Hello, so I bought a used copy of Pokémon Emerald that had a dry battery, however it worked before just fine but I wanted to be able to play the game how I remember it all those years ago so I decided to buy a CR1616 battery to replace the one it came with. I had already swapped the battery on my Pokémon Silver and Crystal copies and that was easy so I assumed this would be as well, however I quickly found out it wasn’t and when I initially installed the battery I soldered it backwards with the positive on the negative and the negative on the positive. Now when I put the game into my DS lite it would say “DS option Pak inserted” and not boot up the game. After I had messed up I put the battery on the right way and the game luckily booted up but I got the white screen of death. I have tried everything I can to get it to work and I can’t seem to figure it out, could it be that I fried a fuse because if that’s the case I don’t have a problem putting on a new one. I would however like to see if anyone can help me figure this out as I really love this game and with how inflated the market is for this game in particular I’d like to get it back in working condition. Thank you in advanced for anyone that replies to this
Pokémon Emerald Battery change mess up
- Thread starter SeberEspinoza
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You need a multimeter to check components and diagnose any potential short.
Although, to me sounds more like one of the chips might have cold solder, thus, not loading anything.
Either way it's not something easy to diagnoze without pictures/multimeter.
Although, to me sounds more like one of the chips might have cold solder, thus, not loading anything.
Either way it's not something easy to diagnoze without pictures/multimeter.
Post some images and will see if there's anything obvious. Closer the better without too much blur if at all possible.
I don't think we have any specific guides to reverse polarity batteries in these games (they will be different to earlier SRAM sporting games, and different to someone screwing up a battery mod/charge adapter), though it might also be something to find more in pokemon forums somewhere.
Assuming nothing was shorted when you soldered it then next step would be getting a sense of what would have happened when you did it. Chances are you rose the ground level to 3V and had a return path through the positive lead on the battery (don't know what would be there in the way of diodes or resistors of normal games to mitigate things as it is mostly flash carts we are concerned with for most things around here). In normal conditions there is likely nothing on the board that would not tolerate 3V (GBA era stuff was still coming off the 5V world, and indeed the several thousand instances of GBA games being put into a GB/GBC mode GBA which when the slider was sticky and being fine for it speaks to that one) but reverse from the battery might be more tricky - 3V reverse polarity being beyond what some of the more delicate chips of that era (and even some to this day) might be inclined to handle for longer periods (several minutes of might as well be infinite current source counting there). The battery in this game deals with the real time clock primarily rather than save memory like in most other instances of batteries in game cartridges in both the GBA and older systems (the GBA had a few battery back saves in older games and prints thereof, newer games and later prints of some earlier games opted for FRAM instead which needs no battery). The obvious start then being to look around there.
In an ideal world you would have a copy of the game (don't know if the other gem named games will have the same board as emerald was a bit later even if it the same game essentially) to compare readings against, and possibly take measurements in operation from.
Do also check it is not just dirty pins -- 99% of the time we see that and it is dirty pins. Working fine and immediately not after said soldering is not great timing but not impossible either, hopefully it is some flux got somewhere it should not or it was just in the right position before and cleaning sorts it.
Assuming nothing was shorted when you soldered it then next step would be getting a sense of what would have happened when you did it. Chances are you rose the ground level to 3V and had a return path through the positive lead on the battery (don't know what would be there in the way of diodes or resistors of normal games to mitigate things as it is mostly flash carts we are concerned with for most things around here). In normal conditions there is likely nothing on the board that would not tolerate 3V (GBA era stuff was still coming off the 5V world, and indeed the several thousand instances of GBA games being put into a GB/GBC mode GBA which when the slider was sticky and being fine for it speaks to that one) but reverse from the battery might be more tricky - 3V reverse polarity being beyond what some of the more delicate chips of that era (and even some to this day) might be inclined to handle for longer periods (several minutes of might as well be infinite current source counting there). The battery in this game deals with the real time clock primarily rather than save memory like in most other instances of batteries in game cartridges in both the GBA and older systems (the GBA had a few battery back saves in older games and prints thereof, newer games and later prints of some earlier games opted for FRAM instead which needs no battery). The obvious start then being to look around there.
In an ideal world you would have a copy of the game (don't know if the other gem named games will have the same board as emerald was a bit later even if it the same game essentially) to compare readings against, and possibly take measurements in operation from.
Do also check it is not just dirty pins -- 99% of the time we see that and it is dirty pins. Working fine and immediately not after said soldering is not great timing but not impossible either, hopefully it is some flux got somewhere it should not or it was just in the right position before and cleaning sorts it.
Best I can do is give a "Haha" reaction for the noob mistake of the battery polarity.
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I have a multimeter but I need to know what components I need to actually look at to diagnose the short, I checked the battery and it doesn’t look shorted out, I removed the battery and the solder and I tried cleaning the board with an alcohol wipe and tried playing the game without a battery but no luck
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Yes definitely, I removed the battery and it still doesn’t work, if it’s one of the mini fuses then I could potentially change it
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To be fair I don’t blame you
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Last edited by SeberEspinoza,
Some of the joints on the ROM chip (right hand with darker text, GPI ROM next to it) might be on the dry joint side of things but that could also just be the angle.
Anyway battery positive appears to go through a via around where R7 on the mask leaves. Looking at the matching side on the back some of those are setting off my broken trace alarm. One side goes simply to TP2 (test point 2), can't tell where TP1 goes but it looks like it goes to the RTC chip (the small chip).
Following it the other way I think I lose it when it goes under the ROM chip.
Battery neg appears to just be straight on the ground plane so everything then being fed 3V.
https://www.datasheetarchive.com/?q=MX23L1 is possibly related to the ROM chip here and the one I checked contained some info on voltages it expects, though nothing on reversed polarity really (though if the minimum is anything to by then not good). At the same time different chips from the same manufacturer might be designed to handle more stress (usually automotive users being this).
Anyway battery positive appears to go through a via around where R7 on the mask leaves. Looking at the matching side on the back some of those are setting off my broken trace alarm. One side goes simply to TP2 (test point 2), can't tell where TP1 goes but it looks like it goes to the RTC chip (the small chip).
Following it the other way I think I lose it when it goes under the ROM chip.
Battery neg appears to just be straight on the ground plane so everything then being fed 3V.
https://www.datasheetarchive.com/?q=MX23L1 is possibly related to the ROM chip here and the one I checked contained some info on voltages it expects, though nothing on reversed polarity really (though if the minimum is anything to by then not good). At the same time different chips from the same manufacturer might be designed to handle more stress (usually automotive users being this).
Check the transistors, all of them.
Not sure what should be the reading on those transistors though.
As a last resort, check continuity between each chip's pins and the cartridge pins.
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