Nintendo Original BEST FIX EVER for No More Blowing Into your NES

We have an original Nintendo Entertainment System that we purchased in the 80's. We played it late into the night enjoying the new games as they came out. 


When they came out with kids games, we purchased the Sesame Street games for the girls. My oldest three girls used to play the games until Sega came out and then playstation and now Wii. 


Many years ago, I was going to sell the system at a yard sale but Princess One said she wanted it. She kept it for a few years. Then, they upgraded and gave it to Princess Two. She couldn't get it to work well as we kept having to "blow" into the system to get it to connect and play the games. 
 
When she couldn't get it to work, she stuck it in Princess Five's car and it was in the car accident she had last month. The games were all over and the kind officer and volunteers picked up the games and the power cord was actually stuck in a wrinkle of metal in the car and was hanging down when we went to get her stuff out of the car and the girls took some time to get it out.
 
I cleaned all the games on the outside getting dust off and hooked it up to a small TV and it worked like before when I blew into the system. 

I took pictures of it all with the 21 games and got the original box out of the garage and had it ready to sell on the local site but figured I would ask the other girls if they wanted it and Princess Three said if no one else wanted it, she would like it. 

I am always happy if I can find something Princess Three likes as she is a minimalist and is very hard to shop for so I told her I would try and fix the "blowing" into it problem before giving it to her. 
 
I spent a full day looking online and following tutorials on pulling the pins out, cleaning it with a tarnish cleaner and alcohol and boiling it. 

I cleaned every game with the cleaner and alcohol and I actually made things worse. After trying everything I could find online, I couldn't make it work. 
 
I ordered a new 72 pin connector from Ebay for $10 and it got here a few days later. I spent another full day trying to get it to work. It was tight and worked only for a few games but never worked well. 
 
I called the guy I bought it from and he said it was because I used the other cleaners on the games and didn't take the old games apart that it didn't work. He also said I needed a gritty eraser that he sells to erase the contacts and take the games apart and use it before it will work and that I needed to clean his new part now that I used it with the "dirty" games that I had cleaned. Yet, the old pin worked with the "dirty" games but just sometimes and if I wiggled them. 
 
When he said "gritty" and erase the contacts, I thought, I wonder if a really fine 00 steel wool would work. So, I took a non-favorite game, unscrewed it and used the steel wool to run over the contacts of the game on both sides and then used rubbing alcohol to wash it clean. I put it into the original 72 connector and it worked. So, I spent some time opening and cleaning a few games that way. 

Then, I had the idea to just use a thin credit card and push the steel wool into the contact area and run it up and down a few times and then tapped it on the table to get any metal shavings out of the game and then I washed the contacts and surrounding area with a q-tip filled with alcohol. It worked and took all of about 30 seconds to clean each game! 

I then did the credit card with the 00 steel wool in the 72 pin connector and cleaned it as well and then cleaned the contacts on the mother board with the steel wool and alcohol and put the connector back on and tried every game and they all worked first try!!!!! The really fine steel wool worked great!! 
 
I left the game system out for a few days and Princess Four and Five had a great time playing Dr. Mario and some other games. I laughed when I came out at 1 a.m. thinking Princess Five had been in bed for hours only to find the two of them playing a game. 
 
I told Princess Five to head to bed as she had school in the morning and they both said, "Can we finish this level?" It brought back SO many memories of having heard that many times before so many years ago. 
 
I hope Princess Three enjoys her birthday gift. I was happy I kept the original box. I actually had the original playstation 2 box but we had gotten rid of that a few years back so it was nice that I actually found the original Nintendo box. For some reason, they are worth more with all the original packaging and parts! 

I was able to "return to sender" the 72 pin I purchased and get a refund on the part that I didn't end up using that was made of aluminum or tin where the original actually has some gold in it! 
 
Princess Three will be happy to know that Zelda and Link both work now without any effort! I know she will have some fun hours re-living the Zelda days! 

I am so grateful for inspiration as I finally prayed for help after spending three days I didn't have working on this for her. God is good and the inspiration worked so much better than the hours of youtube videos I watched on how to fix it. God is Great if we just ask and give Him a chance to answer our prayers! Who would have thought I could fix it for free with something I already had in the garage!