Change the battery?

Demon_Skeith

Demon_Skeith

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Have you ever changed out a battery on an old Nintendo console or any of their cartridge games?
 
I haven't yet but I have a few save batteries I need to replace in a few different Pokemon games. My wife's Crystal needs a new battery, so does our copies of Gold. I have the tools I just need to practice a bit in order to replace the batteries since I've never soldered before.
 
Outside of the handhelds, none of the old Nintendos have batteries iirc.

I’ve definitely changed Gameboy and GBA batteries. Those don’t seem to last as long as the other carts. I even keep a pack of extra batteries with the tabs floating around.

I’ve even had to change the battery in N64 memory cards. Never thought to change those out until you lose all saves and found out why.

TheRavenfreak said:
I haven't yet but I have a few save batteries I need to replace in a few different Pokemon games. My wife's Crystal needs a new battery, so does our copies of Gold. I have the tools I just need to practice a bit in order to replace the batteries since I've never soldered before.
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I’d also practice desoldering after you practice soldering since you’d have to desolder the tabs. They sell replacement batteries on Amazon with the tabs. You can also buy solder wick to make the desoldering job more clean looking.
 
Grungie said:
Outside of the handhelds, none of the old Nintendos have batteries iirc.

I’ve definitely changed Gameboy and GBA batteries. Those don’t seem to last as long as the other carts. I even keep a pack of extra batteries with the tabs floating around.

I’ve even had to change the battery in N64 memory cards. Never thought to change those out until you lose all saves and found out why.


I’d also practice desoldering after you practice soldering since you’d have to desolder the tabs. They sell replacement batteries on Amazon with the tabs. You can also buy solder wick to make the desoldering job more clean looking.
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NES, SNES, a few N64 games, the GameCube, and the Wii actually have batteries!

Well, in the case of the GameCube & Wii, they are for the Real-Time Clock, and when those batteries die, you'll have to set the time each time you power on the consoles! I believe the Wii's RTC battery is user-replaceable!

Since emulation has replaced my retro-gaming, I haven't really bothered to consider replacing batteries on any games (or GameCube) that have dead batteries!
 
Grungie said:
In the actual console or just the cart? I’ve disassembled an NES and SNES and don’t recall seeing a battery in them.
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Just the NES, SNES, and N64 carts have batteries, I think the Gamecube might have a internal battery but I'm not 100% sure about that. (And with the N64 most games used the controller pak to save their games but some games have internal batteries.) The only console that I can recall that had a battery in it from the N64 era was the Sega Saturn. (And even then it's not soldered to the board, you can swap it out without tearing down the whole console too.)
 
TheRavenfreak said:
Just the NES, SNES, and N64 carts have batteries, I think the Gamecube might have a internal battery but I'm not 100% sure about that. (And with the N64 most games used the controller pak to save their games but some games have internal batteries.) The only console that I can recall that had a battery in it from the N64 era was the Sega Saturn. (And even then it's not soldered to the board, you can swap it out without tearing down the whole console too.)
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I thought most N64 games save to the cart? I only own like 3 games that use the memory card, so I could just have a weirdly curated collection that doesn’t use the memory card.
 
GameCube does have a battery, to maintain the RTC! Without it, you'll have to reset the internal time each time you power it on! It's not the worst thing, but it is annoying if you want in-game timestamps or time based events to be accurate to the current date! A couple N64 games that use a back-up battery are Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Super Smash Bros., or so I've heard! All NES and SNES games that have SRAM have it backed by an internal battery (or at least most of them)!
 
Grungie said:
I thought most N64 games save to the cart? I only own like 3 games that use the memory card, so I could just have a weirdly curated collection that doesn’t use the memory card.
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I know the turok games save to the controller pak. You might be right about most games having internal batteries, since Super Mario 64 and both Pokemon Stadium games have batteries inside the cart.
 
I have a Game Bit if I needed to change a battery on a GB or GBC game. I did that once for my DS lite but it turned out the charger needed replaced.
 
TheRavenfreak said:
I know the turok games save to the controller pak. You might be right about most games having internal batteries, since Super Mario 64 and both Pokemon Stadium games have batteries inside the cart.
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Most of Nintendo’s first party games use batteries and so does the Rareware games. Which covers 90% of people’s libraries.

The 3 I own that use the memory card are:
Castlevania 64
Quest 64
South Park
 
It's also very common for the Pokemon Gen 2 games to stop holding saves since it uses a RTC and the quartz drains the battery quick. All but one of my Gen 1 games still hold saves, my Yellow version needs a chip reflowed and possibly a new battery.
 
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