SNES Game Won't Save, Battery Is New

[darthmunky]

Anyone know what could be wrong with a snes cart that just had the battery replaced but still doesn't save?

[Ziggy]

Battery was installed wrong, or the SRAM is damaged. I would bet on the battery not being installed correctly.

[samsonlonghair]

A common mistake is installing the battery backwards. Take your cartridge apart with one of those safety screw drivers, and check which way the battery is.

[Hobie-wan]

Or if someone tried soldering the wires to the battery, the heat might have killed it. The tabs on the factory batteries are spot welded, which happens so fast in that tiny contact spot that it doesn't have a chance to heat it up.

[darthmunky]

It's just that someone was going to sell me a game with a dead battery, they didn't accept my offer. Then they emailed me back telling me that they installed a new battery and it still doesn't save and they now accept my offer. I only want to buy it if I know I can get it working.

[Hobie-wan]

Will they send you a picture of their replacement work so you can see if they at least attempted a decent job or if they had a had a penguin going through crack withdrawal do it?

[darthmunky]

Haha, yeah I asked them for a couple pictures. Waiting for a reply.

EDIT: Here's a pic, do you notice anything that could help solve this problem?
http://i47.tinypic.com/2hgwkuf.jpg

[Hobie-wan]

Haha, yeah I asked them for a couple pictures. Waiting for a reply.

EDIT: Here's a pic, do you notice anything that could help solve this problem?
http://i47.tinypic.com/2hgwkuf.jpg

That cart has been wet. Look at the resistor in the middle top. The legs out either side are orange and rusted and there is white residue around it as well. More residue around the bottom right corner of the top right chip. Now, this doesn't mean that the cart will not work. I got several carts that had gotten really wet and worked after cleaning. As long as the cart wasn't used while still wet and there was nothing terribly corrosive in the water it might be fine. The battery is orientated correctly and it looks like they bought a pre-tabbed battery, but it still looks a bit like a blob of solder or something right where the tab goes over the bottom edge of the battery.

I don't know if that rusted resistor is related to saving, it is possible if that's dead that it's preventing saves if its not a problem with the battery. If its just that resistor, that would be 30 seconds to replace it.

Here's the mess that greeted me when I opened one of the carts from my friend. Even with a diode rusted away, the game still worked. I replaced the diode and cleaned it up, but haven't given it a new battery.

[Ziggy]

I just looked at a cart real fast and didn't notice any resistors going to the SRAM, but I looked very fast and could be wrong.

If a resistor is linked to a leg on the SRAM, and said resistor is damaged in such a way that the 5v will not pass through it, than I can see how that will cause the cart not to save.

Also, we're assuming that battery is soldered correctly. We'd have to see a clear shot of the solder pads to determine that (which are on the other side of the board). OR some idiot got the wrong battery type.

The resistor is worth replacing, they're cheap, and it'll only take a minute to do. If you're doing that, than it'd also be nothing to touch up the battery connections. But you don't even own the cart yet, so it's up to you.

[darthmunky]

Well I bought it, I'll post back once it arrives.

EDIT: Okay, it arrived. I opened it up and i cleaned some of the residue and I noticed some more things not seen in the photo. I also realized that I have the worst camera ever and cannot take a non blurry photo. I took like 40 pictures and none of them were better than the photo I was given. I took a photo of the back side as best as I could though. How do you tell if the battery is installed wrong?

Here's some of my observations of the front:
http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/2415/2hgwkufcopy.jpg

Here's a pic of the back:
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/9859/hpim2232.jpg