won't that warp the plastic? would distilled water be better for this purpose?

I have tried this with an old original OEM Nintendo connector. It's a myth. True, the connector won't melt as long as there's water still in the pot limiting the temperature to 212 degrees F (100 C), but I took it out, even dried it in the toaster oven, and it didn't make a dick of difference as far as reading games. The original connector was still flaky as ever, so I put the aftermarket connector back in. You can try the "boiling" trick if you want, but all it will do is waste an hour or more of your free time. A better way to do it would be to extend each of the 72 pins slightly with a pair of needlenose pliers. Or just get a new aftermarket connector and save yourself the trouble.

Yes, it's clearly a myth for you.  For the rest of us it worked for we will continue enjoying the process and reaping the rewards of not buying new pin connectors.  (I'm 8 for 8 now)...

Yes, I strongly suggest distilled or filtered water. When I first tried boiled a couple years ago, I noticed a little residue on my connectors. My most recent batch, I used filtered water and the connectors had no residue.

The plastic does not get warped or damaged in any way. The type of plastic used on the connector appears to have a very high melting point. I understand your concern, though. There are many types of plastic that do become very pliable when placed in boiling water. I have straightened plastic figurines with boiling water, as it makes them bend easily.

As for this being a myth, I can assure everyone that it does work with minimal effort. I don't scrub. I don't manually bend the pins. I simply boil, shake most of the water out in a towel, and use hair dryer to complete the drying. It takes less than 10 minutes of your time and it works.

The last time I tried this, I ended the process of one connector by spraying it with isopropyl (contact cleaner). This seemed to make the connector not work very well at first! I do know that isopropyl is non-conductive, and it leaves a slight lubricating reside, so I believe it hindered the connection between the cart and connector. After removing and inserting a game a dozen times to wear off the isopropyl, the system started working 100%, even passing my "tap test" (I physically tap on the game while it is inside the system). Lesson learned.

im too lazy to take out the connector and boil it

im just throwing the whole system in the pot

ill report back with my findings....

Neat, going to give this a whirl next time I'm in the kitchen.

Neat, going to give this a whirl next time I'm in the kitchen.

I'll try this tonight

I hope you're being sarcastic. The NES may actually still work, but you'll have to dry it off quickly. Moisture sitting in the cracks for days will cause it to rust out for sure. I've had flash drives survive the laundry, but it's not something you'll want to do on purpose, especially with vintage hardware. Water+air corrodes electronics, not water or air by itself, so the faster it dries, the better off you are. If you are hell bent on "dunking" your NES, then at least do it in 91% isopropyl alcohol, because the alcohol acts as a reduction agent and at 91% concentration, will evaporate evenly with the water, leaving no residue. And you'd better boil it outside, because alcohol is flammable, and if you use isopropyl, then the fumes are also toxic! Or you could use moonshine (everclear or 190 proof vodka will also do; make sure it's 95% ethanol or grain alcohol) and breathe in heavily the NES vapours over the boiling pot; you will get drunk fast without drinking anything...

yep
just a joke

for real tho....i am actually trying the 72 pin thing now.....i will seriously report back (pins only, no console

Just did this and I'm blown away by how well it worked. I also disabled the lock out chip, which I think helps with the whole resetting thing..but the NES now reads every game, first shot, every time. I'll be doing this to every NES I have now. Thank you so so so much!

I just tried this and it worked beautifuly, followed the same methodology as directed above: boil 3 minutes, jam cart in a few times, boil another 3 minutes, dry put back in and BAM! I'm really excited about this, as I have 5 NES consoles and only 1 of them (2 of them now ) work. Excelent tip, much appreciated!

Thread of the year!

Boiled three pin sets this weekend and they all came out working. Thanks for sharing

Add myself to the list that this worked for. Follwed steps and then of course still cleaned the pins with cleaning kit but yes, 3/3 cleaned works like a champ. One of them worked so well I swapped it with my own personal one.

I tested it on both an official 72 pin connector and unofficial 72 pin connector.

The official pin connector did not work after the first attempt

The unofficial pin connector did work after the first attempt

I may try boiling the official one again tomorrow. Perhaps it needs more time, because the official one doesn't try to hold onto cartridges for dear life.

Has anyone had success with an official pin connector versus an unofficial pin connector?

By cart you mean like a creditcard with a cloth or a actual game cartridge ?

Actual game cartridges. =)

What kind of witchcraft is this????
....Totally trying it.
UPDATE:  Well, I tried it, and it actually works!  Just so long's you don't push the cart down, for me it works every single time.  MIND BLOWN.

if anyone wants a ton of old pins i have a few hundred

So after using my unofficial boiled pin connector for a bit, I found its not *really* working.

By this I mean it works flawlessly the first ~10 minutes. But after that it starts showing garbage on the screen till eventually it causes the game to boot a few seconds with the machine continuously restarting.

Boiling it again causes it to work again for ~10 minutes. However, it just doesn't seem to want to work longer than that.

I'm getting a p.o.s nes system sometime this week, I'm definitely going to be trying this.

One oven top for my nes pins, one top for my velveeta shells & cheese

I tried this out on the nastiest NES I've ever had and it seemed to work well. I also disabled the lockout chip and bent the pins so I can't chalk it all up to the boil but it seemed to help. It took a bit longer than 10 minutes to dry though. I didn't cook it in the over.

I bought a new 72 pin connector for another NES from the Nintendo Repair Shop. It worked for a day and that was about it. The boiling seems to have worked better, probably because the replacement connector is a lower quality than the original.

I did another one today and it seems to work. It was my original NES I got about 25ish years ago. I clipped disabled the lockout chip while I was in there and bent the pins on the 72 pin connector. I'm not sure why it works, but it works way better than the replacement connector I had in there.

Results with this method for me were inconclusive. I did not try the oven though and opted for a hair dryer. After testing the NES still had blinking light issue but seems to me that the blinking issue happens less often. Will try again , perhaps boiling the piece longer.

I just boiled my first two.. So far, so good! One fired up every time, while the other worked 8 out of 10 times (which was an improvement). This was using the same game which was extremely clean. I boiled mine for about 5 to 7 minutes. I went a little longer because I could see what looked like little bits of plastic boiling out of the top end of the connector. I wouldn't recommend boiling much longer, as I did notice one of the pins tweaking out of shape into a bow shape. This was the longer part of the pin that serves as a "bridge" between the top and bottom parts of the connector. Strangely, this pin is the one that works flawlessly. I did also bake then for about 5 minutes, then blew them out with a hairdryer. I also cleaned the motherboard connectors as well. I would definitely recommend this process to others!