesco reprints had custom PCBs, though. Which I know TMNT had a reprint.).
If they match, I THINK they should be a good match.
(generally true. I know byuu found a couple differences, but I think the only difference was with some PCBs using a "MAD-1" chip vs. others using a "MAD-R". Though if the two games in this case are identical, it shouldn't affect this. Checking snescentral.com, I see early (non-battery) Maddens didn't use a MAD chip (no scan of a TMNT PCB available), and besides, even of those that did use a MAD, I think byuu mentioned EVO as one of the very few, if only, US release to use MAD-R over MAD-1)

[xelement5x]

I agree that swapping would probably be the easiest thing to do, but it doesn't mean you can try and troubleshoot the issue either way

I'm a glutton for punishment, but you can repair it if a trace is corroded, it's just time consuming. I repaired a SMS Wonder Boy cart a couple weeks ago but it's really not worth your time if you can easily remove and ROM and put it on a cheapo donor board.

[Spleeze]

Here are some pics of the two boards.
This is the possible good "John Madden Football" board.
The text at the top of this board reads "SHVC-1A0N-01"


Here are some shots of the damaged Turtles board.
You can make out some of the 'rust' on the traces in these shots.
The text at the top of this board reads "SHVC-1A0N-02"


Sorry the quality isn't great, I don't think my phone is made for taking these kinda shots.
Do we think these boards are a match? Good for a swap? Or is there a better way to deal with the 'rust' on the TMNT board.
Thanks!

[Spleeze]

This is an additional full shot of the TMNT turtles in time board, I realized I didn't upload a full shot of that one.


Everything except the code at the top looks identical on both boards.

[Niku-Sama]

none of that looks that bad...

and what rust? none of the contacts/traces should be rusting because nothing in them is made out of things that rust.

corrode maybe but when i hear rust i think of orange flakey doom

[Spleeze]

The 'rust' is located above the contacts on the traces. You can see the brown in some of the shots.

Who knows if it is rust or what it is. I'm calling it that for lack of better term.

Here's what I do know:

The traces shouldn't be brown.
The cart won't run, it just shows a black solid screen.
Other carts work fine in that SNES.

[xelement5x]

If you really want to diagnose and fix this board, I would start by picking up a cheap multimeter and using it to test continuity from the contact to the spots where they end on the if there is not continuity you can assume there is something wrong with the trace and it will probably require repair.

For my Wonder Boy cart that was bad you could visibly see the lighter green of the traces was not the same as the rest of them in some spots. Here's a picture, the traces that were bad were the 2 in the middle:


Wonder Boy in Monster Land with damaged traces in the middle by xelement5x, on Flickr

I'm not sure what caused it exactly, but I was able to repair it by scraping away the top of the trace to expose the copper underneath, then bridged over the bad spot to the PCB contact below with a tiny piece of wire.

[bust3dstr8]

If the traces are dark, there is a good chance they are corroded. You can check the resistance with a meter to be sure.
If they are not reading close to zero, they can cause problems.


That Madden will work as a donor pcb since they both have the 1A0N pcb.

1=1 ROM chip
A= Low ROM cart pinout
0= No Ram
N= LS00 or No Mapper

[raylydiard]

Wow i know what will happen if everyone keeps blowing there Cart's i am trying to teach retro shop to to clean there cart's as they keep blowning into them and will cause them to die in the end.

There's a place here in the UK can redo the gold contact point i am unsure how he does this though would be cool to know how to do that.

[Spleeze]

UPDATE:

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.
I've managed to swap the ROMs from one PCB to the other and it worked great!
Just finished beating the game.

One of the pins was a real pain to desolder though.
The one all the way to the left on the top of the eprom.
Eventually I got it out, but it wasn't easy!

Thanks again everyone.

[bust3dstr8]

Congrats!!!!!!

Ya...sometimes those pins on heavy ground/power planes can be a real bitch.