Internal Battery Dead

[Rose]

Several of my Pokemon games' batteries have died. I'm willing to just forget about the gen I and II ones, but does anyone know how I can replace the batteries in Ruby/Sapphire without soldering? All the Google results mention soldering and I don't know jack shit about that.

[SlappyMcGee]

You can not do it without soldering. This should be obvious.

[Universezero]

Soldering's easy enough to do. How much would an iron and some solder cost? $40 max?

[Rose]

It's also really easy to mess it up and make the problem worse... :/

[Tanner]

It's also really easy to mess it up and make the problem worse... :/

On the other hand, you can't do it without soldering so you can't really make it worse. You could always get someone else to solder it for you.

[Rose]

By "make it worse", I mean ruining the game and making it totally unplayable as opposed to just not being able to do clock-related things. Would I be able to take it into, say, RadioShack and have them do it? Again, Google's not helping (maybe my searching skills just suck), although I have been able to find that Nintendo will probably not replace it.

[Geti]

Soldering is a pretty easy skill to pick up; if you get some solder and an iron and do a little bit of practice beforehand you shouldn't have much trouble. The worst you could do would be burning the circuit board a little bit by holding the iron down too long, which is why I suggest you practice attaching wires to one another beforehand.

If you're still in school and there's an electronics elective they'll have soldering irons and likely an enthusiastic electronics teacher who'd be happy to help out. If you're in uni the same applies, they just might charge you for the solder and laugh at you if you suck at it.

As such, you have three options
-try to get some obscure third party to do it
-ask your educational institution about it
-do it yourself.

[Rose]

-try to get some obscure third party to do it

I'm actually going to try to see if a store that repairs computer parts would be able to do it. The problem is that I don't know of any stores in my area that specialize in that, unless stores like RadioShack or BestBuy would do it. Unfortunately, Google is not turning up results saying yes or no. I know that I could send it to Nintendo and have them replace it for $10 or so, but they delete your save file in the process.

[smartalco]

I know that I could send it to Nintendo and have them replace it for $10 or so, but they delete your save file in the process.

There is no way (without trying way too hard) to not lose your saves while replacing a battery since the battery is what supplies the minimal amount of current required to keep the save in the first place. Taking it out removes the current.

However, if you aren't able to do clock related things it could just be one of the several game bugs that have been discovered (the one I have experience with is Sapphire, you can't grow berries after 100 hours).

[Rose]

I know that I could send it to Nintendo and have them replace it for $10 or so, but they delete your save file in the process.

There is no way (without trying way too hard) to not lose your saves while replacing a battery since the battery is what supplies the minimal amount of current required to keep the save in the first place. Taking it out removes the current.

However, if you aren't able to do clock related things it could just be one of the several game bugs that have been discovered (the one I have experience with is Sapphire, you can't grow berries after 100 hours).

It's not the Berry Glitch, because that glitch doesn't say "The battery has dried up," whereas my games do say that. And in that case, I don't mind losing save data. I can just trade the most important ones over to my brother's Emerald or something.

[squibbles]

I know that I could send it to Nintendo and have them replace it for $10 or so, but they delete your save file in the process.

There is no way (without trying way too hard) to not lose your saves while replacing a battery since the battery is what supplies the minimal amount of current required to keep the save in the first place. Taking it out removes the current.

However, if you aren't able to do clock related things it could just be one of the several game bugs that have been discovered (the one I have experience with is Sapphire, you can't grow berries after 100 hours).

It's not the Berry Glitch, because that glitch doesn't say "The battery has dried up," whereas my games do say that. And in that case, I don't mind losing save data. I can just trade the most important ones over to my brother's Emerald or something.

I'd get on that if it's actually saying it's died, because that save game won't last long.

[Rose]

Incorrect. That's only for the GBC versions. Ever since then, the games have used memory separate from the battery.

[SlappyMcGee]

Is there any chance that something could be done to move this save onto a new cartridge? With the nintendo DS, you can lift the savegame files off the the cartridge you are ripping via Wifi and custom firmware on a Flashcart; i don't know that the same could be done with GBA cartridges but it would make sense.