SNES Video Problems

[FireStar]

My SNES I got from a goodwill(which of course may be the reason it's broke) has video problems with almost any game I put in it, Kirby's Dream Course has colors faded and the Nintendo and Halken logo come on at the same time, and most other games such as NBA Jam barely display anything at all, just a small glitchy mess on some menus. The only game thats video output is fine in the SGB. It's not the Multi AV out port, as the RF box does the same, though the power plug is missing the center plastic, I don't think thats a factor. I've looked online and can't find much, though the capacitors may be drying out, I opened it up and nothing appears too bad, there was some grease and corrosion on some parts(I noticed pins on the back labeled "Ground" were all corroded), I cleaned it with rubbing alcohol and baking powder paste, didn't do any good. Pictures Links:
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t149/FireStarw/Top.jpg http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t149/FireStarw/Topcorner.jpg http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t149/FireStarw/Backboard.jpg

[Bramanda]

One thing you could try is cleaning the 62 pin connector in your SNES and also cleaning the games themselves with rubbing alcohol. I had some video related issues with mine after being in storage and this helped.

For the games , I just used Q-tips lightly saturated in rubbing alcohol , and rubbed the contacts. Got all kinds of black gunk off them.

For the connector in the SNES , I used a credit card wrapped with a thin t-shirt , also dampened with alcohol and cleaned the contacts by inserting/removing it like a cartridge. Make sure its not like dripping wet , just damp. I used a white t-shirt over the card and could see crud getting cleaned up. Just make sure to be careful and only go straight up and down so you don't mess up any of the pins alignment.

Good luck man ! And if all else fails , yard sale season will soon be upon us. I scored one of my SNES's from a yard sale last year for 1$ !

[Hobie-wan]

Was that residue already on the board? If that's leftover from the cleaning, you need to have at it some more with alcohol and q-tips. If the board looked like that when you got it, I'd say it was a flood victim. If the games are a scrambled mess like when a NES gets dirty, the system might just be parts at this point. I Have one system I ended up with that displays a consistent glitchy mess for each game plugged into it. I think the graphic chip got fried. However, a few of those capacitors look a little brown in the picture, maybe they need replacing? Funky power can cause weird issues with electronics.

[jeffro11]

That looks like its been submerged in water for a while. Like others said, try cleaning the connector. If all else fails... go to a garage sale and get one for real cheap!

[FireStar]

Well, most of the residue was already on the board, but looking where its at, its mainly on the rf box and expansion port, so no problems there. Cleaning the cartridge port didn't make it any better(it didn't look dirty either), and none of the capacitors look too bad so it seems I just have a Super Game Boy only SNES. Oh well, Flea market around here always has good stuff.

Edit: Also, does anyone think that the broke power plug in the snes may help the problem? It caused the SGB to not display video the first time it booted, so I may replace the plug for one that will work with my SMS power plug and see if that helps.

[Hobie-wan]

Unless the busted plug is somehow only letting some of the voltage through and the system is just randomly doing weird things with low power, I doubt it. Don't junk it though if the case is nice and non yellowed though.

[FireStar]

Nope, the top of its case is nice and yellow
Oh well, I got a snes power cable and it works great with the SGB, I'll put it with my GB stuff and get another snes.

[Hobie-wan]

Hmm ok, the bottom is nice and gray, but of course most people end up with harlequin systems. Interesting that the SGB works ok though. I wonder if one would in my messed up SNES too. I have no need to pick one up though since I have a GBP for GC.

[bacteria]

Different games use different pins on the cart connector. For example, on the N64, Super Mario 64 only uses a few of the pins, however some titles use all of them.

It is likely that this is true for many games, hence why SMB works on your system but other games don't. If it were a definite hardware fault then no games would play.

I rather suspect that either the game cart needs cleaning, as suggested, or you have some dry contacts on the connector pins on the cart slot; or maybe a trace has been severed - only needs one after all to give bad output.