carts arent seating properly is this commen?

[kevin242]

I pulled out my 2600 after about 2 weeks letting it sit dormant. I was

going test abuot 20 carts I won off ebay when the first cart didnt work,

after two other carts didnt work I placed some commen games I play

in and they didnt work either!!

 

So I notice for some reason the carts arent "staying in" the port, usually

they fit in snuggly (it's a light 6 switch) but now they are sort of springing

up!

 

This sucks

 

If I hold down a cart just right it will come on but if I let go it will just show

garbled lines on the screen. What the hell can be causing this? I looked

in the port and there doesnt seem to be anything jammed in there. I

am assured noone knocked it off the table it was on, but it could of

happened when I wasnt around.

 

I guess I need to take the thing apart and try to fig this out this weekend

but I am hoping someone might be able to help or offer advise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

thanks a million

 

Kevin

[A.J. Franzman]

Open the case and see if the cart port is broken. Best electronics has replacements if you need one.

[Mindfield]

Were these Atari-branded carts by chance? I ask because there are two possibilities I can think of:

 

1) On either side of any Atari-branded cart (and some other brands as well) are two tabs right next to two slots in the dust cover. The two tabs on the cart fit into corresponding openings in the cartridge port. The cartridge port has these same tabs that fit into the cartridge and push the dust cover door aside to allow the dust cover itself to retract and expose the PCB's edge connector as you insert it into the cartridge port. If one of the tabs on the cartridge port breaks, it will have a difficult time opening the dust cover door and thus, the dust cover may not retract properly, resulting in cartridges that either fit poorly or not at all.

 

2) Some cartridges don't have dust covers, but do still have posts at either end that fit into the aforementioned slots in the cart port. If one of those posts partially breaks in the slot (or if some foreign object gets into one of those slots) then you may not be able to insert cartridges all the way due to this object (or piece of post) stopping the post from reaching the bottom.