Need Help Troubleshooting a NES Cartridge

So, recently, I bought a cartridge of The Legend of Zelda for the NES from a thrift store along with a few other games. The other games work fine, but this one has been giving me several issues. Here's a runthrough of all the problems:



First, I put it in and it came up to the Title Screen. It said to press start, so I did, and it froze. Thinking that it may have been an error, I tried it again. And again. Same thing each time. I would let it play through the title screen and it would just get to the end of the story explanation, where it said something like "All Treasure" or something, and then freeze.



I turned the cartridge in a different way one time and I noticed that the title screen graphics were distorted, so I pressed start and it worked! But when i created a file and started playing, Link and all other moving sprites were just leters and numbers, like CDEF, and only the overworld sprites appeared. It did this several other times until about the 7th time, when everything worked!!!! Except for the top bar, which, upon moving up, would change to a copy of the top of whatever area I just left. Sigh...



I took it out and decided to clean it with Alcohol (Vodka, to be exact), and now all it does is freeze upon pressing start again. i can't even get it to give me the messed up graphics but still play fine like it did before. I've noticed that when I move the cartrideg, there is a little sound of something moving inside of it, like a little piece of something.



Also, my save file from all of these playthroughs was not saved. I'm guessing that the battery is dead on that one, so that's not really a concern for me.



What could possibly be wrong?



tldr; It freezes at the title screen. What's going on?



(P.S. I was kidding about the vodka)

Comments

  • Sounds like a pin is still dirty. Try some Weimans. As for the rattling, this is fairly common and should most likely not affect the playability.
  • I'm not sure, I cleaned it three times,and each time, I haven't gotten that much dirt from it. I'll try cleaning it one more time, and then I'll see how well Weiman's works. Is there any other thing that it may be?
  • I dont think that a dead battery should affect the playability. Anyone have knowledge otherwise? If you have a bit, open that sucker up and see what the top end of the pins look like. I suspect you will find a piece of plastic that the board will sit on, but perhaps you will find something otherwise. On the battery end of it, has anyone ever found a battery to be leaking acid? Opening it up may be your best bet to finding out what may be wrong.
  • Quick update! I contacted the thrift store and they said that I can exchange it for another copy of Zelda that they have. Thank you so much for trying to help me though!
  • What they selling them for?
  • Sounds like a win/win! I am sure you can still use this advice in the future anyway!
  • Is there any acid corossion around the battery or anywhere on the board?

  • Originally posted by: Proveaux



    What they selling them for?





    $15, which I think is a pretty fair price, considering that, online, the game goes for around the same thing.







    @Space Jockey I'm not able to tell, I don't have the right tools to open the cartridge.



    @Redivivus Yeah, thank you so much!
  • Yeah, it just needed a better cleaning from you and it would have worked. It probably would be best to also take apart your NES and was your other connector in the sink with a tooth brush too, dust gets on there too ya know. Good luck.
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