racketboy.com

So I recently pickup up a super famicom from ebay, a long with some games (separate seller)

Of the three games I bought two had issues.

super mario world played fine,
But the main title screen, and anything using special overlays, such as text box popups (in game notices) it would have weird glitching, but it would all be limited to that frame.


More:


But just normal level play was fine.

The other game that had some slight issues was street fighter II turbo:


more:

Again, most of the layers seemed fine, but a few sprites were messed up. (as shown)
But the characters look fine.

The Third game was super bomberman, that plays 100% fine with no issues, and I later picked up 'starfox' and that plays fine with no issues.

I've cleaned the games (properly), as well as completely Cleaned the console inside and out.

And I still have the same issue.

I opened up the SMW cart (https://imgur.com/a/8lzbm) , and the contacts looked pretty corroded, is that a likely cause?

Because Sf2 turbo's look much cleaner, but it still has issues.

I also recently had a hard crash in SMW while just collecting coins, and it reset my save file.

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So long story short, I already have a return in progress for SMW, but I'm wondering if it could have been more of a PPU issue, Both the SFC and game seller say they test everything before it's sent out, so I don't really know who to believe.

I've already spend $16 on a whole new power supply (as suggested by a guy on /r/snes)
and now I'm at the end of my rope, I can't find any similar issues on the internet.

The guys with bad ppu's tend to have much more glitches. (whole sprites messed up, multiple layeys corruptted.)
And the guys with game cart issues tend to have issues with standard game play, not just menu's. (eg, games not starting up, constant freezing)

Any ideas on how to tell what's causing the issue?

Bad PPU is a really rare thing, tho not uneard of. My best guess is a bad/corroded cart slot, tho that is also suspect because of your already tried fixes... Just like the NES 72 pin connector can be replaced you can replace the 62 pin connector in a SNES/SFC. They're rarer and don't always fix the problem, but in this case it's the best quick-fix. - See here:
http://www.retro-video-game-repair.com/ ... connector/

I can send for the cost of shipping from BC, Canada an official SNES cartridge cleaning kit - I'll throw a VHS cleaner bottle of (most likely) Xylene from the 90's in too. It's near new - maybe used once but smells like smoke - given to me free so I'd be happy to pass it on.


Obviously internal because of the specific type of corruption. I'm interested to see how this plays out.

Anapan wrote:Bad PPU is a really rare thing, tho not uneard of. My best guess is a bad/corroded cart slot, tho that is also suspect because of your already tried fixes...

Thanks for the fast reply! and that sounds like a much cheaper fix too!

I think when I tore down the console, the one thing that I did not remove was the card slot. ( I just checked it for dust, and cleaned the top)

I will attempt some forms of cleaning for that, with it removed, is there any way to tell if it's corroded, before I go out and replace it. ( I'm not sure if my SFC is a Plug-In-Play version)

Also, one last thing, it is still more likely an issue with 62-pin connector, if the other two games work just fine?

(I'd be happy to try that, and pass it along as well, but by the time it gets here my return period for the SFC would have ended, so I'm just trying to cover all the options that I have right now)

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Edit:

Ok, so I tore down the SFC again, and cleaned the contacts,
they were pretty dirty, but I did not see any signs of corrosion.
https://imgur.com/a/shQGo

After cleaning, still had the same issues with SMW/ SF2

hi BOB , corrosion looks like a buildup on top of a Pin or Solder Joint. Usually the color will be greenish , white or blueish. I got a WIImote once that had corrosion in the port where the Nunchuck connects , i desoldered the Port and dumped it in a bowl of Vinegar and Lemon Juice.


They eat away the corrosion , i finished it off with some Deoxit Gold , you may want to checkout Deoxit it may help you with this SNES.

s8n wrote:hi BOB , corrosion looks like a buildup on top of a Pin or Solder Joint. Usually the color will be greenish , white or blueish. I got a WIImote once that had corrosion in the port where the Nunchuck connects , i desoldered the Port and dumped it in a bowl of Vinegar and Lemon Juice.


They eat away the corrosion , i finished it off with some Deoxit Gold , you may want to checkout Deoxit it may help you with this SNES.

Thanks, I may try that.
But I just can't see how corrosion would cause this specific issue,
it only happens when the system draws specific layers. and it clearly has all the data it needs.

If this was a PC game, the first thing I'd think is a CPU or GPU issue, not an issue with the hard drive
(or in this case a game cart.)

if it was a dirty/corroded connectors thing, you'd think there'd be wide spread reports about this after all these years, but I have found like one or two barely similar outcomes from the hours I spent searching.

But the most common 'clean your pins' thing I see, is games not working at all,


but I did clean the system's pin connectors a little, took of the connector top part and cleaned the underside too.

This is because all of those pins send different data. It's not like a pc where the game is loaded into ram and executed. The game is rom, and the snes doesn't have enough ram to load it all. The required graphics are read realtime through the pins. At any time a pin corresponds to a certain block of data and the corruption is likely coming from a bad connection to a specific part of the rom in the cart - the graphics for that layer. Usually it's corrosion on the cart connector or a damaged pin, or it could be a bad solder joint from the cart slot pin to the motherboard of the system.
At least I think that is the problem from what I gathered from the description. Can't rule anything out without testing and verification.
It may very well be a bad ppu or damaged trace from it to another part of the system. I only suspect the cart slot because I used to take the housing off my nes and snes and drag my dads keys over the slot bridge to get to secret worlds. I've had similar results.

Anapan wrote:This is because all of those pins send different data. It's not like a pc where the game is loaded into ram and executed. The game is rom, and the snes doesn't have enough ram to load it all. The required graphics are read realtime through the pins. At any time a pin corresponds to a certain block of data and the corruption is likely coming from a bad connection to a specific part of the rom in the cart - the graphics for that layer. Usually it's corrosion on the cart connector or a damaged pin, or it could be a bad solder joint from the cart slot pin to the motherboard of the system.
At least I think that is the problem from what I gathered from the description. Can't rule anything out without testing and verification.

Ok, that makes more sense, that may explain this issue with the sky in super Mario all stars:


Through my cellphone's camera, I was able to see that at one point, the sky looks fine, but it's only for a fraction of a second (did not capture it on camera)

maybe it loads multiple frames of background data, and is only able to display a few.

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I tried the credit card and t-shirt trick, with isoproply, and also with a dry shirt, I could not see any traces of corrosion.

I'm about to just buy a new fair condition SFC, and place it in this one's shell, as that would be about the same price as new pin connector, but I'll try the key thing first.

Thanks for all the help guys!

*DO NOT* TRY THE KEY THING!
That was me at 14 yrs old - I unscrewed the shell off of a damaged NES and used side cutters and a hammer to remove the shell from a damaged SNES (resoldered the problem parts and made them work badly) and then dragged metal stuff across the contact connectors to purposely break stuff while the game was running for cool effect. Dragging keys across a running piece of exposed electronics, while fun, is always a bad idea and could even injure you. I did not suggest it, only mentioned that I have damaged equipment in the past for the same effect that you're experiencing.

Anapan wrote:*DO NOT* TRY THE KEY THING!
That was me at 14 yrs old - I unscrewed the shell off of a damaged NES and used side cutters and a hammer to remove the shell from a damaged SNES (resoldered the problem parts and made them work badly) and then dragged metal stuff across the contact connectors to purposely break stuff while the game was running for cool effect. Dragging keys across a running piece of exposed electronics, while fun, is always a bad idea and could even injure you. I did not suggest it, only mentioned that I have damaged equipment in the past for the same effect that you're experiencing.

Ah, ok.

Well I'll be picking up a news super famicom later this week, I'll see if I can just swap out the connector, and hopefully that will work.

If not, I got a really nice looking shell on my current one, I'll just swap out the guts.

But thanks again for the great info!

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*Edit:* confirmed PPU issue, bough a new system, the new one's pins were in worse shape, but it played the games fine, and it works with the connector from the older system