Hello NA,

Attached are the dirtiest games I have for the N64 and SNES. The links are to No Mercy, my other dirty N64 game. After I clean these games this weekend I will reupload and show you the results.
For the SNES game I tried cleaning it and it doesn't get anything out, but there are "blackness". The q-tip doesn't even get dirty unless I press really hard but I'm afraid to press any harder. Both N64 games I haven't cleaned them for over a decade.

No Mercy Game
http://i50.tinypic.com/ngeclj.jpg
http://i46.tinypic.com/2yl74mr.jpg

I recently started buying top ranked old-school Nintendo games for SNES and N64 that I may have missed when I was younger. Luckly, the games that I buy all work well, but I noticed the games that I owned as a child don't seem to work that well anymore.

What I did was clean the SNES games with water and soap and they all worked fine within one try, but after a few weeks, I noticed that it started giving me black screens. My HDTV would either say "No Signal" which basically means it doesn't even detect a game, or if I'm lucky I just get a "Black Screen", which means it reads the game, but it's not working. However, my new SNES games work flawlessly so I know it's not the SNES console itself.

Yesterday, I spent a few hours cleaning each of them with a Q-Tip and 91% rubbing alcohol, I got them all managing to work again, but even after cleaning them it still gave me a really really really hard time. The Q-tip doesn't even get dirty anymore, but yet the game doesn't always work. It takes like 10-20 tries for some games. However, once it works, it stays good.

I did a bit of research and I read that:

1) Water and Soap can make things worst
2) Blowing the Cartridge works short term, but will make things worst in the long term.
3) Stay away from Windex and sandpaper

Now as a child all I did was blow games so I'm afraid that it may have now damaged them in the long run.
My cousins who never blew their games, gave me their SNES games once they "grew out of it" and they work flawlessly today.

I decided that I will open the games and clean it thoroughly, my steps are:

1) Prepare a safe and clean enviroment.
2) Open the game using a 3.8mm gamebit.
3) Put a pea-size amount of Weiman Glass Cook Top Cleaner on the contacts of the SNES games and rub it hard with a cotton cloth to get rid of any dirt that may have missed with the rubbing alcohol
4) Rub it with a Q-tip and 91% alcohol
5) Make sure it's completely dry
6) Hope the game is fixed.

My questions are:

1) How do you know when a Nintendo Cartridge (any console) is beyond repair? (Besides breaking the contacts)
All my contacts are intact but some look mildly blackish on the SNES games that I can't get rid out with my Q-Tip rubbing alcohol, I'm hoping that Weiman will do the trick,
2) Do you think Weisman will get rid of that blackness? Why did it get like that?

3) Is Weiman Glass Cook Top Cleaning the best product to use when trying to buff the contacts? Or is there another product?

4) Do you think the water and soap may have permanently damaged the contacts? I did this about a few weeks ago.

5) Any tips when using Weiman? What shouldn't I do?

6) How hard can I scrub the connectors? I'm afraid to use all my force in fear that I may scratch it and break it permanently.

I have yet to try and clean my N64 games but they look flithy, they look white, and greenish on the inside, and some of the contacts looks as if it's being eaten away . How did this happen? What are the white and green stuff? Will Weiman clean this?

I know to stay away from water and soap this time.

It's crazy because I had my games locked up in a plastic box for over a decade, How can it get that dirty!

I won't be getting all my tools to open and clean my games until this weekend, but I wanted tips from people with experience before I started using Weiman.

Few last questions:

1) Is a pencil eraser good to use on the contacts?
2) Is WD-40 good to blow the dust, or should I use canned Air instead (without all the chemical that WD-40 has)?
3) How often should I clean my games?
4) When is a game beyond repair? (I know I asked this already) Do you have a picture of a game that is beyond repair?
5) After seeing the pictures, have you seen worst? If yes, were you able to remove it and did your game work well after?

If you read all this thanks a lot. I just get anxious when it comes to the conditions of my games, because they are a bit part of my childhood and it's something I don't want to lose. Furthermore, I want them to be around when I have kids so they can play them on the original consoles.

Keep in mind, all the games work, but they just take LOTS AND LOTS of tries.

Take Care and thanks very much for the help!
(Goodnight as well, I won't check back until tomorrow afternoon)

it might be more than the game that needs cleaning. your pin connector in the systems may need attention as well. clean those. there are plenty of tutorials on how to go about doing that.

Okay DON'T use water, soap, WD-40, or any industrial cleaning chemicals. Alcohol and q-tips is fine, and as far as I've read erasers are fine if you use a soft white eraser. As far as I've seen using a bit of force while cleaning your contacts with an eraser is fine (just make sure you aren't stressing the board and chips) don't go crazy with it though, and check your progress frequently to make sure you aren't doing any harm. From you pictures there seems to be some corrosion but it's not too bad, so a little polishing and some alcohol with a q-tip afterward should clean them up fine. Also make sure everything is nice and dry before putting them in to test. Compressed air is also fine for dust. What I would do is open the carts up and give them a good cleaning and re-assemble them. *Edit* while the n64 games don't look great they should clean up just fine.

Use weimans and then use rubbing alcohol like you suggested its the best method.

More than likely your soapy water did not permanently damage the ge. The reason you should not use water is because it could corrode the contacts. Alcohol and weimans are none corrosive so its ok.

For the plastic of the cartridge I very carefully clean all the dirt off with a warm soapy rag, dont get it on the label, then I use a magic eraser on the plastic, but be careful it uses abrasion to remove dirt so if you rub too much you will lose some of the cart texture but that hasn't happened to me yet, just try it on a shitty cart first.

For the label I have never cleaned one so I dunno.

Yeah, weimans will clean anything that's not 100% rusted off. That little spot is a joke compared to what I've cleaned with it. If I find one really bad I'll take before and after pics.

Question about using Weiman, how hard can I rub the contacts using it with a cotton cloth?
If I rub too hard can the contacts get damaged?

Furthermore, let say after the games are spotless clean, and I still have trouble getting them to play properly, but the newer games play perfect, what else can be the problem?

I will probably try to clean the very cheap games first before I start cleaning the more expensive ones.

I'll make sure to post after pictures this weekends.

Again, thanks everyone for the tips and suggestions!

I personally do not put corroded or rusted carts in my systems for fear of the damage spreading to the pins or to another game.

Experiment with pressure of the weimans on a junk cart until you feel comfortable with it. I've been very agressive cleaning the contacts with q-tips and have never had an issue. Just get your feet wet with a junky cart until you feel good about it.

You can rub it pretty damn hard, be more worried about breaking the plastic PCB.

Thanks! I'll keep you updated,

On a side note, I have bent pens on a toploader from cleaning the system too rough. So that's something to be a little more careful with down the road when you start cleaning a toploader.

Thanks everyone for the help.
I took your guys advice and followed these steps:

1) Prepare a safe and clean enviroment.
2) Open the game using a 3.8mm gamebit.
3) Put a pea-size amount of Weiman Glass Cook Top Cleaner on the contacts of the SNES games and rub it hard with a cotton cloth to get rid of any dirt that may have missed with the rubbing alcohol
4) Rub it with a Q-tip and 91% alcohol
5) Make sure it's completely dry
6) Hope the game is fixed.

And the results are perfection!
Each game that I cleaned worked perfectly. Weiman Glass Cook Top Cleaner really made the big difference. Spots that I thought would never come out easily did with Weiman.
Alcohol alone just didn't cut it. The Q-Tip would look clean, but once I added Weiman that same Q-Tip turned BLACK.
Even when I thought it was clean Weiman took a massive amount of dirt.

Mario All-Stars Before:
http://i50.tinypic.com/y2xaf.jpg

Mario All-Stars After:
http://i48.tinypic.com/1978xx.jpg

It actually looks cleaner than what the picture shows, but nonetheless you can see the difference.
The white "scratches" that you see on the chip in the after pictures aren't scratches but dried-up Weiman that I removed with rubbing alcohol.

I have yet to work on the N64 games, I still have lots of SNES games to clean.
Thanks again for the tips!

Update: I tried to really scrub a cart very aggressively. It is possible to remove the gold plating from the pins, so you do have to be a little careful. But it takes quite a bit of effort to have this negative effect.

What did you scrub with and which product did you use?

With just Weiman, I scrubbed pretty hard using a cotton cloth or a Q-Tip and I didn't notice any removal of gold plating.

put the weimans on a rag and don't do it up and down on each pin, just do it up and down the connector while applying some force, not a ton, but a decent amount. It doesn't look good at all compared to my usual go about with weimans.

I wouldn't push too hard with the Weimans. Too much pressure and you'll start taking more plating off than you want.

If it's really dirty, just use a light touch with a swirly motion and that should do it.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind when I am using Weiman to clean the rest of my games.

i use a scouring pad and contact cleaner. i rub all the gold plating off and get my contacts pure silver. after that i use q tips and 91% alcohol to make sure they are clean. i know what people say, but it doesnt do any harm to the game by scrubbing the gold plating off the contacts. every game i have works the first time i turn the system on. im pretty sure back in the day when i opened a new sealed game ive seen some silver contacts. in fact i have two new famicom games and the contacts look silver to me. ive heard people say one day the games wont work anymore or will be harder to get to work by scrubbing off the gold layer but i beg to differ. theres even a retro game shop i know of that uses this same method. i only use the scouring pad and contact cleaner method once per game, after that each time i switch a game out of a console i just use the q tips with 91% alcohol. i dont know of anyone else that has had any problems doing this either.

Rubbing off all plating as a means to cleann is terrible. It's not silver I don't believe, or else it wouldn't be SO bad to wipe the gold off. Isn't it something like nickel? Nowhere near as good. Terrible advice. Weimans keeps the gold and cleans it perfectly. Of course it will seem better because when you wipe off all the gold you obviously will have pretty clean metal underneath. But, it won't last at all.

i think cleaning off the gold will probably make your game's chances of corroding higher in the future. the gold is like a protective coating that also helps the game conduct better.