LIFE AFTER BATTERY DEATH

[SNKnicotine]

As I sat on my couch, gazing at my collection I thought to myself how awesome it'll be to play my classic games with my spawn.I popped in my copy of Mario allstars in to the Snes, as i booted the game for Mario's Lost level, I noticed that MY DATA WAS GONE!!!.

After further inspection I relized the back up battery was DEAD!!

what do you do for games like these, i understand you can replace it, but lets say it was Ogre Battle,MUSHA, etc. would you scarifice the label sticker to save games, would you leave it alone and not play it. what would you do if a valuable cart game's battery died and you had the dredded 5th screw behind the sticker art?
your thoughts?

[AppleQueso]

I'd just open 'er up and replace the battery. Simple as that. Even in terms of value, a rare game with a working, nonoriginal battery I'd imagine is worth more to people than one with an original dead battery.

I'm pretty sure the 'screw behind sticker art' thing is only on the atari 2600.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Yeah the screw behind the art thing mostly applies to Atari... and I don't think any of those games had batteries in the first place. Atari cartridges are usually dismantled only to fix the springs.

[Ziggy]

I don't care if it's NHL95 or Earthbound, replace the battery if it's dead! What good is the game if you can't play it?

Are you actually sure that the battery is dead? I've had a few SNES carts drop saves on me when the battery wasn't dead. Earlier SNES carts are more likely to do this because they use an old method to handle the battery (same or similar to what the NES does). After a short while SNES carts started using a better method for the battery, and such carts are way less likely to drop saves. It still can happen though. My LttP cart dropped all my save files for no reason (sat on the shelf for years) but when I checked the battery voltage it was still good. So I played through the entire game and the save is still there. Just the other day, I had my DKC3 cart in while I was testing some stuff on my new TV. I knocked the cart while it was powered on and it caused the game to freeze. After I reset, all my saves were gone. But the battery is still good, and there's a save file on the cart right now.

Anyway, my point is, the battery might not be dead. Unless you tried to save like 5 times in a row and every time you turn the game on the save file isn't there, then it may be safe to assume it's dead. The best way to know for sure is to test the battery with a voltage meter. They're 3v batteries, so if the battery has anything less than 3v I would consider it dead.

Replacing batteries in SNES carts isn't too hard, but you need to know how to solder. If you're not comfortable doing it, you can have some one do it for you. I know Hobie-wan offers this service.

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 22&t=22061

There might be others on this forum that'll do it for you as well, but Hobie is the only one I remember.

As a retro gamer, you'll have to accept the fact that all the batteries in all your carts are eventually gonna die. Replacing the battery in most carts isn't too difficult to do. If you don't know how to solder but want to learn, just ask and I'll give you some info that'll get ya started. Soldering is almost a must for a retro gamer. These consoles and games are old. You'll be so much better off knowing how to solder. And it's really not a difficult thing to learn.