Heat = expand. I can't explain how it would help without getting hot enough to melt the plastic, but just maybe it gets out the ground in dust and dirt by expanding the plastic and to a lesser degree the metal pins to release all the pent up gunk. I'm very tempted to try, but I know for a fact the one I'm thinking of trying it on is "genied out" from the years before I knew the game genie screwed up your PIN connector. When you're young, you do what you gotta to play games, and the only way mine would work, and still the only way it works without LOADS of trys, is to use the game genie. Doesn't help my "NES" is just the bare board screwed into the bottom of a nes case (long story)...

i have a few other ways i do it , but all of the ways start with boiling water
works great 99% of the time

I know i am kicking up an old thread buy my local play and trade is on the outs and sold me about 15 nes with bad pins for 5 a pop hoping i can use this method to gt them to work.

My NES wouldn't play anything at all, so I tried this method. Now it fires up immediately no matter what game. Thanks alot man!

Tried it with my ten year dead toaster.

Now it works... kinda. It's like it was fifteen years ago, when it was starting to fail. Lots of retrying and wiggling and annoyance to get the game to display properly. So I'm guessing the pins need adjusting as well.

However, even this is a big step up from nothing.

this thread was great. I had two toasters that were picky about games and after a good boiling and pin bending. I don't even have to push the games down and all the games i toss at it now start on the first try.

I think it's just cleaning the contacts

There is no way that boiling water is going to reach the yield temperature of the pins, and they're definitely not going to "tighten up" naturally.  It would require forcibly bending them back into the place.  Once they've bent out of position that is the new unloaded position of the metal.

Just finished trying this, and I must say it worked like a charm! Thanks for the advice! My toaster is reading everything on the first try with no issues to report. Well done.

so can anybody confirm this working?? I have a stock 72 pin connector I wanna give it a shot on I was trying to get feedback on how it worked for you guys.

Look at the numerous posts above yours.

I boiled three connectors last year and all three went from blinking to 100% working on the first try. The method here adds the step of inserting a game between repeated boiling, but otherwise it is the same. I have another connector that is not completely working, so maybe I will try this added step.

I believe one of the reasons boiling works is that the heat causes the metal to return to its original shape.

Did this yesterday. Phenomenal results. My console works almost every try now, and if not, a small jiggle of the cartridge fixes any problems - except with my Wizards & Warriors cart which seems to not want to work at all... weird.

Awesome. I'll keep this in mind before buying a new one on ebay. I have an extra connector sitting around from the last one I replaced, I'll just boil it up.

Although I just cleaned one the other day (pulled it off, rubbed main board with alcohol, replaced) and it worked pretty good without boiling it. This sounds promising for really stubborn ones though!

I boiled a connector yesterday after trying another method earlier in the week where I lightly filed the contacts. In both cases, I bent the pins up slightly using some small, curved nail scissors (because they could rech under the pins better than a screwdriver due to their fine point and curve).

Seems to have worked pretty well in both cases. The boiling method was less work, though, and I tend to like this method better because it doesn't involve any chance of removing metal from the pins. I still ran a fine file across the pins once just to knock loose any corrosion that might have been in there, but it was just a one pass deal.

These were the first two systems I've actually tried to recondition. Thanks to whoever brought up the point about the plastic tab sliding under the mobo... I totally screwed that up on my first try and I was wondering why the tray looked so odd and wouldn't screw in all the way without locking up. Doh! I sealed it up and gave it away but I figure as long as it works it should be ok. I told the person to let me know if it gives them any trouble.

So, I picked up a crazy nasty "broken" NES off craigslist yesterday with cables, three controllers, and six games (Contra, SMB2, Tetris, Double Dragon, Pacmania, and Wrath of Black Manta) for $20. The NES looked like someone took a dump on it and smeared it into the system...seriously. Anyway, I figured this would be the best time to try the boiled connector method with not a lot of cash at risk and the nastiest NES I've ever seen as a challenge. I took the disgusting NES apart and cleaned it while I boiled the pin connector. Put everything back together and the damned thing looked good as new and played good as new...

Thanks for the tip and for everyone else's feedback...

I found this thread last night and decided to try this on my nes. It worked. I am shocked. Genius idea.

This method works perfectly. I've boiled 3 connectors, and now, all my NES's for sale work flawlessly. Thanks for sharing.

could boiling a PCB from a game help get them clean too?

You know I tried this way back in may.....to no avail. Yet all your MF;ers are getting it to work. I did something wrong haha.

Thanks for the recipe.

My nes started blinking a long time ago. A few months ago, I couldn't get any game to work. I opened it, cleaned it and boiled the connector. Now, the games start on the first try.

For a while, I thought I had gotten a sound problem; I didn't remember the intro of super mario bros don't have sound!

love this thread

Yes!! My shitty toaster is now playing like new. I also killed the lockout chip so my pirates play.

In 3 days i did this w 3 dirty yard sale toasters. i have a 3/3 success rate. As much as you all laughed at "stir occasionally " i believe it to be an important step.
Lightly tumbling it around the pot while fully submersed did visibly knock loose some grime specks i dont believe would have came out otherwise.

Great thread.

Not a joke. I boiled 7 old pin connectors that I had saved from refurbs and bent the pins up with a Diaper pin and 6 out of the 7 worked like a charm!! I didn't use a cart to clean them the the OP did but I'm gonna try that next time.

Guess I'm off to making money with old NES connectors *evil laughs*

But seriously, who knew that worked? I bet someone discovered it accidentaly by tossing Jimmy's NES cart connector on a soup