For anyone that bought a secondhand front-loader NES and/or original games, did anything work right when you got it? I had to take my system apart, clean it, and refit the 72 pin, and clean all but 3 of my games, one of which was advertised as already cleaned and tested. And even after all that, I have to press games in to a certain depth to make them read. This is the most sensitive console I've ever owned and I've never seen carts that attract dust like NES ones do

>>11854681 (OP)
I had to use the Funcoland cleaning kit they sold me. After a while I read q tips and windex work just fine so I started using those.

I bought mine and cleaned it immediately. Cleaned my games too until my alcohol-soaked qtips were coming back completely spotless. Still had issues with the stock cart reader and took it out to bend some pins back into place, and wound up breaking it. I bought a Chinese replacement off of Ebay for $10 and installed that and it's worked flawlessly since.

>>11854687
I did the boiling water method and it helped
>>11854686
Windex? Really? I just ignored the disclaimer to not use alcohol and cleaned all my stuff with 91% isopropyl and it's been fine. Actually that's not too far fetched

>>11854681 (OP)
>I have to press games in to a certain depth to make them read
Same, and it still freezes pretty often so unless i need the zapper I usually just play on famicom with a converter, fucking hate the frontloader, cool idea but terrible execution

>>11854698
I got one because it looked cooler than a top loader for half the price. It's been a bit of a pain, but nothing horrible

>>11854681 (OP)
All 72 pin connectors should be removed, retensioned and cleaned

>>11854681 (OP)
All very normal.

>>11855026
I suspected as much. I love it, but it's so finicky

>>11854681 (OP)
I had some issues that mostly went away after cleaning the games. Alcohol and qtips did the job.
Some consoles you can just use a credit card wrapped in a non-scratch lens cloth to clean the console side, but not the frontloading beast. I borrowed a cleaning cartridge branded 1upcard which reduced the remaining 10% rate of needing to re-insert games by about half. I don't pay attention to insertion length or delicacy, it just seems to need another attempt every 10-20 game inserts.
The issues I had with my other consoles were basically all solved by cleaning the games (or resurfacing the discs) as well, which is good because I wouldn't put up with them freezing mid-game as frequently as they did when I was a kid and considered them delicate machines.
If it still seems fucked after the games and console are clean, you could give Blinking Light Win a shot.

>>11854681 (OP)
Had a similar problem with my current NES but much worse. I could never get any game to read, except once. I made sure the cartridge contacts were spotless, tried cleaning, boiling and rebending pins on the 72 pin connector. I was going to purchase a 3rd party 72 pin connector but read they can be too tight on the cartridge. As a final fix, I was reading on a forum board about a guy who was really passionate about Bar Keepers Friend and swore by using it to clean cartridges and the pin connectors. I tried it and made a watery paste and rubbed it onto the contacts and cleaned it off. Reassembled my system and games and they worked perfectly. My NES loads every game first time now, no issues. BKF is like $3 at any store. Try it if nothing else works.