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Super Nintendo/Famicom Slot Issues

Posted: May 4th, 2016, 5:43 am
by Chrausis
Hi guys, just after some input from other Retro Freak owners.

Got my Retro Freak last night and started testing it with some Super Nintendo and Super Famicom cartridges and have been having issues with it; have tried 3 cartridges in it and all have extreme difficulty reading (have only got one to load successfully once) - the slot is and incredibly tight fit however the cartridge wobbles back and forth in the slot about an inch either side. Is this common with the hardware or have I managed to get myself a dud?

Re: Super Nintendo/Famicom Slot Issues

Posted: May 4th, 2016, 7:19 pm
by clubizarre
Hey there!

I've had similar issues (and yes, it is a loose fit), until I started inserting the cart straight down and pressing (not hard) from above so it didn't wiggle while it loaded. I have had no problems dumping since then. Maybe it's the placebo effect, but it's seemed to work ;)

You might also try cleaning the cart connectors with a little rubbing alcohol and see if that helps as well.

Re: Super Nintendo/Famicom Slot Issues

Posted: October 12th, 2016, 8:02 am
by xain09
Same here. The first one I tried was stuck very hard. I was afraid of breaking the unit. All other ports work fine.

Re: Super Nintendo/Famicom Slot Issues

Posted: December 27th, 2016, 5:51 pm
by HeathHimself
Just opened my Retro Freak the other day and started loading games onto it. Like OP says, the SNES slot grabs tight, but wiggles quite a bit, and after the first few times a cartridge was inserted I've had a lot of trouble getting cartridges to be consistently read ever since.

My strategy has been to insert a cartridge, refrain from moving my hand, and press down on it after insertion long enough to get the Retro Freak to read the cartridge and dump the rom. From there, I try to ... "slowly" ... take my hand off the cartridge, but it sometimes still gives up the ghost and says "Oh there's a problem reading the cartridge please try again!", so its pretty frustrating.

I see where the cartridge reader is attached to the device with screws. I wonder if replacing it entirely with a new/different reader would fix the issue. Then again, I'm not eager to try that with my "own" Retro Freak. I just got the thing. Heh.

Re: Super Nintendo/Famicom Slot Issues

Posted: December 27th, 2016, 9:29 pm
by Lilith
I haven't put a cart in my Retro Freak since I got it, I just play the games I've dumped to the SD card, and had zero problems. Given, I could see maybe using carts if you had over 500 games (which I hear is when it starts having issues)

Re: Super Nintendo/Famicom Slot Issues

Posted: December 28th, 2016, 1:05 am
by HeathHimself
That, and if you want to transfer your cartridge save data, or save your game to your cartridge as opposed to the SD card.

Granted, the system allows for you to get roms from anywhere, but to me one of the big draws of it is to make use of a collector's library in full HD.

Re: Super Nintendo/Famicom Slot Issues

Posted: December 29th, 2016, 7:19 pm
by HeathHimself
I found another forum where someone was complaining about their actual SNES having this problem, and one of the answers to him was "sandwich the game between two pieces of cardboard", while someone else said "one piece will do," and I said "Surely it can't be that simple," so I tried it. Seemed to work. Haven't done a lot of testing yet but I'm hopeful a stick of cardboard to steady the cartridge in there will be a solution.