Blowing On Cartridges

[Saulkar]

I keep seeing study after study saying that it was a placebo and that it had no tangible benefits.

BULLSHIT!

I was never particularly good at school but I loved to read (as well as experiment and tinker), be it text books, novels, or, you guessed it, video game magazines! I distinctly remember, back in 2000, during grade 3 library period picking up a videogame magazine that explicitly explained that blowing on a cartridge did nothing and sped up the rate of corrosion so the first thing I did when I got home was experiment with my N64.

I cycled through my 20+ games until I found one that would not load (Donkey Kong 64). I took it out and put it back in to no effect 10 times. I finally blew on it, careful to not get any spit on it (I was actually aware that fluids might conduct electricity at the time and wanted to avoid that variable in addition to speeding up the corrosion), and lo-and-behold; It work! I would over the next couple of weeks try this experiment and tracked which games needed to be blown on or simply reseated.

Only a couple worked after multiple reseatings but the rest needed to be blown on (once again, reseating them 10 times). I tried telling people about it but I was always talked down to on the issue and this is what really bugs me whenever I see this topic come up.

So how about you? What was your experience and did you actively try to experiment with your game cartridges or just have some funny stories like accidentally tilting your cartridge and freaking the hell out?

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

I regularly blew on my cartridges as a kid, back when I had a NES. However I found the effect to be less reliable with my Sega Genesis/Megadrive. But then again, those games were rarely in a bad shape and usually fired up right off the bat. Never owned a SNES, but I remember friends of mine had to blow on them lots. I think the Genesis design was better at keeping dirt and other stuff out of the consoles themselves anyway.

Also, where I lived it was really damn humid (tropical weather), and after blowing on them for years, never found a single spec of corrosion.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

NES cartridges seemed to collect moisture the more you blew on them, though. I remember that as a young'un. The more you blew, the more moisture, thus more dust, thus ever more blowing.

Became a vicious cycle ... I learnt early on the magic of cotton ear buds. SNES and N64 cartridges didn't seem to have the same problem, though. I'm guessing because the chipsets weren't in that deep? Or because you could properly stack them chip down so dust didn't waft in them so much?

 

[Maximum Bert]

Never really experimented but if a SNES game never loaded I would take it out and blow on it and so far it has fixed it every time. Actually set up my SNES for the first time in ages last year and was having major trouble tuning the darn thing in. No matter what I did I could not get a good picture then it hit me its the SNES so took game out blew on it and boom instant quality picture. As for corrosion I have never had that neither have I heard of anyone else having it as a result of blowing on cartridges (any cartridge) not saying it never happens just that as far as I am aware it is not a common problem.

However said it did nothing in that magazine is full of it.

 

[Bobular]

I never really had a problem with my games but I know a bunch of my friend did, I'm a bit of a clean freak though and even when friend recommended blowing into them I very rarely did as at the time I thought that breath was dirty[footnote]Evidence: other peoples breath smells, thats where disease comes from and I don't like people breathing on me[/footnote] and why would I want to get my games dirty?

I theorise that the reason my games usually worked first time or occasionally with a bit of jiggling and rebooting was due to the fact I always kept my games in their boxes when not in use, whilst when my friend just left them on the side.

 

[ultrabiome]

It worked on NES cartridges for sure. Although a cotton swab usually worked better and you could actually see if there was corrosion on the game contacts.

The NES wasn't great about getting it's contacts aligned though. Reinserting it probably did as much as the blowing.

 

[Elijin]

The problem is that it is almost definitely a placebo effect....in the lab. In our real life, messy dusty houses? Well....

 

[Cycloptomese]

I blew on Contra two weeks ago to get it to work. I still have my old NES and I like to play some old school games with my son from time to time. You won't convince me that it doesn't work. Those magazines are full of shit.

 

[Tanis]

I've lived most of my life in places with a LOT of dust.

The kind of place where I still have to clean my consoles once a week, or else the dust gets to damn visible.

So, maybe in a lab or some kind of other climate it's fine.

But, where I've lived, dust can be a major issue.

That's why I love those compressed air cans.

 

[Laughing Man]

I never blew on my cartridges and never had a problem with any of them on ANY of my consoles (master system, mega drive, gameboy), the way cartridges work means that they are cleaned as you insert them in to the console. Just look at a cartridge that has had a well played life and you can see the wear marks on the connection pins. In fact if you must be blwoing on anything yoiu would be better blowing on the internal receiver slot inside the console as THIS is where the majority of any dust, dirt or debris is likely to end up. Blowing on cartridges has the same placebo effect as blowing cans of air in to PCs to lower system temps, it has so little effect that it's not even worth the effort.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I used to blow as a kid but as I got older I chose not to after reading the anti-blow propaganda. I don't really want to risk damaging my carts after all...I've switched to using Q-tips and I've even used the canned air stuff. I've a really dusty person unfortunately...I don't know how to avoid that.

 

[gsilver]

Blowing on carts might have helped a little.
...But rubbing alcohol and q-tips are *vastly* better. I revived a completely non-booting and non-detected game in my Neo Geo Pocket a couple of months ago with that.

 

[Saulkar]

Blowing on cartridges has the same placebo effect as blowing cans of air in to PCs to lower system temps, it has so little effect that it's not even worth the effort.

My personal experience on both of these utterly contradicts this...

NO WINDOWS! I will not effing reformat my phone you incessant prick! JUST CHARGE THE GODDAMN THING WITHOUT TRYING TO TURN IT ON!!!

Now where were we? Anyways, I live in a moderately dusty house that nothing seems to solve and have already explicitly stated that the act of reseating the cartridges 10 times each did nothing 2 times out of 12. One simple puff is all it took to make it work. That is not a statistical anomaly and no, I do store my cartridges PCB up, PCB down on a wooden shelf. 16 Years later and no corrosion at all.

As for dusting your PC. If you were like me and did a lot of GPU CGI rendering then you would know that you would have to keep your eye glued to the temps when 4 cards were running at 100% power 24/7. Dusting them on a weekly basis brought 4 Titan Blacks down from as much as 79 to 76 Degrees Celsius.

P.S. I used a hyper aggressive fan profile that spun the fans up to 100% at 60C, it sounded like a quiet gas turbine engine.

P.P.S. FUCK YOU WINDOWS!!!

 

[FalloutJack]

Studies are wrong. Dust interfering with the workings of a system is real. Never trust skewed studies.

 

[Worgen]

Blowing on a cartridge does work but it causes long term damage to the connectors. There is a flaw in the design of the nes, when you push the cart down in the nes it slightly bends and over time it means there is less and less of a connection. The moisture from your breath helps establish the connection but it also rusts the pins. The nes remake didn't have the issue since it was top loading.

 

[Joccaren]

The problem with corrosion and moisture isn't spit, its the higher humidity and general moisture in the air from your mouth and lungs. This can cause strong connection with the pins, and blowing can also remove some dust that may be interfering with the connection, but it isn't the only method to fix things, and does cause long term damage.

Yeah, there is an effect from blowing, but it isn't 100% reliable and replicable, and other methods to get a cartridge to work could often be as, or more, effective, without the long term corrosion issue. That's generally why its recommended against, and said to not work. It isn't reliable, and it will damage your cartridge long term, causing more issues.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Here's my debunking of the myth: I replaced the internal female connection in my NES a few years back with a brand new one, lo and behold even games that used to work 1/10 times booted up perfectly. So the problem wasn't "dust" it was wear and tear on the internal port.
Have a nice day!