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SNES connector pin issues

Posted: February 25th, 2016, 3:12 pm
by LordofTarkana
Hi everyone. I've been having a lot of trouble with my Retron5's snes connector pin. The connector was quite tight when I first got it and several pins ended up partially pulled up due to cartridge swaps. Eventually, one of the pins broke clean off and I got the console replaced by Hyperkin. The replacement console I was sent was used with several scratches and was missing one of the rubber feet. Worse yet, the snes connector pin was even tighter than my original, even with clean carts, and most of the pins were pulled up only a week later. I contacted Hyperkin, but the most they were willing to do was replace the missing rubber foot.

Has anyone else had this many problems with the snes connector pin? Would it be possible to swap the connector with one from an original snes/ sfc?

Re: SNES connector pin issues

Posted: February 25th, 2016, 9:04 pm
by Lilith
This happened to me twice, I replaced the Retron the first time, but when it happened again, I honestly didn't know if it was an actual issue, since my pins looked the exact same as before I replaced it. Anyway, I ended up just ditching my Retron 5 for a Retro Freak. No cart slot wear and tear

Re: SNES connector pin issues

Posted: February 27th, 2016, 7:08 pm
by dustbuster
This has happened to me 4 times(twice w snes and once w nes, once w famicom) it has happened w the snes slot around Christmas with my current retron 5, however everything is still working this time around. Sounds strange but I do my best to not push the cart in all the way, rather just until it reads...I also would like to know if the pins can be replaced with no issues.

Re: SNES connector pin issues

Posted: March 2nd, 2016, 12:21 pm
by LordofTarkana
Lilith wrote:This happened to me twice, I replaced the Retron the first time, but when it happened again, I honestly didn't know if it was an actual issue, since my pins looked the exact same as before I replaced it. Anyway, I ended up just ditching my Retron 5 for a Retro Freak. No cart slot wear and tear
The retro freak sounds like a much better console; I'm glad to hear it doesn't have any issues with cart swapping. I do have some questions about it. Does it have an english language option for the menus or is it strictly in Japanese? Can it transfer saves back to the carts? And this might be a stupid question, but can it recognize save states from the retron5? I have a ton saves to an SD card that I'd hate to lose.

Re: SNES connector pin issues

Posted: March 2nd, 2016, 7:35 pm
by Lilith
LordofTarkana wrote:
Lilith wrote:This happened to me twice, I replaced the Retron the first time, but when it happened again, I honestly didn't know if it was an actual issue, since my pins looked the exact same as before I replaced it. Anyway, I ended up just ditching my Retron 5 for a Retro Freak. No cart slot wear and tear
The retro freak sounds like a much better console; I'm glad to hear it doesn't have any issues with cart swapping. I do have some questions about it. Does it have an english language option for the menus or is it strictly in Japanese? Can it transfer saves back to the carts? And this might be a stupid question, but can it recognize save states from the retron5? I have a ton saves to an SD card that I'd hate to lose.
Yes, it has an English menu option. Right when you boot up the console, it gives you a language option, and I believe right below Japanese in English in English. No problems so far. Only minor thing is the cheats I found are in Japanese.

It can transfer the saves to and from carts like the Retron 5, but I found that I had to transfer them to the Retron 5 manually and then transfer them from the cart when I put the game in the Retro Freak. I have my Earthbound, Tales of Phantasia, and Lufia 2 saves from the Retron 5 on the Freak, so it's definitely doable.

Re: SNES connector pin issues

Posted: March 2nd, 2016, 7:44 pm
by R9delta
If it's any consolation you can use the Retron 5's cheat database for the Retro Freak anyway. You just need to rename the file names to match what the Retro Freak's cheat database file names would be.

Re: SNES connector pin issues

Posted: March 2nd, 2016, 7:49 pm
by Lilith
R9delta wrote:If it's any consolation you can use the Retron 5's cheat database for the Retro Freak anyway. You just need to rename the file names to match what the Retro Freak's cheat database file names would be.
Oh, I didn't know that, that's cool. I assume then all the cheats would be in English? Or would there just be more cheats? I know the RF's database is a lot more lacking.

Re: SNES connector pin issues

Posted: March 2nd, 2016, 9:37 pm
by LordofTarkana
Lilith wrote:
R9delta wrote:If it's any consolation you can use the Retron 5's cheat database for the Retro Freak anyway. You just need to rename the file names to match what the Retro Freak's cheat database file names would be.
Oh, I didn't know that, that's cool. I assume then all the cheats would be in English? Or would there just be more cheats? I know the RF's database is a lot more lacking.

That's great to hear. Has the RF been getting regular updates that may fix some of these issues? I would love to simply get rid of my R5 rather than continue to deal with these awful pin connectors.

Re: SNES connector pin issues

Posted: March 2nd, 2016, 10:58 pm
by R9delta
Lilith wrote:Oh, I didn't know that, that's cool. I assume then all the cheats would be in English? Or would there just be more cheats? I know the RF's database is a lot more lacking.
Yeah if you use the Retron 5's cheat database they'll be in english. Personally the way I have it set up right now is that I'm using the Retron 5's database for everything but PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 (since the Retron 5 obviously doesn't play PCE games nor has a cheat database for it), for that I just keep the Retro Freak's PC Engine cheat file on there while replacing the other systems.

Also yeah the Retro Freak has been getting about 1 update a month, the last one was pretty major and fixed some major faults in my opinion. That said honestly, I wouldn't expect many more updates from this point on though. No proof to why I'm saying that, just more of a gut feeling and I could be wrong. The Retro Freak is based on the Retron 5 in a lot of ways (almost to a point of being a ripoff) and unless Hyperkin puts out actual meaningful updates again to the Retron 5 I don't see Cybergadget putting more updates of its' own to compete, or well...copy off of. Not that I'm saying the Retro Freak is a bad product, I think it's better than the Retron 5 in almost every way actually but that's how I kinda see the firmware situation.

That said I think the Retro Freak is pretty good as-is and does what it sets out to do really well so little future updates probably wouldn't bother me personally too much. Although I think they need to change up the way USB controllers work a little bit, using multiple different kinds of USB controllers are a mess currently because you can't have separate configurations for each player.