[Attention] Replacing the infernal battery on a GTA fart.

So, the internal battery went to hell on my GBA cart of BoF II. So there is much sad, as my save file is kaput, but now I want to fix it. Anyone out there know if it's the same approach as the old gameboy games? Remove screw, solder battery in place? Or am I going to royally fuck everything up if I'm that casual with it?

Poor, poor save file. You were so impressive while you lasted. Oh well, there goes my desire to play through all the BoF's in sequence.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Some of the GBA carts have batteries.



Some are just EEPROMs



EEPROMs only die after about...what, an extremely high amount of state changes. Like 10 to a 100 thousand times.

So in the case of BOF, it's probably a battery powered unit, I would imagine. I can't think of it dieing otherwise this soon. GBA carts run on 3 volts, I believe, so a replacement, should you have the security screwdriver bit, should be simple.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Yeah, I figured it would be. Fucking BoF II. I was just about to go tear up some Witch's Tower, too.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

My advice is to get a flashcart. It will allow you to play your games, but without being dependant on the physical cartridge. You can back up your save files and never run this risk again.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Batteries will fail, regardless of usage. Replacements have to be done, regardless. Playing on a flashcart will not alleviate the problem, although it will prevent his save file from nuclear meltdown.

Alternatively, you could connect the cart to a 3 volt power source while you operate, and replace the battery on a regular basis, and as long as the power isn't interupted, your save file should exist forever.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I just need it to exist long enough for me to mess up some guys in BoF II. Forget forever. I realise my SNES has numbered days. My Saturn even more so. But damnit, I will give those days as high a number as possible.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I'm interested in this too. I have a bunch of GB/GBC/GBA games I haven't gotten myself into sooner. And is there a listing somewhere that can tell you which games has EEPROMS or batteries?

FELIPE NO

The thing is the tabs on those batteries are stamped on. Soldering may or may not stick to the generic battery surface, but I wouldn't know because I haven't tried. Irregardless, unless you're really skilled, the heat will probably severely damage the battery.

I was going to replace the battery in my Pokemon Silver cart, but haven't done so because I'm too timid.

BUT since I work in an electronics plant, there's gotta be some cold solder material or SOMETHING lying around that I can steal. I will snoop around for you, but I'm off till Monday. Can you wait till then?

I'm gonna try and solder my pokemon silver battery right now and see how it goes, I'll edit in a bit.

Edit: Heh. Either I did a piss poor job soldering it and destroyed the copper trace, or the heat killed the battery. But it didn't work. Oh well.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Zephyrin

The thing is the tabs on those batteries are stamped on. Soldering may or may not stick to the generic battery surface, but I wouldn't know because I haven't tried. Irregardless, unless you're really skilled, the heat will probably severely damage the battery.

I was going to replace the battery in my Pokemon Silver cart, but haven't done so because I'm too timid.

BUT since I work in an electronics plant, there's gotta be some cold solder material or SOMETHING lying around that I can steal. I will snoop around for you, but I'm off till Monday. Can you wait till then?

I'm gonna try and solder my pokemon silver battery right now and see how it goes, I'll edit in a bit.

Yeah, of course I can, Zeph. I'm only just about to order the triwing screwdriver.

Best of luck, and godspeed christian solder. (get it?)

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Okay, yeah BoF II is SRAM. Battery.

I found a great site that covers internal information especially the save types. Use the search feature for this.

I'll just spoiler/quote someone covering all sorts of info on this kind of saving data thing.

Spoiler:

Quote:

There are five ways a game can deal with saving data.

1) Don't save anything.
Save Lifespan: Until you turn the console off.
Used by: Most/all pre-NES cartridge games (I don't know of any console systems before the NES with saving... but I could be wrong, that isn't my strongest area),and many games on many platforms up until last gen. (Note that the DS is the first Nintendo handheld with saving in every game released for the system...)

2) Passwords.
Save Lifespan: Forever, as long as you wrote it down correctly.
Used by: Many games from the NES to GBA eras. Handhelds and cart systems see most of these games, like with no-save titles, but some CD system games are password-save only; some early PSX games, for instance (Warhawk, Pandemonium, etc).

3) Hard Drive/Floppy Disk.
Save Lifespan: Until the disk corrupts. Unlimited saves until then.
Used by: Famicom Disk System for the NES, 64DD for the N64, Xbox (hard drive), Xbox 360 (hard drive), Playstation 2 (hard drive), Playstation 3 (hard drive). PCs mostly use this system too, of course. Reliable... mostly.

4) Battery-backed memory (known as SRAM)
Save lifespan: Until the battery dies. Unlimited saves until then, but these batteries will probably only last 5-25 years and then will need to be replaced, not easy for most people. Replacing the battery (or having it die) wipes the cartridge of all saved data.
Used by:
-NES (all games with saving);
-SNES (all games with saving);
-Game Boy (all games with saving);
-Game Gear (all games with saving);
-Game Boy Color (most titles have batteries in them. All (I think) dual mode GB/GBC (black carts) have batteries. With clear GBC only carts, just look in them to tell. )
-Sega Master System (all games with saving);
-N64 (all Controller Paks have batteries in them. About half of N64 games either don't save (some fighting games) or require a controller pak. Of the other half or so, most use EEPROM and a few use Flash RAM. About 12 US-released titles with on-cart saving, however, use SRAM battery save. These include F-Zero X, Ogre Battle 64 (though it also supports controller paks), Zelda OoT (but not MM, that's flash), The New Tetris, SSB, and a few others);
-Genesis/32X (most games with saving have batteries, but a few use EEPROMs - see below); -Sega CD (the internal backup ram and backup ram carts use rechargable batteries to keep their saves);
-Turbografx-16 (the two or three games with on-cart saving, as well as rechargable batteries that power the SRAM in the the save addon unit and the CD unit);
-3DO (system has internal battery, perhaps rechargable?);
-CD-i (again, internal battery in the system);
-Saturn (internal battery in the console, though it is user-changable and isn't rechargable);
-GBA (some titles use batteries for saving or for clocks. Most games have flash memory for saving, but not all.)

Note that all PCs, and consoles such as the Dreamcast, have batteries inside them, but these are used just for keeping the clock (and in PCs, for keeping the CMOS bootup information, or in Dreamcasts, for saving internet connection settings), not for saving data. Clocks can't run on flash memory, they usually need a battery (or internet connection, perhaps?). This is somewhat different, though.

5) Flash Memory (most common types: EEPROM, FRAM, and Flash RAM)
Save lifespan: Saves will stay on the cart for as long as the cart lasts (or at least a hundred years). The number of times the chip can be written to is limited, however, and varies depending on type from tens of thousands to a million or more. Once that point is reached you can't write to the chip anymore (but what is there will presumably stay).
Used by:
-DS (all games);
-GBA (GBA supports FRAM, EEPROM, SRAM (battery), Flash RAM, or no save. Without opening carts, it is hard to tell which games use which types; emulation sites list the types, but they can't tell FRAM (flash type) apart from SRAM, so the two are grouped together... making it impossible to know exactly which GBA games use batteries without opening all of the games in question and checking, I think.);
-GBC (specific titles have EEPROMS instead of SRAM. It's easy to tell which, because of the clear carts for GBC-only games. The only one I know for sure that uses EEPROM is Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble.);
-N64 (Aside from the always battery-backed controller paks and the 12 (plus a few more Japan-only) SRAM titles mentioned in the above category, all other N64 games with on-cart saving have EEPROM or Flash RAM chips.);
-Jaguar (I think I heard that the carts are actually flash... not certain, though...);
-Neo-Geo Pocket Color (flash carts, all of them. Not all games have saving, though the ones that do are all through flash.)
Genesis/32X (all titles from Acclaim with saving use EEPROMs (NBA Jam, etc), mostly, but also a few others -- Sonic 3, Monster World III (Wonder Boy in Monster World), Monster World IV, and a few more have EEPROMs as well. The only companies to use EEPROMs on Genesis were Sega, Codemasters (Micro Machines series), Acclaim, and EA (for just one or two titles).);
-Saturn (plug-in memory carts are flash-based memory.);
-PSX, PS2, NGC, Xbox, Dreamcast, and X360 memory cards.
-Flash memory card formats such as SD, CF, Ministick, etc, as used by the Wii and PSP (and PS3).
-The Wii's internal flash memory.
-USB Flashdrives (if any consoles support them).

Unsure at the moment: Lynx (battery probably? not sure), Jaguar CD (I think I heard about this before, but forget at the moment what it uses), TG-16 memory cards (I would imagine that they use rechargeable batteries as does the internal save, but am not certain), all systems not released in the US, the Game.com, and possibly a few more.

For the GBA and N64 (among others), if you're wondering why so many systems are used, it's simple... size. Different types are different sizes and cost different amounts. For instance, on the N64 there were several options: no internal save (use no save or controller paks), 4Kb EEPROM (first in Mario 64), 16Kb EEPROM (first: Yoshi's Story), 32KB SRAM (Zelda OoT was one of the first), 128KB Flash RAM (Pokemon Stadium first). Most third parties saved money by just including controller pak saving; all games published by Nintendo have some form of save memory in them, as do some third-party games, but which type depended on how much space was needed. The GBA has different sizes available and adds one more type, FRAM, but the issues of space deciding which type to use remained.

I don't know the story why the Genesis had a small number of EEPROM titles and a lot of battery-backed ones, though... I wonder about it, but really have no idea. Listing of all EEPROM titles: http://gxdev.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/gen_eeprom.pdf ( from this site )

Honestly, I think I prefer flash to battery-backed. Sure Flash RAM has a short lifespan, flash-wise (10,000?), but EEPROM and FRAM last longer, and any of them is likely to last longer than a battery, particularly because that battery continues to drain while it's sitting in the cart unused on the shelf, while a flash chip sitting in another cart won't be using up its writes as long as it's sitting there.

-----------------------------

One other game-death issue is EPROM chips (not to be confused with EEPROMS! They are completely different... ), but that's quite different. EPROM chips are an alternative to the normal Masked ROM chips that cartridge-based systems use for storing the main (non-writable) data; they are cheaper, but have 25-year lifespans or so. I don't know if any console after the NES arrived used EPROMs; as far as I know, they've mostly been used in homebrew carts, (some) arcade games, and some pre-NES system carts (some 2600 games have them, I'm pretty sure.). But that's a different problem, and for the most part a smaller one, thankfully.

-------------------------

For the N64, it is easy to back up those battery-backed controller paks, at least. You just need a DexDrive (easy to find and cheap online), a v3.3 Gameshark with a working back parallel port (harder to find because of how unreliable the things are), or an Adaptoid N64 controller to USB adapter (its got to be the genuine Adaptoid, that supports controller paks and rumble paks; those junky import ones don't support such things.), and can then back up your controller paks to PC. With the Gameshark (3.3), it's even possible to back up on-cart saves to memory cards, I think, which you could then presumably back up to PC if the whole process went well...

For the GBA there are also ways of getting saves off the carts, though they're a bit less accessible than for N64, I think. But for other, older consoles... yeah, unless you have expensive hardware (grey-market cart-backup hardware, etc), there's no option really except to watch the carts die and all need battery replacements. And watch you lose all of your saves.

Oh yeah, and I forgot the NGPC and PS3, so I added them in. For the rest... am I missing any post-NES US-released consoles?

... yeah, the SMS... erm, all games with saving have batteries for that. Any others?

The DS does have several different save types, but they are just different types of flash memory (various sizes of EEPROM and Flash RAM).

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Meia

Okay, yeah BoF II is SRAM. Battery.

I found a great site that covers internal information especially the save types. Use the search feature for this.

I'll just spoiler/quote someone covering all sorts of info on this kind of saving data thing.

Yeah, I figured it was battery. Game boots and plays fine, can save and reload, just can't shut off and boot up or save disappear. Classic battery issue. Thanks for that site though, Meia. Helpful as always.

Most amazing jew boots

You guys are brave souls to solder with lithium.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Denicalis

Yeah, I figured it was battery. Game boots and plays fine, can save and reload, just can't shut off and boot up or save disappear. Classic battery issue. Thanks for that site though, Meia. Helpful as always.

I know how it feels to lose that save. I was playing some bomberman gba game for a while and suddenly my save is just all gone when I got back to it the next day. I was more than half way through it. So I was more than worried about my other games I haven't played and really searched for this. One thing though, I'm just so damn happy that the Golden Suns are FLASH saved. Whew. I was going to head into that after Superstar Saga.

Oh yeah another thing, pirated games will have shitty batteries.

But yeah, I saw that I need to get into Drill Dozer, Harvest Moon (More Friends), Amazing Mirror, Shining Force(!), Riviera(!) (of course there's that PSP port too...) soon and a bunch of FF ports but you know me, I hardly replay games as is when I'm backlogged with the rest.

Now to find out about those GB/GBC games... ;\ I suppose that's more of a reason why I should be grateful for roms. Thankfully there's not a lot of those that I should had played besides Zelda's Ages and Seasons and Lufia.

I was speaking idiomatically.

You might also want to check tosee if the wire to the battery got severed.

I have had a couple of games where they won't save. One game was the battery which was easily swapped. Another turned out that it was a wire or something inside that got messed up and hence couldn't be fixed.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Meia

I know how it feels to lose that save. I was playing some bomberman gba game for a while and suddenly my save is just all gone when I got back to it the next day. I was more than half way through it. So I was more than worried about my other games I haven't played and really searched for this. One thing though, I'm just so damn happy that the Golden Suns are FLASH saved. Whew. I was going to head into that after Superstar Saga.

Oh yeah another thing, pirated games will have shitty batteries.

But yeah, I saw that I need to get into Drill Dozer, Harvest Moon (More Friends), Amazing Mirror, Shining Force(!), Riviera(!) (of course there's that PSP port too...) soon and a bunch of FF ports but you know me, I hardly replay games as is when I'm backlogged with the rest.

Now to find out about those GB/GBC games... ;\ I suppose that's more of a reason why I should be grateful for roms. Thankfully there's not a lot of those that I should had played besides Zelda's Ages and Seasons and Lufia.

I don't think it was a pirated copy. Came sealed in box with full manual etc.

FELIPE NO

Oh I trust you know what you're buying. Its stuff like that are sold on online we just cannot tell til we physically have it. We learned that valuable lesson soon when we got one gba cart online and you can tell by looking the cart on the back saying "Nintondo". Pwned already, and we never buy gba games online ever again.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Meia

Oh I trust you know what you're buying. Its stuff like that are sold on online we just cannot tell til we physically have it. We learned that valuable lesson soon when we got one gba cart online and you can tell by looking the cart on the back saying "Nintondo". Pwned already, and we never buy gba games online ever again.

Yeah, when I buy GBA games off ebay, I always, ALWAYS double check to make sure they're full box and manual'd. Most forgeries don't bother to include the complete set.

Also, I'd frame the Nintondo cart. That's awesome.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I tried, quite unsuccessfully, to solder tabs onto generic batteries, more than once. Whatever metal, probly stainless, the body is made of just won't connect to the solder.

But I finally found a place that sells the batteries. They are apparently the same for all GB, GBC, and GBA carts. Fairly cheap as well. I'll probably buy a handful of them.

BATTERY LITHIUM COIN 3V W/TAB - CR1616-1F2

or...

BATTERY LITHIUM COIN 3V W, BATTERY LITHIUM COIN 3V 12

How ya doing, buddy?

You're a hero, Zeph.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Meia

Oh I trust you know what you're buying. Its stuff like that are sold on online we just cannot tell til we physically have it. We learned that valuable lesson soon when we got one gba cart online and you can tell by looking the cart on the back saying "Nintondo". Pwned already, and we never buy gba games online ever again.

Ohhh yeah. My girlfriend got one of those "Nintondo" Game Boy Advance cartridges from ebay. We have bought quite a few GBA carts from ebay and only been unlucky twice between us though. It must have been one of the most heavily bootlegged systems ever. I see tons of auctions that I wouldn't trust.

Additional Spam:

Originally Posted by Denicalis

Yeah, when I buy GBA games off ebay, I always, ALWAYS double check to make sure they're full box and manual'd. Most forgeries don't bother to include the complete set.

Especially the manual. Sometimes you get a box which has obviously been freshly printed that day, because it's still flat, and has never been folded together to make a real box before. I don't think I've seen a suspected bootleg with a manual though. It's odd how that can be the real giveaway.

How ya doing, buddy?

I've tried soldering to stainless steel before and found if I took some rough sandpaper and rubbed it over the surface to be soldered first it stuck a hell of a lot better. I think it's because there's not enough adhesion between the highly polished surface of the metal (in my case, a paperclip) but if it's roughed up, there's a lot more nooks and crannies for the solder to adhere to, so even though you've got a weak bond, you get a lot more surface doing the bonding.

I was speaking idiomatically.