Vent: I spent 3 years cleaning my old Game Boy with rubbing alcohol WRONG

I got my Game Boy Color from a pawn shop in Austin back in 2016. Every time a game wouldn't load, I'd douse a Q-tip in 91% isopropyl and scrub the pins until they looked clean. Last month a retro repair buddy watched me do it and goes "you're just pushing the gunk deeper into the slot." He showed me to lightly wet the cartridge pins themselves, insert and remove it like 10 times, then let it dry. Fixed two games that I thought were dead. Has anyone else had a basic cleaning habit that was actually making things worse?

2 comments

2 Comments

hayden7201mo agoMost Upvoted

you're just pushing the gunk deeper into the slot" - I gotta respectfully disagree with your buddy on that one. I've been cleaning old cartridges for years and the whole "wet the pins and insert multiple times" thing always felt wrong to me. You're basically soaking the inside of the console with alcohol that could drip down into the slot contacts and cause corrosion over time. A good dry scrub with a soft toothbrush first gets the loose stuff out, then a quick wipe with a lightly damp Q-tip on the pins themselves has always worked for me. The key is letting the game sit for a full 5 minutes after cleaning before you try it, not jamming it in and out wet. I've revived dozens of games that way without ever having to worry about residue building up in the console slot.

drew_west1mo ago

Nah, I gotta side with the buddy on this one. I used to do the same thing with a dry toothbrush and it just made my game slots worse over time. The wet cartridge trick actually works because the alcohol dissolves the residue and the motion wipes it off the pins, not deeper in. Letting it sit for 5 minutes is fine, but I've pulled out games that looked clean with a dry brush and still had gunk on the contacts after a wet cycle.