By: Rhett Whitley

Symptoms: Controller response is lagged, controller buttons stick down, controller buttons won't go down.

Solution: Needs cleaned.

Tools: Isopropyl Alcohol, Q-tips, Phillips head screwdriver.

Directions:

Step One:

Remove the six screws that hold the controllers casing on.

Step Two:

Lift up and put the bottom of the controller and its screws in a area so that it won't be knocked over causing you to waste a lot of time looking for semi-micro screws. [Experienced and mentioned here so you don't have to].

After that you will be looking at the back of the circuit board [for now on as C-board], and the wire, which is looped through some guiding post, although they do have a seemingly small purpose, you should note where the wire goes through for reassemble later on. Also note that one broke off and is not on the controller I have disassembled here.

Step Three:

After unlooping the wire from the post and then lifting out the C-board you should look around for any corrosion/dirt/grime & slime on the board.

This is when the Q-tip comes in. Go ahead and dampen one or both sides of the Q-tip [now on called Q.T.], and start systematically cleaning areas of the board, Concentrate on the button contact points on the board since they usually are the dirtiest areas, it's a good idea though to generally clean the entire C-board. You should go ahead and lightly scrub away any/all the grime away and then use another set of Q.T.'s to dry the C-board. After doing the above you should hold the C-board like you would a CD, because fingerprints can corrode and damage it like they would a CD.

Step Four: Now located in the area where the buttons are at you should notice some rubber pads attached to some post in the top casing of the controller, these should be removed and inspected for damaged [see below for repair] and then cleaned with Q.T. and alcohol.

After that you may want to also try and clean out any junk that is trapped inside the plastic buttons, it is not needed since the rubber pads do most of the work and the odd way Nintendo manufactured the buttons don't make it easy, but you should work on them a little bit to see what all you can do to them. Best method for me is to use a needle.

After that reverse all you have done and you have yourself a cleaned controller.

Repair

Sometimes those blasted rubber pads split open and ruin a controller, well not so. Before you throw it out you may want to consider repairing it.

Why To Repair:

• A few reasons against repairing are as follows:
• Takes too much time.
• Easier to buy a new controller.
• I'm a moron with a screwdriver.
• Or other. [You have a imagination, you make a few up.]

• if you already have another broken controller [who doesn't?], it will cost you nothing to fix it.
• Nintendo hasn't made a controller for the NES in over five years and probably will discontinue support soon at Nintendos' repair centers, so it's best to be self sufficient in this field.
• If you have/can obtain the proper repair kits [which usually run at about $1.50 a controller], you can make your old NES controller outlast whatever cheapo used one you can find at Funco or off eBay, and cost is darn near irrelevant since they are basically at the same price.

Repeat all steps and when damage is found it will almost always be a split in the rubber contact pads. After years of service and age these things eventually develop a large split on them causing them to cease function, if you wish to see how they become ineffective lay it on the C-board and push it down, noticed that the split doesn't allow it to go strait down, that is why the only way it will work for a short while is to just smash it down.

You now have three options at your disposal.

One is to refurbish the broken part, I've done it a few times, it doesn't last very long but if you're short on controllers it will keep the life of the controller part up. To do this you need a sealer or glue, I prefer something silicone based since it seems to be somewhat stronger. What you do is take a toothpick and spread the sealer on the top and bottom of the area that is torn and let dry for whatever the instructions of drying time are on the sealer.

I've had one repaired like this last about a month and a half, but since the part is already weakened it just prolongs the inevitable.

Second option is to find a controller that has a non-corresponding broken piece, you can't take non-working rubber pads of the A/B buttons out of one controller and hope they work in another. If say the A/B button pad is broke and you have another controller that has the Start/Select button broke, then you can take out the proper working corresponding buttons and make one good controller out of two bad ones. The military calls this cannibalizing.

For a long term solution you either need to go to a electronics store to buy the replacement pads, or get them online off of eBay or MCM Electronics. For me I have another area to get them much cheaper than all those other areas, but you need to have or know someone that has a retail tax stamp to order from them.

In any case, all you do is after you obtain the part, just change them out like you would a broken tire, since the piece is already broke it wouldn't hurt to experiment with trying to refurbish it with some type of sealer. I bet if the right sealer is used you would have much better results then I did.

For those that have a website that wish to use this article I suggest you either copy and load it up on your site with a link to our main page along with a brief description, or just directly link to the article and state what our site is about with a link to our main page. I would like you to email me or Sushi about it but if you don't email us yet do the other stuff I ask for I still won't mind.