There is something wrong with my Link To the Past cart
Okay, this is just strange. I'm used to NES games bugging out and crashing sometimes. But I've q-tipped my Link to the past plenty of times.
This cart is OLLLD mind you. It keeps saves still and the bottom of the cart features just the slit in the middle for that piece of plastic on your hardware to push into when you power on your SNES.
So...everytime I play this game for up to half hour or 45 minutes. The screen goes black and the game crashes.
You have to reset the game and save often to keep playing.
I don't want to take a hammer to a beloved Link to The Past cart. But I've had this game for quite a few years now and I'm starting to get frustratingly pissed.
I get Zora's Flippers. Take the whirlpool to the pond of "Happiness" (more like Rupy Theft as it does nothing) I throw some rupees in, get told I'll have " a little luck" (pfft), bomb the wall next to it. Wow. Fariies. How useless.
And I exit the room and jump back into the Hyrule River to try and swim north to the bridge next to the castle so I can grab a new water bottle.
I get outside of the shallow waters and I teleport back to Zora's pond out of nowhere. Now keep in mind, I did not hit the whirlpool to do this. Now I"m baffled.
I enter the whirlpool and go back the southern river. And I swim outside the shallow shore again only to for no reason, once again teleport and the screen goes black and my game crashes.
Now i have to grab Zora's flippers all over again.
This game crashes consistently on me and I don't know what is causing it.
I am posting this here because I know NA has people from all walks of life.
SOMEONE HERE works on games, someone here has opened up an SNES cart and cleaned it, someone here has soldiered ROM chips and replaced save batteries.
So if one of you could tell me what the hell is wrong with my Zelda cart, I'd appreciate it.
Becuase this isn't the first time, this is not a coincidence and I do not wish to pay Ebay/Retro game shop prices to replace a copy that I've had in my posession for many many MANY years.
This cart is OLLLD mind you. It keeps saves still and the bottom of the cart features just the slit in the middle for that piece of plastic on your hardware to push into when you power on your SNES.
So...everytime I play this game for up to half hour or 45 minutes. The screen goes black and the game crashes.
You have to reset the game and save often to keep playing.
I don't want to take a hammer to a beloved Link to The Past cart. But I've had this game for quite a few years now and I'm starting to get frustratingly pissed.
I get Zora's Flippers. Take the whirlpool to the pond of "Happiness" (more like Rupy Theft as it does nothing) I throw some rupees in, get told I'll have " a little luck" (pfft), bomb the wall next to it. Wow. Fariies. How useless.
And I exit the room and jump back into the Hyrule River to try and swim north to the bridge next to the castle so I can grab a new water bottle.
I get outside of the shallow waters and I teleport back to Zora's pond out of nowhere. Now keep in mind, I did not hit the whirlpool to do this. Now I"m baffled.
I enter the whirlpool and go back the southern river. And I swim outside the shallow shore again only to for no reason, once again teleport and the screen goes black and my game crashes.
Now i have to grab Zora's flippers all over again.
This game crashes consistently on me and I don't know what is causing it.
I am posting this here because I know NA has people from all walks of life.
SOMEONE HERE works on games, someone here has opened up an SNES cart and cleaned it, someone here has soldiered ROM chips and replaced save batteries.
So if one of you could tell me what the hell is wrong with my Zelda cart, I'd appreciate it.
Becuase this isn't the first time, this is not a coincidence and I do not wish to pay Ebay/Retro game shop prices to replace a copy that I've had in my posession for many many MANY years.
Comments
ram is bad
board or some other component is bad
mask rom is bad
if it's mine and I don't care about the save game, I'm pulling the mask rom, dumping it to verify it's good, and putting it on a known good donor board. if you don't want to do that, you can try replacing the ram chip. if that fixes your problem you should be done. if not then you have to inspect everything on the board or resort to pulling the chip anyway.
But yes, I probably should clean the pins on my SNES at some point. It has seen better days but thankfully is not changing colors like some SNES models do.
Well, thank you all for your time. I made it to the dark world without crashing so perhaps it was just my pins.
This Zelda cart is the only game I have on SNES that has any kind of problem what so ever. Every few years when I play it, it does this. I'm hoping some months from now when I pop it back in, I still have save data. I picked slot 2 as I notice games with weak batteries don't like it when you save on slot 1. (Final Fantasy VI used to do that to me a lot)
if that doesnt work then your cart is got futher issues does this happen with any other games?
Originally posted by: nes freak
if you have any fine steel wool take a Q tip and remove the cotton and the spin the paper end of the q tip in the steel wool and wrap it around your q tip. now with windex carefully clean your game. if there is any dirt or rust it will be gone after using the steel wool q tip. not clean it with a regular qtip and windex or alcohal. make sure all the metal fragments are out of the cart slot. for your snes just use a credit cart wraped with a paper towel and alcohol in the end.
if that doesnt work then your cart is got futher issues does this happen with any other games?
You seem to know a lot about cleaning games! Honestly, I use a dab of water on the Q-Tip and wash with one end and dry with the other.
Kind of how we were taught with our NES cleaning kits.
is this a bad idea all around?
Doesn't happen with other games.
Originally posted by: nes freak
if you have any fine steel wool take a Q tip and remove the cotton and the spin the paper end of the q tip in the steel wool and wrap it around your q tip. now with windex carefully clean your game. if there is any dirt or rust it will be gone after using the steel wool q tip. not clean it with a regular qtip and windex or alcohal. make sure all the metal fragments are out of the cart slot. for your snes just use a credit cart wraped with a paper towel and alcohol in the end.
if that doesnt work then your cart is got futher issues does this happen with any other games?
You seem to know a lot about cleaning games! Honestly, I use a dab of water on the Q-Tip and wash with one end and dry with the other.
Kind of how we were taught with our NES cleaning kits.
is this a bad idea all around?
Doesn't happen with other games.
Whatever you do don't use straight water. That will damage your game. Isopropyl alcohol is ideal because it evaporates very quickly. The solution included with those cleaning kits is mostly isopropyl alcohol.
Originally posted by: nes freak
if you have any fine steel wool take a Q tip and remove the cotton and the spin the paper end of the q tip in the steel wool and wrap it around your q tip. now with windex carefully clean your game. if there is any dirt or rust it will be gone after using the steel wool q tip. not clean it with a regular qtip and windex or alcohal. make sure all the metal fragments are out of the cart slot. for your snes just use a credit cart wraped with a paper towel and alcohol in the end.
if that doesnt work then your cart is got futher issues does this happen with any other games?
You seem to know a lot about cleaning games! Honestly, I use a dab of water on the Q-Tip and wash with one end and dry with the other.
Kind of how we were taught with our NES cleaning kits.
is this a bad idea all around?
Doesn't happen with other games.
Whatever you do don't use straight water. That will damage your game. Isopropyl alcohol is ideal because it evaporates very quickly. The solution included with those cleaning kits is mostly isopropyl alcohol.
Pretty much this. And I would only use any kind of abrasive (steel wool or sand paper) as a last resort. Go to your local Walmart and look for the 91% alcohol, if you have 70% it'll work in a pinch, and much better than just tap water, but you'll still want to make sure it's dry after cleaning.
Originally posted by: nes freak
if you have any fine steel wool take a Q tip and remove the cotton and the spin the paper end of the q tip in the steel wool and wrap it around your q tip. now with windex carefully clean your game. if there is any dirt or rust it will be gone after using the steel wool q tip. not clean it with a regular qtip and windex or alcohal. make sure all the metal fragments are out of the cart slot. for your snes just use a credit cart wraped with a paper towel and alcohol in the end.
if that doesnt work then your cart is got futher issues does this happen with any other games?
You seem to know a lot about cleaning games! Honestly, I use a dab of water on the Q-Tip and wash with one end and dry with the other.
Kind of how we were taught with our NES cleaning kits.
is this a bad idea all around?
Doesn't happen with other games.
Whatever you do don't use straight water. That will damage your game. Isopropyl alcohol is ideal because it evaporates very quickly. The solution included with those cleaning kits is mostly isopropyl alcohol.
Pretty much this. And I would only use any kind of abrasive (steel wool or sand paper) as a last resort. Go to your local Walmart and look for the 91% alcohol, if you have 70% it'll work in a pinch, and much better than just tap water, but you'll still want to make sure it's dry after cleaning.
^Exactly this. 91% alcohol is what you want. As expensive as this hobby can be I enjoy the fact that most games can be made to work for pennies. Q-tips and alcohol. For 5 dollars you can clean so many games.
I've never used Windex, the fact that it has fragrance and dyes, among other chemicals, makes it less than ideal in my opinion.
Originally posted by: Velheim1334
Originally posted by: nes freak
if you have any fine steel wool take a Q tip and remove the cotton and the spin the paper end of the q tip in the steel wool and wrap it around your q tip. now with windex carefully clean your game. if there is any dirt or rust it will be gone after using the steel wool q tip. not clean it with a regular qtip and windex or alcohal. make sure all the metal fragments are out of the cart slot. for your snes just use a credit cart wraped with a paper towel and alcohol in the end.
if that doesnt work then your cart is got futher issues does this happen with any other games?
You seem to know a lot about cleaning games! Honestly, I use a dab of water on the Q-Tip and wash with one end and dry with the other.
Kind of how we were taught with our NES cleaning kits.
is this a bad idea all around?
Doesn't happen with other games.
Very bad. you might as well use spit if you know what i mean. ive been cleaning game since 2005 so i have alot of experience with cleaning games and have come up with many methods to clean a game and consoles. so never use water. i reccomend you get yourself a 3.5 security bit to open your game to truly clean it. the method i gave you works without opening the game up. but if you can open your game use an pencil eraser. i only use steel wool on games i cant get clean or cant open like an atari game cart.
also using water can get inside the cart pbc board and cause your connectons to rust. so if you used water on it that might be why its taking a crap on you.
so yeah id get a set of these here. there pretty cheap
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BEZY2I6/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2?pf_rd_p=1944687462&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B000F8GWH2&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=123ZB062HKGAN5V6WWA5