Fixin' the glory days.

The good old days of the NES. Remember 'em? Sure you do! Curled up, playing away at Super Mario Bros. Those were the times. Remember the almost OCD-like rituals people would go through to get their NES games to work? Everyone had a different technique, but nearly every single one of them involved huffing a pressurized stream of air into the cartridges and/or the console. Sometimes it would work. If it didn't... well, you'd just keep on doing it until it eventually did work. Another popular technique was to rapidly push the cart caddy up and and down and then power it back up.

None of these little tricks actually ever fixed the real root cause of the flashing red light of despair, though. Often, people would think that it was dust inside the NES that was causing all of these problems. That is rarely ever the case.

The real culprit? There's a 72-pin connector inside the NES. This connector has loose, springy pins in it that make contact with the cartridges chipboard. You might remember how, when you first got your NES, the games would almost snap in there. A few years later, after heavy use, the games would loosely slide in and out with ease. That is the problem.

After a while, these pins would become depressed. No, not "sad" depressed, but bent down. These pins relied on having a bit of spring in them so that they would make a proper connection with the contacts on the cartridge chipboard. Over time, much like any kind of spring, these pins would get pushed down so often that they would lose their proper position and would no longer make solid connections with the cart contacts.

Now, there's a few solutions to this.

• Send your system into a place like The Nintendo Repair Shop, who will go ahead and repair your old NES and get it working like brand-spanking new.
  
• The slightly more DIY route and order a 72-pin connector from (once again) a place like The Nintendo Repair Shop or from ebay. They should run you roughly $8-$10.
  
• Go all-out DIY and fix the pins yourself. This isn't all that hard to do, as you just need to push the pins up slightly so they form a more narrow slit for the cartridges to fit into.

I'm not going to give you a rundown on how to do the final two solutions, as there is already a very well done video that can guide you through the whole process. If you have ever put RAM into your computer or even built an entire computer, then you'll be right at home. Even if you haven't done either of those, replacing the 72-pin connector is really easy to do. You just have to remove some screws, pop off the pin connector, pop on the new one, and then put the case back together. Just watch the below vid and you'll see.





^ Macrogeek tells you how to repair and replace the 72-pin connector and how to clean your carts!




One of the things you might encounter while putting your NES back together is accidentally locking the caddy. What I mean is, the caddy that slides up and down will either get locked in the up position and not lock in place when pushed down, or it will be locked down and will not slide up. This is because you have tightened the screws too tight. The screws you need to look for if this happens to you are the two front screws of the caddy where you insert the cartridge. See the pic below if you're confused as to which screws I'm referring to.



^ click for full scale image ^


If you wanted to get your NES back in action but kept getting the dreaded flashing red power button, hopefully this will help you solve your problem and get you back to enjoying some of those games of yore. Keep in mind that lifting the pins on the connector will only go but so far. Eventually they will get bent back down again, and will eventually just wear out altogether. When that happens, you'll have to get a replacement. However, in most cases the only problem is the pins being bent down from prolonged use. To help keep your system healthy and keep grime from building up on the connectors, I highly recommend you clean your games before playing them. I also recommend storing them inside those little black sleeves. These can be bought at places like the aforementioned Nintendo Repair Shop.

If you're looking to buy some old NES games, JJGames is a great place to order from. They have cheap prices, their games list tells you the condition, whether it has rental stickers on it, and if it includes the box and/or manual. Shipping is free if you order $25 or more worth of games, which is a nice bargain. They are kind of small, so their selection isn't as big as some of the others out there. If you're looking for a bigger selection, Videogame Central has a great stock of titles as does 8-Track Shack. My only personal experience is with JJGames, so I can't attest to the other mentioned two. However, they do have great ratings on Google Shopping. They are also highly regarded and came recommended to me by many retro gamers. Just remember, don't take their word that the carts are clean. Go ahead and clean it yourself before playing just to make sure. It only takes a second, is easy to do, and it'll help keep you from wondering what's wrong with your system.