Is cleaning Cartridges/CD's with a Q-tip/cotton ball dipped in alcohol ok?

A friend of mine said cleaning the cartridge bottom end (where the chip board is at) with a Q-tip and alittle bit of alcohol is perfectly save and it works most of the timewhenever you get a blank screen..is this true? cause i wanted to clean afew SNES and Genesis cartridges that i just recieved that arent working properly, but if doing that does more harmthen good then i wont even bother trying it.

And what about CD's.. is cleaning PSX CD's or the PSX lens with a cotton ball dabbed in alcohol work with cds that have error reading problems? or that doesnt do a thing?

alcohol on its own might be a bit too much , either dilute it, or use something with alcohol in it.

as for CDs, alcohol wouldn't do much.

Q-tip and rubbing alcohol has worked on SNES games for me.

Wouldn't try it with discs though.

Been using alcohol and Q-tips to clean cartridges for years. It's always worked for me. Just make sure you don't over use the alcohol and douse the cartridge or anything, and be sure the contacts are dry before using the game again.

As for CDs, don't use alcohol. I don't see how that would help anything. I use micro-fiber cloth to wipe mine off (those little cloths they give you with your glasses at the eye doctor's).

BTW, a little alcohol will also remove most marker markings on a cartridge or a case like when people write their names or prices on there.

If you want to go a safer route use a little windex with the qtip.

thats what I do and it makes the games work perfectly fine.

I've used both windex and rubbing alcohol and neither produced any bad results...I just prefer windex

Cartridges yes. CD's windex is ok.

It's fine, but DO NOT soak the q-tip in it. I've broken a few SNES games that way.

CD's, though, I wouldn't reccomend it.

I've cleaned many cartridges with alcohol and never had a problem. Use a high concentration of isopropyl alcohol and it will evaporate very quickly. On a side-note, do not use brasso or any other abrasives; they can strip the protective coating right off a cartridge's contact pins.

I use rubbing alcohol + q-tips to clean games all the time. When I had a really dirty game that still wouldn't play after cleaning it with rubbing alcohol I would open the cart and rub a pencil eraser on the contacts which worked great.

Always used windex myself.

All these people using Windex. I can't imagine that could be good. You ever wiped a window with Windex, and was kind of lazy about it? If you don't completely wipe it, it leaves blue stuff behind. That blue stuff can't be good for your games.

All these people using Windex. I can't imagine that could be good. You ever wiped a window with Windex, and was kind of lazy about it? If you don't completely wipe it, it leaves blue stuff behind. That blue stuff can't be good for your games.

Emerald_Warrior

I only use enough to get the qtip damp. Been working for 25+ years.

[QUOTE="Emerald_Warrior"]

All these people using Windex. I can't imagine that could be good. You ever wiped a window with Windex, and was kind of lazy about it? If you don't completely wipe it, it leaves blue stuff behind. That blue stuff can't be good for your games.

RossRichard

I only use enough to get the qtip damp. Been working for 25+ years.

most of it is isopropnal alcohol anyway