My SNES has had a problem for a while where a lot of the graphics glitch. It happens with all games, so I believe it's the system itself. What's going on and what can I do?

Dirty conectors, probably... Try to clean it!

My fast cheap solution for dirty connectors on a SNES is to take a piece of cardboard and cut it to fit the cart slot, then insert the cardboard like a game several times. Sometimes with thin cardboard you will need to double it up. I try to make the cardboard only slighty thicker then a SNES cart. It also works for dirty toploaders.. I know it sounds crazy, but it really works.

There's also gold contact cleaner spray (they sell it at electronics stores). Spray it on any game's contacts, insert/eject it into the SNES about ten or fifteen times in a row (with the power OFF), wipe off any excess, then play your games after about five minutes or so.

If cleaning the cartridge connector doesn't work, it could be a faulty video ram chip in the console itself. I've seen this a couple times. In one instance, all the sprites on the games looked fine, but the background image would "skip" and jump oddly, and frequently contained messed up graphics. Had another where all the background layers and scrolling worked, but the sprites were either invisible, or showed up as the wrong thing (frequently letters/numbers).

-Ian

I used my old cleaning kit I got with the system, but it still has the same problem. The problem is pretty much what RetroHacker has described. Most of the main game stuff looks okay, but in a lot of games, backgrounds and menus are garbled. I'm afraid I might need a new system. Can anyone help me?

If you used an old cleaning kit, the kind with the fake SNES cart, with a plastic strip where the contacts would be, you may want to be careful. I had a few of these and I noticed with the older ones the plastic was actually starting to wear away after being repeatedly inserted, and is probably lodged in my SNES slot now .

If the cardboard trick dont work, just take a cart, clean it real nice, and make a quick pass over the dry contacts with some cleaner, and insert it a few times, and then clean the cart. If your cart is now dirty, you know its working. Repeat until clean.

If you are not getting any dirt on your carts, its probably something else  

You should be able to find a stand alone system for cheap, being you won't need any cords.

Another thing I forgot to mention - if the game plays just fine - and doesn't crash, then it's almost definitely the video RAM chip. The cartridge is addressed differently in a Super Nintendo than it was on the original Nintendo. It's no longer possible for a game to play with garbled graphics (lines, wrong tiles) for very long without crashing. This is because the game program and the graphic data are stored in the same ROM chip, addressed through the same physical bus. Anything that would affect the access of graphic data would also affect access to the game program - so it'll crash real quick. It's *possible* to get a scrambled title screen from a dirty cartridge slot, but usually the games will lock up soon after.

So, yes, I'm afraid that you probably are going to need a new system. Myself (and probably others) do repair these kinds of faults, but honestly, it's not really worth the round trip shipping/time/etc, seeming as though a used Super Nintendo console is so easy to find. Post a WTB for a bare SNES, and you'll find one for a good price.

Oh, and MrMiniMog - how often are you cleaning your console that you wore out a cleaning cartridge? The console doesn't need to be cleaned very often, maybe once every few years. Clean your _cartridges_ - that'll solve your problems... Here's what I do - clean the console, then clean all your games, and any time you get another game, clean it before you plug it into your console. That will keep you from "importing" dirt into your collection and your system. Isopropyl alcohol on a q-tip is the best cartridge cleaner. Avoid abrasives. The cooktop cleaner some people use is a fantastic cleaner, but it's also an abrasive - so use it only when the cartridge is so bad that the alcohol can't get it clean.

-Ian

I played all the way through Actraiser with this problem, so it seems that a new system is required.

I'll post a WTB thread as soon as I get my pay for this week...

Not sure what the policy is for bumping, sorry if I shouldn't bump old topics. I have an original super nintendo. Every time I stick a game in, say Star Fox, the graphics are completely messed up. Starfox starts out with some sort of polygon shifting. Anyone know whats wrong?