Help with a flakey cart port?

[+Rick Reynolds]

Hey guys,

 

My Atari 7800 has cart port issues. I can get things to work less than 50% of the time, but when I do it usually has to do with bumping or pressing into the cart port. I'm wondering if there is anything to do to get this to be more solid.

 

On another front, I've A/V modded the 7800, and I get no pokey audio from Ballblazer or Commando. I could have made a mistake in the audio bit of the mod (although it seems pretty simple) but since I have a cart port issue already I'm thinking it might be that instead.

 

Anyway, I'd appreciate any cart port fixing tips.

 

Rick Reynolds

[RevEng]

Clean the carts themselves with 99% isopropyl alcohol and a q-tip, cotton swab, cotton, or whatever.

 

You can do a quick clean of the port by saturating a clean cart edge with alcohol and inserting a few times. Wait enough time for the alcohol to evaporate, and test to see if things are better. Repeat a few times if they're not.

 

A more involved clean can be done by taking an old plastic card with a layer of cotton, soak the edge in alcohol, and use that to clean the contacts.

 

In terribly gone cases, very fine grit sandpaper can be wrapped around a plastic card and used to abrade the contacts, to get rid of oxidation. Blow out the dust. This one is a last resort as it removes plating on the contacts, but truthfully the plating was probably worn away years ago.

[+Rick Reynolds]

I'll give that a go this week, thanks

 

 

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