Hello!
A friend of mine gave me recently her frontlit Gba SP and her copy of Zelda - Oracle of Seasons, since this game frequently freezes.
I already cleaned the cartridge and the handheld without changing the problem.
No corrosion anywhere, just mild wear and tear of a childhood console.
Her Oracle of Seasons plays just fine in my own devices, her Oracle of Ages has no hiccups on her device, but MY own Oracle of Seasons ALSO crashes in her device.
Sometimes after 2-3 minutes, sometimes directly after the boot checksum screen.
I cleaned the powerswitch with IPA and the tiny switch in the cartridge slot (the one for switching between GBA and GBC mode), but I never really thought these were part of this problem.
With a fully loaded battery this problem acts less frequent, so I decided to purchase a replacement battery and fully charged it.
On full volume the SP was able to run roughly 3,5hrs until it froze again.
(Demo'd the title sequence and ran around the town ingame every now and then)
After a reboot the red light indicated a empty battery, so I thought this is a victory in my book.
Little did he know… after another full charging cycle I handed her the Advance and it froze again one minute into gameplay.
I know the Advance draws a little more power in Gameboy Color Mode and it never froze with GBA titles, but this makes no sense, especially because my module acts the same in her device.
Why ain't it freezing with Oracle of Ages or any other "legacy" games.
And Ages+Seasons have the same PCB and Chips inside….
She doesnt want a new old one or mayor mods done in her childhood device.
Is this a lost cause, faulty S-Ram or something?
Recapping the capacitor or installing a power cleaning mod around the power switch are possilble steps coming to my mind.
Has anyone thoughts or pointers for further troubleshooting?
A friend of mine gave me recently her frontlit Gba SP and her copy of Zelda - Oracle of Seasons, since this game frequently freezes.
I already cleaned the cartridge and the handheld without changing the problem.
No corrosion anywhere, just mild wear and tear of a childhood console.
Her Oracle of Seasons plays just fine in my own devices, her Oracle of Ages has no hiccups on her device, but MY own Oracle of Seasons ALSO crashes in her device.
Sometimes after 2-3 minutes, sometimes directly after the boot checksum screen.
I cleaned the powerswitch with IPA and the tiny switch in the cartridge slot (the one for switching between GBA and GBC mode), but I never really thought these were part of this problem.
With a fully loaded battery this problem acts less frequent, so I decided to purchase a replacement battery and fully charged it.
On full volume the SP was able to run roughly 3,5hrs until it froze again.
(Demo'd the title sequence and ran around the town ingame every now and then)
After a reboot the red light indicated a empty battery, so I thought this is a victory in my book.
Little did he know… after another full charging cycle I handed her the Advance and it froze again one minute into gameplay.
I know the Advance draws a little more power in Gameboy Color Mode and it never froze with GBA titles, but this makes no sense, especially because my module acts the same in her device.
Why ain't it freezing with Oracle of Ages or any other "legacy" games.
And Ages+Seasons have the same PCB and Chips inside….
She doesnt want a new old one or mayor mods done in her childhood device.
Is this a lost cause, faulty S-Ram or something?
Recapping the capacitor or installing a power cleaning mod around the power switch are possilble steps coming to my mind.
Has anyone thoughts or pointers for further troubleshooting?
Last edited by 8bit6strings,
