Wico Command Stick Issues and 5200 glitches

[B.U.Terriers]

So I got a great lot of 2600 and 5200 items today, including a Wico Command Stick with Y cable!  The stick itself seems to work fine, but the fire button does not.  Any idea of what I’m looking at to try to fix it?

 

Also, I was playing a 2 port 5200 to test out the joystick (the lot also had a Competition Pro stick that seems to be working fine) and I was getting some odd glitches on Pac Man (score would randomly jump up 10,000 to 100,000 points — tried 2 different carts) and Ms. Pac Man (ghosts would go through walls, go off the screen, and never go back home after being eaten).  What could the problem be?

 

Thanks for any help.  The 5200 is new to me and I figured this is the best place to start!

[+DrVenkman]

The issues with Ms. Pac Man sound like bad RAM or maybe a bad CPU. 

 

The fire button issues on the WICO could be one of several things. First thing to try is taking it apart and seeing if you have a broken connection inside. If not, clean the contacts and see if that helps. I don’t know what kind of fire button mechanism that model stick uses, but the switch type will determine how you need to clean it.

[CPUWIZ]

Leaf switches, they could be corroded (or too far apart), just like the pins on the 5200.  If you look at them and they look black, dip a q-tip into some high alcohol Isopropyl and gently spin it around each pin.  Make sure your system is unplugged and let it evaporate, before re-applying power.

[CPUWIZ]

Same thing works on JUUL batteries, so many people always say "My vape is broken", NO IT ISN'T, hang on.  Dip, touch, rotate, flip, rotate with clean dry side, done!

[B.U.Terriers]

57 minutes ago, CPUWIZ said:

Leaf switches, they could be corroded (or too far apart), just like the pins on the 5200.  If you look at them and they look black, dip a q-tip into some high alcohol Isopropyl and gently spin it around each pin.  Make sure your system is unplugged and let it evaporate, before re-applying power.

I gave the switches a good cleaning (there was some black) but still no luck.  Fire button 2 works but it is not nearly as used.  I’ll play around with it some more this week and see if I can figure out what’s wrong.  Shocked to see that the y cable is as much as I paid for the whole lot!  Worse case is sell the stick and cable as-is and make my money back.