Your save file disappears every time you switch off
94MER / Repair Guides / Game Boy
Game Boy · Symptom guide
The game saves, you turn the console off, and the save is gone. Or the in-game clock has stopped and berries never grow.
Older cartridges hold their save on static RAM, and that RAM needs a tiny coin cell to stay powered when the console is off. Those cells last fifteen to twenty years. Every one of them is now well past that.
Check this before you buy anything
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Confirm it is the battery and not the game
If the save holds while the power is on but vanishes the moment you switch off, it is the cell. If saving fails even during play, the save chip itself may be at fault.
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Check the in-game clock on Pokemon titles
A clock that has stopped or reset is the classic symptom of a dead cell.
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Do not just swap in any coin cell
You want a tabbed cell meant for soldering. Soldering directly to a plain coin cell can rupture it.
If every one of those comes back clean, now it is worth buying a part.
If that did not fix it, here is the part
Before you order
CR2025 for Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges, CR1616 for Game Boy Advance. You will need a 3.8mm gamebit to open the cartridge.
What this is not
Not every cartridge has a battery. Later Game Boy Advance games use flash memory and save without one, so if a GBA game is losing saves, the problem is elsewhere.
Related faults
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