Soldered Battery to a Gameboy Advance Game PCB so it can save, it still does not want to save.

[nessark89]

So i bought "one of those carts" from Ebay and it does not want to save. In the game when i try to save it tries multiple times and says the battery has run dry. I opened it up and i did not see a battery to replace so i figured i will install one. I got a CR1616 and i soldered it correctly. Tried to save and yet again it does not want to save. Is there anything else i have to do to the PCB? Bridge something? Cut some line? Maybe someone can help me out here.

There is this guy on youtube that explains how to do it but his PCB is different,

I guess i need to make its memory access that battery?

Thanks

 

[Ferd]

With no documentation for that board it’s hard to tell, have you measured the cell’s voltage ?

 

[Toothless]

Pokemon Sapphire. Hope you can get this working again as that's a fantastic game.

I'd be checking soldering on other side in case something got loose.

 

[oobymach]

Test your battery with a voltage meter or a battery tester, I had to do this to a zelda cart a few years ago that was bootleg but I got it working, all it took was a new battery. Also it's really easy to kill these batteries with heat so keep that in mind when you're soldering.

 

[nessark89]

With no documentation for that board it’s hard to tell, have you measured the cell’s voltage ?

yeah its not a popular board and i could try to google but doubt will find anything. I measured the batterys volts and they are perfect, a little above 3V, brand new battery.

Pokemon Sapphire. Hope you can get this working again as that's a fantastic game.

I'd be checking soldering on other side in case something got loose.

The video is about a pokemon sapphire but my cart is actually a 369 in 1 games cart and theres only a few gba games on it but would still love to make this work. other side is just plain, no solder points there.

Test your battery with a voltage meter or a battery tester, I had to do this to a zelda cart a few years ago that was bootleg but I got it working, all it took was a new battery. Also it's really easy to kill these batteries with heat so keep that in mind when you're soldering.

3V is what i got. The battery you see in the picture is actually a new battery, i installed it myself after the carts flashmemory (or whatever kind of chip memory it uses) stopped working.

 

[Ferd]

yeah its not a popular board and i could try to google but doubt will find anything. I measured the batterys volts and they are perfect, a little above 3V, brand new battery.

If you have a ammeter, desolder one end of the battery and plug the ammeter in series, you’ll probably want to select the Lowest scale because current will probably be in order of milliamperes ,
This may not fix your issue but can give you an idea if the battery is being used at the first place . Some board have missing resistors that user have to solder in order to enable certain features .
If there is no current flowing, then it’s either soldered in wrong place , or the board you have doesn’t support that option , or you may have to solder something somewhere to enable that