Hacking Gah! I'm on my second EZ3-in-1 and at my wits end

[The Warlock]

Once upon a time, I bought an EZFlash 3-in-1. About seven or eight months later, it stopped holding save files. I figured that the little CR1220 battery that keeps the SRAM running must have died, so I tried to replace it and broke my EZ3-in-1 in the process (those wires connecting the rumble motor to the board are surprisingly brittle), so I just got rid of it.

(First person to tell me to "recharge the 3-in-1's battery" gets hit. The 3-in-1 never had a rechargeable battery. Yours doesn't either: open it and see. It's marked CR1220, not ML1220, and has a yellow ring instead of a purple one.)

Anyway, I decided to just get a new one, and I did and it worked great for about six months until it stopped holding saves, too. I just soldered a new battery on, but I must have botched it because it's still not holding saves. Or perhaps something else broke. (I've no idea what, though: the PSRAM and rumble and NORFlash all work fine).

Is there a GBA flash card that has a socketed battery rather than one that's soldered on? Or maybe one that uses Flash instead of SRAM to hold saves? I don't even care if it sticks out from the Lite anymore, really. I just want something that won't die after a year.

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

I've heard about this problem...
I WAS gonna get one, but then M3 sakura came out, so I reccomend getting an M3 perfect pack. They come with seperate carts (rumble and GBA/flash) but itis better, I don't thing it even sticks out... Also I think it supports cheats, please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[The Warlock]

I've heard of the M3 pack (and the ewin pack, which is reportedly similar), but they use battery-backed SRAM with the battery soldered directly on the PCB, just like the ezflash 3-in-1, so it would probably die just as quickly and be just as hard to replace.

I think maybe I'll get a full-sized cart: an old F2A or something; at least then the battery should last longer.

 

[Pyrofyr]

My M3 Real's slot-2 is still working without too much hassle, using it with my SCDS1. Been only 4~5 months though.

I know that some forms of early memory devices like flash have low limits to the amount of time the same area can be re-used. :|

 

[Searinox]

1. I RIPPED the rumble motor out of mine because I hate rumble.
2. Should not have thrown the cart, the motor wires could be resoldered easily.
3. I'm sorry to hear about this, I've replaced mine's battery with a CR1620 which has double capacity so it should last twice as long, you can only do this with a GBA-sized cause the battery is too big.
4. Is the battery on right? Should have the minus pointing upwards. I've fiddled with mine's battery quite a number of times(I even bent the contacts backwards, now battery is upside down so I could place it in a farther, empty area of the case) and it still works. The EZV(and every Gameboy or GBA cart I swapped batteries with) is very battery-change-friendly from my experience it even works with a larger battery without any hitches, don't give up.
5. How are you holding your battery into position? If you're soldering it there MIGHT be a SMALL chance that the solderer heat is killing your battery(I had one of mine go pop and ooze battery acid in one such uninspired attempt), try some scotch tape it works like a charm.
6. I am sick tired of SRAM myself. On everything I've seen it it either dies quickly or corrupts when pulling the flashcart out during functioning(memory is kept alive by constant power so I think the surges screw it up), I tried that with an official game pak with FLASH save, I raped it to hell and was unable to corrupt the save. So I agree, why can't they just DROP SRAM already and start working with chips, they added 32MB NOR flash was it hard to add another 128K of it?

 

[TaeK]

1. I RIPPED the rumble motor out of mine because I hate rumble.
2. Should not have thrown the cart, the motor wires could be resoldered easily.
3. I'm sorry to hear about this, I've replaced mine's battery with a CR1620 which has double capacity so it should last twice as long, you can only do this with a GBA-sized cause the battery is too big.
4. Is the battery on right? Should have the minus pointing upwards. I've fiddled with mine's battery quite a number of times(I even bent the contacts backwards, now battery is upside down so I could place it in a farther, empty area of the case) and it still works. The EZV(and every Gameboy or GBA cart I swapped batteries with) is very battery-change-friendly from my experience it even works with a larger battery without any hitches, don't give up.
5. How are you holding your battery into position? If you're soldering it there MIGHT be a SMALL chance that the solderer heat is killing your battery(I had one of mine go pop and ooze battery acid in one such uninspired attempt), try some scotch tape it works like a charm.
6. I am sick tired of SRAM myself. On everything I've seen it it either dies quickly or corrupts when pulling the flashcart out during functioning(memory is kept alive by constant power so I think the surges screw it up), I tried that with an official game pak with FLASH save, I raped it to hell and was unable to corrupt the save. So I agree, why can't they just DROP SRAM already and start working with chips, they added 32MB NOR flash was it hard to add another 128K of it?

Ripping the motor out is a bit over the top wouldn't you think? With rudolph's tool you could just switch the whole rumble function off having the same result.

 

[Destructobot]

Rumble defaults to being off anyway. If you don't use it (it does suck pretty bad IMO) there is no reason to keep the motor when doing a case mod, especially if you're trying to fit an ovesized battery into the cart.

 

[NightKry]

Uh oh. i have a 3-in-1 myself, and now im wondering what to replace it w/ when it dies... @_@ It's 6 months old already, but i don't play that much GBA games anyway. I use it for the opera browser...

 

[Searinox]

I keep wondering why cloned GBA carts of original games nor flashcarts like EZV can give the battery performance of an original Nintendo game pak. The batteries on these things last for about an year whilst my original Gameboy and SNES(15 years old!) are STILL holding their SRAM data.

 

[Destructobot]

I have a copy of The Legend Of Zelda (the original, from '87) that still keeps its saves.

NES games only used 8KB of SRAM vs. the 3-in-1's 512KB (more transistors = more battery drain), and they had a lot more room for bigger batteries. They probably used better quality components as well.

 

[The Warlock]

Uh oh. i have a 3-in-1 myself, and now im wondering what to replace it w/ when it dies... @_@ It's 6 months old already, but i don't play that much GBA games anyway. I use it for the opera browser...

Well, the DRAM on mine still works for the browser, Quake2, NeoDS, etc. It's just the battery-backed SRAM that's not functional anymore.

 

[raulpica]

5. How are you holding your battery into position? If you're soldering it there MIGHT be a SMALL chance that the solderer heat is killing your battery(I had one of mine go pop and ooze battery acid in one such uninspired attempt), try some scotch tape it works like a charm.

Hell yeah, be aware of that. I did that while I was trying to change the battery on my GBA Firelink Card (Also called SuperFC, Magic Flash and others).
I got another CR1620 and placed two copper wires to extend the battery pads' range, and then affixed the battery with electrical tape in a empty part of the case.

It worked fine for 2 months. Then it died again. Well, I have a EZ 3-in-1 (I hope that my battery doesn't die so soon) and an EFA Simple now, so I don't have to worry about that flash anymore

 

[NeSchn]

I have an Elink and it has never shit out on me yet.

 

[Crozone]

I had an EZ-Flash, except the actual NOR died, no the battery. It went from 32MB of NOR to 8MB, if you tried to use any more it would freeze. Just goes to show the build quality of these things.

 

[UltraMagnus]

Its a shame no one else makes better quality versions of these things, mine has not malfunctioned yet, but personally i would pay 2-3x the price for one with a better build quality and a method of storing saves in non volatile memory.... or hell, just a battery that recharges from power from the DS.

 

[double_vision]

lol... paying $20 for 6 months of gba games isn't a bad deal...

on off topic news
im at 99 posts! one more to go!

 

[stretch]

lol... paying $20 for 6 months of gba games isn't a bad deal...

This whole battery issue reminds me of the RRoD example except in a shorter period. Although it's cheap, so I guess it's bearable I suppose.