I stopped at an Estate sale and found some old NES Games, specifically Super Mario Bros 2, Super Mario Bros 3, Wrestle Mania & Airwolf. It is the perfect find for me to do a tutorial on how to clean the pins on these 35+ year old video games, especially ones that have oxidation and dirt and grime built up on them. Unfortunately there are many instances where IPA (isopropyl alcohol) just isn't enough to properly clean the pins on these older games. Especially if they have oxidation. So what I recommend using is deoxit and a piece of a magic eraser. Yes magic eraser is abrasive, somewhere between 3000-5000 grit. That being said that is why it works so well to remove oxidation and dirt on these pins as well as polish them back to their original state when they were new.

Supplies you will need:
-Deoxit D100L (you can purchase this from Amazon)
-90%+ Isopropyl Alcohol
-Magic Eraser
-Qtips/Cotton Swabs 
-Gloves (optional) 
-3.8mm Game Bit driver/screw driver

What Game Carts does this work on?
-Nintendo (NES)
-Super Nintendo (SNES)
-Sega Genesis
-Game Boy, Game Boy Color & Game Boy Advance


The polishing & cleaning process can be viewed in the video linked below so that you can see the process in real time.


Something to keep in mind that this polishing can take 5-10 minutes on some carts depending on how bad the pins are and you might have to do multiple applications before the pins are fully cleaned/polished. Keep in mind that if there is corrosion and the pins have been heavily damaged that this process will not fix the damage. I would expect the only time you will see this is with carts that have liquid damage. Now I have come across some carts that had been stored in extremely damp areas for a decade or more, that had corrosion, but these old carts (NES & SNES) tend to hold up and I have successfully repaired many of them. The ones I found that were heavily damaged and not repairable were stored in very humid & salty environments, meaning close to the ocean. These carts had heavy corrosion/damage and no amount of polish/cleaning can fix them because the material that makes up the pins has been destroyed. 

Now here is a picture, the pins on the right side I have cleaned with Deoxit & magic eraser. The left side hasn't been cleaned yet. You can tell there is a significant difference between the pins that are cleaned vs those that haven't been. The reason cleaning these pins matters, is because much of the time, especially with these older consoles its dirty pins on the game carts that cause the games not to work.