How To Repair Gba Cartridge
Has your Game Boy Game stopped working? Is in that location a problem saving, garbled display or just a patently white screen? In this guide I take listed all the methods I know on how to resurrect failing and broken Game Male child cartridges. The skillful news is most Can be saved! In this guide I will show you how to set up Game Boy games that don't load.
So, how practise you repair a Game Boy cartridge? To repair a Game Boy cartridge, y'all will demand to open your cartridge, make clean the board and contacts and if that doesn't help them yous can move onto reflowing the solder around the Mask ROM and SRAM chips.
How do you open a Game Boy Cartridge?
To open a Game Boy Cartridge, you will need a 3.8mm Game-fleck. These are cheaply picked upward online I recommend that every game enthusiast picks up a set of both 3.8mm & 4.5mm bits equally these are the nigh commonly used bits in retro game carts and consoles. Y'all can check the prices on Amazon hither
The screw is on the back of the Game Boy cartridge and once out the game shell slides apart for admission to games PCB.
How to Set Your Game Boy Games
GameBoy game not working (Nintendo logo)
How do I set up my Gameboy cartridge? If the inside of your Game Boy cartridge is completely filthy, and so that could be your problem. Your non-loading Game Boy Game may wait clean, only the pins tin can get a fiddling dirty over time. Clean the board the best you can with isopropyl booze and a cotton swab paying close attention to the metallic pins at the bottom of the cartridge. If they are very grimy yous can use an artist'south eraser to gently rub up and down along the pins. 9 times out of ten this volition fix the garbled text or back bar instead of the Nintendo logo on startup.
If this doesn't help, then yous tin also endeavour to clean out the Game Boy'southward cartridge slot. This tin can be done using a cotton swab or an old t-shirt covered in a small-scale amount of isopropyl alcohol. You can use an old store card to simulate a cart existence inserted.
I've seen some people suggest using Brasso to clean cartridges earlier. Never use products such as Brasso to clean the pins on your game cartridges. Brasso is caustic and may eat away at your pins, it will go out a residual on your pins damaging them over time. Delight share this info with people!
This blackness bar or jumbled text ways the Game Male child is having a actually difficult time reading the game information and the game won't initialize in the bootrom. It runs the code against what is stored in the BIOS ROM and if it matches it boots the game and if it doesn't the game won't boot.
Overview of a Game Boy Cartridge
If you are still having bug, then it's worth having a wait at the board. The picture beneath is from Pokémon Silver, some other games will look unlike inside, but most are similar. Let'south accept a look at the function of each part of the Game Boy cartridge, this volition help us to empathize whatsoever problem we are facing.
1. Mask Rom
The Mask Rom is where the game data is stored. Y'all may accept heard people mention game ROM'southward earlier, this stands for read-but memory and is the actual file containing all the code of your game. This is usually the cause of games that have glitchy graphics, text and music. This would exist the first thing I would check if the Nintendo Logo was non displaying correctly on boot.
ii. SRAM
The SRAM is where your save file is stored. The SRAM requires abiding power to go on your relieve 'Alive'. These days relieve information is handled by Flash memory keeping your information safe regardless of ability.
3. The MBC3 Chip
MBC stands for Memory Bank Controller. Originally, the Game Male child could merely access 32KB of ROM data at a time. Any additional data would need to exist moved into MBC using a method called Bank Switching. This allows the game data to be read in smaller chunks. Various MBC chips be depending on the size of the game. In Pokémon silverish, we have the MBC3.
The MBC3 chip is what controls the Real Time Clock, Pokémon Gold, Silvery and Crystal use this to go on the games day and night cycle performance. To take a working RTC the cart must also have an external 32.768 kHz Quartz Oscillator (Found in the peak left corner of the cart). One more requirement is that the cartridge contains an external battery, this ensures the RTC can keep 'ticking' even when the game is not in a console turned on.
If y'all are having issues with the RTC your best bet would be to reflow the solder of the MBC3 paying special attention to pins 19 & xx as these are where the bespeak is brought in from the oscillator. If that doesn't work, you lot can endeavour to resolder the resistor labelled R2 but below the oscillator.
iv. MM1134 Scrap
The MM1134 chip controls when the SRAM is powered from the Battery or draws power from the Game Boy. If you are experiencing a white screen on kick, then the MM1134 chip is usually the culprit. A simple reflowing of the pins around the scrap should fix most white screen issues.
v. Save Battery
Before Flash memory became the standard, we used to utilize lithium batteries. (How barbaric.) This provides constant power to the SRAM and will last around xv or even twenty years, in some cases. Games similar Pokémon Silverish, aureate etc, or any that use a Real Time Clock volition drain the battery much faster. My Pokémon red copy is all the same going strong! If your game cannot concur a relieve anymore then this will need to be replaced.
How to tell if a Game Male child Game'southward battery has died?
Game Male child Game Not Saving?
If yous accept whatsoever problems with saving the game your bombardment has near likely died. On the Pokémon games, I find the Existent Time Clock starts to act up simply before total bombardment failure. To be sure the all-time way to check is to apply a multi-meter to see if there is whatever power coming from the bombardment. The standard battery is 3V then you should wait to run across ranges from 3v – 3.3v.
As you lot can see from my copy of Pokémon Silvery the battery is completely dead. (RIP Celebi from August 29th 2001 Toys R us event!)
How to supersede a Game Boy cartridge battery? The right way.
I have seen some degenerates using knives, tape and all sorts of craziness to switch the batteries in Game Boy carts. Don't exist that guy.
The correct fashion to replace a Game Boy cartridge battery is with a soldering atomic number 26. Y'all simply oestrus up the solder on either side of the bombardment and lift the bombardment up using some tweezers.
Go over to Amazon or eBay and grab yourself some replacement cell batteries with tabs. (Brand sure they have tabs!). About Game Boy cart batteries are CR2025 & Game Boy Color usually have the slightly smaller CR1616 installed. Make sure you cheque the type y'all need before picking whatever up. The lath usually has the size listed above the bombardment.
One time your bombardment is in identify you can load upward with a fiddling extra solder to secure your new battery in place. Make sure the battery is oriented the correct fashion. The + & – symbols are on the board in instance you forget!
Optional: In that location is no reason that you cannot supervene upon a CR2025 with a bigger CR2032. Both output 3V, the 2032 is a little bigger than the 2025 at 3.2mm which will nevertheless allow enough clearance to close the cartridge. This will provide a much longer battery life so is well worth doing. Unfortunately, I am out of CR2032, so I will have to make do with a 2025.
How can I dorsum up my Game Boy saves?
Removing the battery will sadly delete any you lot have stored in yous SRAM (Losing you save file basically!). There are ways of circumventing this, however, if your save is already gone then you lot're out of luck!
The first method would be to buy a Mega Retention Card or a GBxCart RW by InsideGadgets. The Mega Memory menu volition let you lot plug in your cart and make a back up of your relieve. This is the safest and easiest fashion to back up your salvage file.
The GBxCart RW is more total-featured and allows yous to dump your Mask Rom, SRAM and even actually allows you to write data to certain types of carts. It too supports GBA & GBC games.
I've written a full guide for using the GBxCart RW here: how to backup game boy gba saves.
Secondly, it is possible to unsolder and resolder a new battery why the game is plugged in and console turned on. Please take the utmost caution if using this method. You will demand a GBA or GBA SP to have clearance on the dorsum of the cart. Insert your cartridge half-assembled equally shown below and de-solder your old bombardment, so re-solder a new battery.
Wait a infinitesimal or so for the solder to cool and run into if you can save, if all has gone well you will be able to relieve. Plough the console off for thirty seconds or then and so back on and encounter if you accept managed to save your game. Obviously, this method is for lunatics and I do not recommend it. The chances of something going incorrect are much higher when messing around with live electronics, try this at your own take a chance.
I final method would be soldering an 'Interim' bombardment in parallel to ensure that no power is lost to the SRAM while removing the failing bombardment and installing a new i. Doing this on a Game Male child cart is VERY difficult, yous commonly only have two points of contact being the solder pads where you volition exist removing the failing bombardment from. You could connect some cables and run them from the interim battery, but personally, I wouldn't even recommend trying this method.
The game won't save at all and there is no battery?
This happened to me. Style back in August 1999. I was thirteen years sometime on holiday with my parents in the Canary Islands, I, of class, had my Game Male child Color with me I was gifted for my altogether earlier in the twelvemonth. While walking effectually a shady Castilian mall we stumbled upon a video game / electronic store, inside was a display cabinet of Game Boy & Game Male child Color games. One of the games was Pokémon Bluish. Now, I had been post-obit the gaming news in magazines about this Pocket monsters game for some time and was eagerly waiting for it to be released in the UK (Was released until Oct.5 1999, iii and a half years later on Nihon).
Immediately spent my 'holiday coin' on Pokémon and went dorsum to our rented villa and had a great time. Played past the second gym, saved my game and chosen it quits. The next day I turned on my Game Boy Color and couldn't seem to notice the relieve?
Turns out the copy I purchased was non an American import like I had assumed but in fact a very convincing bootleg game. The game had a box, insert simply no manual. Also, the game cart was grey, which I didn't know at the fourth dimension that all Pokémon games came in coloured carts.
To save on costs some counterfeit games don't come up with batteries soldered. Be careful almost what you are purchasing. Almost 'modern' bootlegs are obvious as they usually have the word 'GAME' written on superlative of the cart instead of 'Nintendo GAME BOY TM'
How to repair the Mask Rom of a Game Male child Game
If you load up a game and it won't kick, effort to clean the pins first as listed above, only if its ane of the rare cases where that will not set then we will demand to expect at the game's PCB directly.
Game Boy games are ii layered PCB which is less than 1mm thick. What can happen is that constant flexing of this very thin PCB, from cycling the games in and out of the cartridge slot, tin can cause microscopic breaks in the solder around the legs of the Mask Rom and SRAM. You can fix this by reflowing or adding a little more than solder to the legs.
As you tin can meet I have this problem with this Game Boy Color game. Initially, the game wouldn't read at all and displayed a black bar, later cleaning the pins the game almost loaded but was still showing abuse of the Nintendo Logo (Read error). Fun fact: the more jumbled and distorted the logo is, the harder fourth dimension the Game Boy is having reading your cartridge.
To repair this, I opened the game and applied some flux to the pins. I added a tiny scrap of solder to the tip of my soldering iron and dragged it down the legs of the game. I did both sides and thankfully did non have to do the SRAM.
Let the solder dry for a moment earlier putting the game back together. This is the same method I would use if the game was displaying glitchy graphics or text etc.
How To Repair Gba Cartridge,
Source: https://cheapergamer.co.uk/game-boy-game-repair-guide/
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