Opened my SNES Starfox to clean, what is this??

[flojocabron]

why would someone make a pirate cart of starfox its not even worth much $10 tops

IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE.......

IF YOU GIVE A PIRATE A ROM......

We have all read stories on the net of the strangest thing piraters can do and snes games are no exception.

I have a copy of snes JUNGLE STRIKE pirated, and its a copy that they didnt even try to make look legit. Its just a generic label with the name of the game over a moulded piece of plastic. The back warning label isnt even a sticker, but words moulded into the plastic.

It still happens now with all those fake GBA games.
~~~~~~~~
But on a similar subject maybe OP's copy is a "greatest hits" rather than an original run of starfox? One of us out here should have a first run of this game.

otherwise its kinda dissapointing to see that the super fx chip isnt so super! In my thoughts I thought the super fx chip would make the game heavier or the board more complicated, but if thats not the case, what a dissapointment.

[eskil]

Guys? Am I the only one that immediately thought of melted chips when I saw those black spots? Cause that would explain why the game doesn't work.

[Ziggy]

I know we've already discovered this, but the board in the OP's pic is actually authentic even though it looks like a text book example of a pirate cart.

Glop tops don't automatically mean pirate cart. Right of the top of my head, the authentic Contra Famicom cart has glop tops.

But on a similar subject maybe OP's copy is a "greatest hits" rather than an original run of starfox? One of us out here should have a first run of this game.

otherwise its kinda dissapointing to see that the super fx chip isnt so super! In my thoughts I thought the super fx chip would make the game heavier or the board more complicated, but if thats not the case, what a dissapointment.

This is actually an early print run of the game. We know this for two reasons. One, it says "MARIO CHIP 1" on the PCB, which we know was an early version of the GSU (aka Super FX) chip.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_FX

Two, look at the cart case design that these boards are found in. They have the locking design (as oppose to the sloping design). We know that the early SNES games have the locking design.

Carts were expensive to produce as it was, I bet the MARIO1/GSU made it much more expensive. The cart with the glop tops are much cheaper to produce than normal carts. Not sure why Nintendo made a run using glop tops. Maybe the initial run had glop tops to keep costs down. Or maybe the initial run had regular board, but then the game was in high demand so they made a run with glop tops?

But at any rate, this board shouldn't be thought of as inferior. The only thing that sucks about it is it's impossible to modify. If not impossible, then extremely hard.

Later Star Fox carts used a "normal" PCB that you're use to seeing.

[vlame]

Honestly after reading the title of this thread, I somewhat expected there to be a rare species of insect or something inside your cart. haha

me too

[BoringSupreez]

Honestly after reading the title of this thread, I somewhat expected there to be a rare species of insect or something inside your cart. haha

me too

Came expecting cockroaches, left disappointed.

[DinnerX]

Guys? Am I the only one that immediately thought of melted chips when I saw those black spots? Cause that would explain why the game doesn't work.

They're just "glob top" integrated circuits used to cut costs.

[tobymanhattan]

This is getting ridiculous! I've cleaned this thing with everything including brass polish and glass cleaner on the contacts and still can't get it to work.

Are there any extreme methods I could try since it's useless as is?

[Ziggy]

Why did you clean it with brass polish and window cleaner? The contacts are neither of those two things. Now that you've applied various substances that should not have gone on it, it's time to do it right.

Clean it again with isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol. Dampen and old (but clean!) cotton t-shirt with the alcohol and use your finger on it to scrub the pins. Go over it with a different spot (a spot that you didn't dirty yet) of the t-shirt at least a half dozen times. Scrub it with an alcohol-dampened spot for a while, then while the pins are still wet, scrub it again with a dry spot of the t-shirt. Do this about 6 or so times.

I bet the brass polish left a nice residue on the pins. The pins don't have to be polished, they will shine naturally when they're clean (unless they're worn). Shine isn't important, they're making an electrical contact, so being clean is what's important. If you polished them, then there's a polish residue on them, and that will surely hamper the electrical conductivity. This is why you need to scrub them with alcohol at least a half dozen times, you need to make sure you get all of that polish off. And it's important to do the wet/dry procedure I've described above. With the wet scrub, you will get residues to kinda "break up" on the pins, but you need to do a dry scrub to wipe them off.

Clean the pins again with the alcohol. Clean your system's cart slot while you're at it, you might have gotten some polish on those pins from plugging the cart into it. If the cart doesn't work after cleaning it with alcohol, as described above, then dirty pins aren't the problem.

A small note on rubbing alcohol: Normally you'll find 70-something-percent rubbing alcohol. This is fine, but try to find a higher content. You can usually easily find 90-something-percent in stores. This will be better to use.

And as I always say, if you can't get it to work, please don't throw it away.

[BoringSupreez]

I second the 91% alcohol suggestion. It cleans better than the standard stuff.

[Ziggy]

Just to go a little further into detail about the percentages... The percent means how much alcohol is actually in it. If it's 70%, that means it's 70% alcohol and 30% water. So it's not hard to see why the higher content would be more desirable in the electronics realm. Might burn a little more if you put it on a cut though.