Nintendo NES problem..

[Assassin]

About a week ago I decided to play some NES game again, so I hooked up my NES to my TV, at first with the RF switch:

Turned it to the right channel (I know because when I turned it on you hear this popping sound, like when you would turn your stereo on, which you don't get on the other channels) but the screen stayed black. After this I tried an AV cable:

Same result, the popping sound but black screen. I do however, have another NES, so I decided to hook that one up as well, also with both cables but I got the same results there, black screen. I tried numerous games, cleaning the cartridges... I can't seem to find out what the problem could be. Any ideas?

 

[Icharus_Falling]

when i was a kid, i would beat the hell out of my NES til it worked. have you tried that? =)

do you have the RF input on your TV, or are you using an RF modulator?

are you putting both audio and video through your TV with the AV jacks, or are you going audio to sound system and video to TV? if its the second scenario, maybe you just need to change inputs through your TV.

how long has it been since the last time you used either one of the NES systems?

did you also try different games? i remember having to sometimes mess with the placement of the cartridge inside the system, as in it can be moved left or right about a quarter inch when the cartridge is in the system, which sometimes led to a better connection.

 

[Dark Scyth]

Mine would do that too. It would be put in correctly as far as video audio, and the game. Sometimes that would happen and sometimes the screen would be blue and the system would turn on and off. When even this would happen I'd have to slam the game into the Nintendo and then for some reason it'd magically work.

Did you try cleaning where the cartridges go in the NES console? If you have 2 NES consoles do you have NES AV cables of RF switches? Have you tried the other AV cable or RF switch?

 

[Assassin]

when i was a kid, i would beat the hell out of my NES til it worked. have you tried that? =)

Haven't tried that, I guess it wouldn't hurt to try it.

do you have the RF input on your TV, or are you using an RF modulator?

I have it on my TV, I have connected the little gray box directly to my TV.

are you putting both audio and video through your TV with the AV jacks, or are you going audio to sound system and video to TV? if its the second scenario, maybe you just need to change inputs through your TV.

Both the audio and video are directly connected to my TV. No sound system or anything. I have a TV with a VCD built into it so I can hook it up to that. I also tried connecting it to the input, by using one of those plugs I got with my Gamecube/Nintendo 64 but I get the same problem: popping + black screen.
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how long has it been since the last time you used either one of the NES systems?

Not sure, at least a year, probably longer..

did you also try different games? i remember having to sometimes mess with the placement of the cartridge inside the system, as in it can be moved left or right about a quarter inch when the cartridge is in the system, which sometimes led to a better connection.

Yes, I tried different games, I could still try move the cartrigde around a bit.. Another thing I'll put on the todo list!

Did you try cleaning where the cartridges go in the NES console?

I did actually open one of my systems up and clean it a bit with some q-tips. Didn't seem very dirty on the inside though, the cartridges I cleaned were a lot dirtier than the system itself.

If you have 2 NES consoles do you have NES AV cables of RF switches? Have you tried the other AV cable or RF switch?

Well one of them came with the RF switch and the other with the AV cable, so that's all I have.



Edit:
I tried hitting/shaking both systems, which produced white lines on the screen and at some point I could hear music playing of my Mario/Duckhunt cartridge, but that didn't last long.. Moving the cartridge around while it was in the system didn't do anything though..

 

[Icharus_Falling]

well, hearing music and white lines is progress.

when you put the cartridge in the system, you then have to push the cartridge down (like a magnetic connection). sometimes moving the cartridge up and down (inside of the system) while the power was on worked for me. of course, these methods were the brilliant conclusions of a young child, so i dont know that they wont cause more damage than good.

 

[kade1]

I have a similar problem actually, I turned my NES on for the first time in a while like two days ago, and it worked fine, today i turned it on to play it, and its just a greenish white screen, I use the AV cables, and if I turn the NES to channel 4 the screen goes red, don't know if that changes anything..