NES Zelda cart restarts at title screen

[mikecel79]

Hi all,

My first post here. I recently took my NES and SNES out of the closet and having been playing around with them. I am having a problem with just one of my NES carts. It's a gold Zelda cart. After jiggling and messing around with it in the NES I finally got it to come up. But almost as soon as the title screen comes up and the music starts playing it reboots. The light on the NES blinks like when a cart is not seated right. I have cleaned the cart and I don't really have many problems using other games in the NES, just this one.

Could the cart just be dead? Anything else to try? A dead save battery wouldn't cause this right? Unfortunately I don't have another NES to try but since it play everything else I have thrown at it I doubt it's my console.

[Hobie-wan]

Never doubt!

If stuff has been sitting in the closet, I'd bet the system needs a clean as well. You might not have gotten everything cleaned enough on the cart either. You are correct, a dead save battery doesn't matter. Since it is starting, then blinking, that means that the pins that the lockout chip communicate on aren't making good contact. If it were any other pins, you'd get the usual garbage or it might just lock up or stay a solid color. Check the guides section for cleaning hints.

[Nyukki]

I may be wrong, but doesn't hitting RESET allow you to cycle through regions or something like that? Obviously this isn't relevant if all your games are local versions.

[mikecel79]

Never doubt!

If stuff has been sitting in the closet, I'd bet the system needs a clean as well. You might not have gotten everything cleaned enough on the cart either. You are correct, a dead save battery doesn't matter. Since it is starting, then blinking, that means that the pins that the lockout chip communicate on aren't making good contact. If it were any other pins, you'd get the usual garbage or it might just lock up or stay a solid color. Check the guides section for cleaning hints.

I took the console apart and gave it a good cleaning already. I had bought a replacement 72 pin connector but the one I got didn't work at all so I shipped it back. I may try the boiling method on the connector after reading about it here.

All my other games play fine in it now although SMB3 can be a pain. Probably because it uses all 72 pins. I plan on taking the cart apart tonight and cleaning it. I used a q-tip with rubbing alcohol but maybe there is still some gunk on the contacts. Hoping that will do the trick.

[Hobie-wan]

If a game does the reset blink, that means the pins connecting the lockout chip aren't making good contact, so the system isn't verifying and then goes into the reset loop. That was the whole point of the lockout to prevent bootleg games from running. Any other pins not making contact would result in the game crashing or the usual graphics garbage that often accompanied the reset loop. So if SMB3 is a bit of a pain too, then that pretty much tells you there's some crap still on the pins or the cart. It is probably just that for those 2 carts, the lumps of crap end up aligned just right that the contact is not good.

I'd strongly consider buying the bits to open stuff up (which can be bought on the store here) so you can really see and get at the cart pins. I bet once you can see better, the problem will become apparent and then you can get at it with an eraser or a light attack with a green scrubby sponge and get it going.

I may be wrong, but doesn't hitting RESET allow you to cycle through regions or something like that? Obviously this isn't relevant if all your games are local versions.

You must be thinking of one of the mods for Saturns or whatnot that uses reset for region selecting.

[mikecel79]

I may be wrong, but doesn't hitting RESET allow you to cycle through regions or something like that? Obviously this isn't relevant if all your games are local versions.

This is a local version from my own collection so i guess this doesn't apply. I've hit that reset button about a billion times trying to get this game to work

[Hobie-wan]

This is a local version from my own collection so i guess this doesn't apply. I've hit that reset button about a billion times trying to get this game to work

Yeah, that doesn't apply. That's what the lockout is doing anyway since it isn't talking to the one in the cart, it is just resetting over and over.