Aggressive Contact Cleaning.

[shoggoth80]

Hey all. Out of all my Famicom carts, pirate, or legit, I've got one stubborn game. One. I get no real output from the cart.
It's a glop top with three chips on it. A version of Yuu Yuu Hakusho. Not sure if it is Yuu Yuu Final or not.

Anyway, I disassembled it last night, and got rude on the contacts. I tried cleaning with alcohol, windex etc. Nothing. After pulling it down, there was some noticable flaws/corrosion on the contacts for the board. I essentially burnished them with scotch brite, and steel wool, and then gave it a pass with alcohol after.

I do not know if it worked yet, as I have not had a chance to test. I am going to tonight I think, and will post back results. I mean, I started with a non-working cart (bought it as an untested, ages ago, with full disclosure), and worst case scenario, I still have a non-working cart. Lol.

Anyone else ever have to resort to aggressive methods to get some poor neglected pieces up and running? How did you fare?

[BaconBitsKing]

Someone posted a few weeks ago about glob-top carts not working properly after many years, mostly because of being put in extreme temperatures.

I'm pretty lucky and haven't had any lemon carts so far, but my glob-top carts are usually the ones that I have to be really delicate with. Still, I've never had to go any further than using rubbing alcohol.

[shoggoth80]

I have no idea what kind of environment this cart was in before I got it. After it was in my possession, it had seen relatively stable temps.
However, I think it may be dead. I can get some garbled blue, brown, and green screens out of it, but nothing more, and often enough, a blank grey screen. This is putting it in through a clone system. I have the ROM on emulator, so it's not the end of the world (nor is it the best fighter, though not bad). Looking at the board closely, I can see a ring of different hued epoxy on the center chip. Sort of how you would see a discoloration/halo effect on metal if you hit a piece wit ha torch, and let it cool. Thinking the center chip got hot at some point, and bit it.

[xIceMan]

Would you happen to have pictures of the board?

[shoggoth80]

Board shots.

[xIceMan]

The board looks fine to me.  Was this tested in a Famicom or Famiclone console?
I have many globtop clone games and none of them have stopped working yet.

[shoggoth80]

In a clone console. All my other carts have worked in this clone so far.
Has there been any known incompatibilities between pirate carts, and pirate consoles?

[xIceMan]

Pirates carts and original Famicom console sometimes do not work together as CHR ROM /OE is connected to GND while it should be on connector pin 17.

But even if it's GNDed the game still boots, just displays garbage.

In your case, the game does not even boot at all. No clue why, to be honest. The board really looks fine.
Dead IC or corrupt SRAM probably.