I received this Zelda: Link's Awakening DX cartridge for free and when I put it in my gameboy and turn it on, Everything seems fine until I press start on the title screen. After that, my game freezes with a white screen and I don't really know what I can do to fix that. The contacts look really clean. It always freezes at that point.

I am thinking that it could be some corrupted save file/battery related problem but it could be as well dirty parts from the board or simply broken ROM. I have no idea though, since I only replaced batteries on GB carts until now. Help would be much appreciated. I looked for this game a lot and getting it fixed would be just amazing.

 

Here are the images


I can also take a look at the inside of the cartridge, I'm opening it right now.

 

Here's a high resolution photo of the opened cartridge. I can't really seem to find anything that looks wrong.

 

The first thing your game do when you press Start at the title screen is to read the SRAM, where te save file is located. If the pins that are connected to the SRAM are dirty it could lead to the game failing to read/write to SRAM and crashing at this point.

 

It's most likely that the SRAM contacts are part of the cartridge contacts.

EDIT: Since I am no game boy specialist don't quote me on that. If you want you can try cleaning them by rubbing an eraser in the contacts which is much easier than using an alcohol/vinegar solution

 

Read the edit in my post above

 

if you use an erasure make sure it's the flexable white one though I use isopropyl alcohol of 90% purity and q-tips to clean contacts. use canned air in the game boy cartridge slot to to see if any fluff comes out.

 

There's also the possibility that the contacts are fine but the save file is corrupted. It's easy to verify that though, all you need to do is try to run the game without the battery.

 

does other games on the gameboy work well?

 

same freeze thats def the save failing to load, just try removing the battery, leave it out for 5mins, then place it back in
should clear the save data then

its using a CR1616 so should still work but will need replacing in the next 2-3 years id say, they roughly last 12-13 years from experience
but could just be that the battery is dead but hopefully not