Replace the Battery in your Game Cartridge! **56k warning**

[Master Kirby]

Great! I'm glad to see that this tutorial has been a help to you guys. dudestorm, you sure are right about it being an adventure. Since the game can't save anymore you feel more free to mess around without having to worry about breaking your game. I can understand why you had trouble getting the screw out. I had to hold my hemostats at a 90 degree angle to the cartridge so I could get the tips to fit inside the gap around the screw. I'd like to see those pictures. They are always a help in showing the processes you took to fix your game.

hitmonchan99, I guess you have shown another example of how you can do different things to reach the same goal. Good job at getting past the problem of connecting the tabs to the battery.

I had originally done something similar to what you did; taping the tabs to the battery, but I don't think it was tight enough, so if it was jarred enough it could loose connection and delete my game save. My tabs were a little mangled from trying to solder to them, so they didn't make very good contact anyways. Thats why I spot welded new tabs on my fresh battery. You were lucky enough to be able to detach your dead battery from the tabs without ruining them. The "white contraption" is the crystal oscillator which has a constant pulse allowing the game to keep track of time. I would expect that if your were to put in a different valued oscillator you could make time pass quicker.

[Memory-battler]

Hello. I really admire your battery solution and it's something that I myself have given lots of thought. I was just wondering if you could hazard a guess at something a question I have.
Do you think the same method of battery replacement could be used for Ruby and Sapphire cartridges? I believe that GBA games run on a 3 volt CR1616T battery. I am going to assume that, similar to Gold and Silver batteries, Ruby and Sapphire's will die after a long amount of time. I heard that the average battery Gold and Silver battery life is something like 6 years before a replacement is needed, and I wonder if it's the same amount of time for Ruby or Sapphire. Any thought on the matter would be appreciated, because I would like to try and remedy the situation before my characters are lost. Thanks for your time, and the handy replacement article!

Always,
Mark L.
"memory-battler"

[Master Kirby]

Memory-battler,

I'm glad that you found my battery replacement guide useful. In response to your question, yes I think the same method of battery replacement could be used for Ruby or Sapphire.

Even though a GBA cartridge is smaller than a GBC cartridge, if it uses a battery, it will be connected the same way. I found pictures of some GBA carts, and they look like the battery is connected the same way, using tabs that are soldered to the board.

http://babelfish.altavista.com/babel...katorittu.html

If your RSE battery dies, you can replace it with another 3 volt battery. You mentioned the CR1616T. That has a 55 mAh rating, which is much lower than the 165 and 220 of the CR2025 and CR2032 that you can use in a RBY or GSC cart. While it may last one third the time as a CR2025 under the same load, there is a chance that the GBA chips may draw less power and therefore don't need as large a battery.

Just find a 3 Volt battery that is thin enough to fit in the cart, and it should work fine. (The CR1620 is only 0.4 mm thicker, and has a 75 mAh rating, so that may also work.) You will just have to be very careful when soldering because the GBA cart looks like it may have its components more closely packed than in the GBC carts.

One warning in battery replacement. If you still have an active game save, you will need to make sure that you trade your characters to another game before replacing the battery because once you remove it, all game save data will be lost. The only way I can think of to replace your battery without loosing your data is to solder leads from a 3v power supply onto the cart before starting. Then when you remove the battery, as long as the flow of power is not interrupted, the data should remain while you connect the new battery.

I hope that is a help for any of you who were wondering about the GBA games. If anyone has any other questions, I will do my best to answer them.

On a semi-related note, have any of you ever heard of the battery dieing in any games other than Pokemon GSC? That is the only time I have noticed that happening. All my other games for the original Game Boy still work fine. I guess it may just be a result of the clock and the frequent saving that is done in GSC?

[Poryhedron]

Actually, I've heard that GBA games use a slightly different technology that makes them immune to this problem.

[dudestorm]

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu...7-f50b0610bebd

there you go guys... all the pictures and description of what we did is in there.

[wshep]

For those interested in finding a better way to remove those nasty screws, I was able to find a cool site that sells security bits that can be used to remove the screws in GB, GBA, and SNES cartridges. I'm not endorsing this above anything else, but I've tried the 3.8 mm and didn't have any problem loosening the screw used to hold both Crystal and Silver together.

http://www.nintendorepairshop.com/to...tion_guide.htm

They ship via USPS, and their payment is through Google or Paypal. It took only two days to get the bit, and I've been ecstatic ever since.

[RedRum]

Actually, I've heard that GBA games use a slightly different technology that makes them immune to this problem.

Yes my guy friend has told me this as well, I also believe Crystal was created with a solution to a faulty technology issue which caused this problem in Gold and Silver.

My Silver died about maybe three or four years ago; I had had 3 level 100's, 17 elite four wins, and a full pokedex(about half gamesharked XP). It had been my best game and I had been heart broken when I turned it on one day to only 'New Game' and 'Options'.

I had not known about this battery replacement option(I had not even known save files could die, I had to freak out to my guy friend in email and have him tell me this is what it was) but just the same it wouldn't have brought my file back.

Last I played, my crystal still worked fine but that was at least a year ago and I seemed to have misplaced it as I tried to look for it last night to give it a try. For all I know it could be dead by now.

I did however discover last night that my blue had died, I am surprised it had lived as long as it did seeing as I have heavily ODed all my original games with gameshark. I knew Blue would be the first of that generation to go as it did crash on me a few times in the form of just blanking out on me.

Astonishing, my Yellow is still good too, but my red also seems to be misplaced I wonder if it's ok.

Does this battery thing apply to Blue, Red and Yellow as well? I might actually consider it for these games as I have played so many files on them anymore I don't have any precious ones as Silver was.

[wyatt8740]

I did this on Crystal version and Gold version years ago. This works great with electrical tape too if you don't break the connectors. (I have zero skills with solder)

Actually, I've heard that GBA games use a slightly different technology that makes them immune to this problem.

The GBA games use EEPROM (Flash) for storing data. One does not have to worry about losing data unless you somehow wire up the battery directly to the EEPROM chip.