Classic Restoration

Happy Monday everyone! I hope that everyone had a great weekend. Aside from the crap ton of yard work I did this weekend in the dang ol’ heat (mowing, kudzu, and raking leaves), it was quite enjoyable. The highlight of the weekend came when I fixed one of our old, original Nintendo Entertainment Systems (NES).

I already had a NES when we got married that’s in fairly good working condition. You know, you have to blow out the cartridge, move it side-to-side, and pray…but it does work. While we were doing the great house purge for the garage sale, we came across some hidden treasure: two NESs. Now I knew Kari had some NES, Sega, and N64 games…but I didn’t know she was holding out me like that.

So I hooked up both Nintendo systems to see if they still worked. Sadly, the only thing I could get them to do was blink either green or gray screens. But the good news was that both were able to power on and at least give me a little sign of life. I figured it was time to do something I always wanted to do but never did: replace the 72-pin housing. That’s the piece that the game cartridge slides into and it connects to the motherboard. I’ve always seen them on eBay…I just didn’t want to make a mistake and kill my only working NES. But now that we got three…it was time to take the plunge.

After looking around on eBay, I decided to order a 72-pin housing from this guy. I ordered it on Wednesday and it came in the mail on Saturday. Overall, it was somewhat easy to replace. You have to removed about 20 screws, the top of the NES, a RF-shield, and the cartridge compartment to get to the housing. The you just slide off the old housing and slide the new one on. The new housing is a little difficult to get on because the pins are stiff. Also, there’s a clip on the bottom of the cartridge compartment that “grabs” the motherboard to extra support…that’s a little tricky to get back on as well. Overall, I think it took me about 30 minutes to do the swap. I also took a few Q-tips and removed the dust bunnies, cobwebs, and cleaned all the connectors.

Results? The NES works like it is new. No, really. It is amazing. My only complaint is that it is a little difficult to slide the cartridge in since the pins are so stiff. I still get the occasional blink or funky character screen…but that’s only because the cartridge isn’t seated all the way. I highly recommend paying the $10 for a new pin housing. I’ve already ordered another one for the second NES.

Just to satisfy my curiosity, I checked out the old pin housing. Some of the pins were bent, some were broken, and there was varying levels corrosion. So that seemed to be the issue.

Top 3 Most Expensive Beers in the World.

Amberial.

Guy from Orlando Exchanges Surface-to-Air Missile Launcher for Reeboks.

The Geek Hierarchy.

Basketball.

Vacationing tip #6: Don’t moon people in Senegal.