- Oct 9, 2002
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The design is pretty simple. Could someone give me some tips on identifying the components that need to be replaced?
How to I measure the tolerances of a surface-mount capacitor? How do I know if one is blown? What about resistors and diodes? Is it likely to be the flash chip?
I believe that this cartridge uses SRAM (battery) save to simulate all types of save memory that Game Boy cartridges use. The transfer tool says "EEPROM not found", so I assume that the battery simulates EEPROM as well as standard SRAM save. The Intel flash memory chip could have been corrupted. Here are the circumstances of how it got damaged:
I let a neighborhood child borrow a copy of the home-made game I was developing because he wanted to show it to his siblings. While he was borrowing it, he went to stay with his father for one week. In a rage (I don't know the 'reasons'), he destroyed the child's Game Boy and accessories with a hammer. When my development cartridge was returned, it has a few stress marks on the outer package, but I didn't see anything that could have damaged the internal components. However, the data on the cartridge appeared to be corrupt, and it would not flash with new data. Removing the battery (presumably the most sensitive component) did not fix the problem.
A couple of years have passed, and I decided to try to fix it. The corrupted game data was still there and behaved the same way. I tried to flash it, but the utility says "EEPROM not found", so I assume that it's not emulating EEPROM save correctly. I don't remember the type of battery that I removed, so I decided to bridge the battery contacts. Sure enough, the utility allowed me to flash the cart. I tried it in the Game Boy (without holding the paperclip anymore) and it appeared to be corrupted (the game looked bizarre). I tried bridging the contacts and turned it on again. This time, it didn't even boot. I stopped bridging it and the game still wouldn't boot. I guess I fried it right there, when I bridged it and turned on the Game Boy.
The battery goes on the board upside-down, where the larger half is touching the large blob of solder on the right:
http://webpages.charter.net/ichinisan/images/doctor_gb_card_64m_001.jpg
http://webpages.charter.net/ichinisan/images/doctor_gb_card_64m_002.jpg
How to I measure the tolerances of a surface-mount capacitor? How do I know if one is blown? What about resistors and diodes? Is it likely to be the flash chip?
I believe that this cartridge uses SRAM (battery) save to simulate all types of save memory that Game Boy cartridges use. The transfer tool says "EEPROM not found", so I assume that the battery simulates EEPROM as well as standard SRAM save. The Intel flash memory chip could have been corrupted. Here are the circumstances of how it got damaged:
I let a neighborhood child borrow a copy of the home-made game I was developing because he wanted to show it to his siblings. While he was borrowing it, he went to stay with his father for one week. In a rage (I don't know the 'reasons'), he destroyed the child's Game Boy and accessories with a hammer. When my development cartridge was returned, it has a few stress marks on the outer package, but I didn't see anything that could have damaged the internal components. However, the data on the cartridge appeared to be corrupt, and it would not flash with new data. Removing the battery (presumably the most sensitive component) did not fix the problem.
A couple of years have passed, and I decided to try to fix it. The corrupted game data was still there and behaved the same way. I tried to flash it, but the utility says "EEPROM not found", so I assume that it's not emulating EEPROM save correctly. I don't remember the type of battery that I removed, so I decided to bridge the battery contacts. Sure enough, the utility allowed me to flash the cart. I tried it in the Game Boy (without holding the paperclip anymore) and it appeared to be corrupted (the game looked bizarre). I tried bridging the contacts and turned it on again. This time, it didn't even boot. I stopped bridging it and the game still wouldn't boot. I guess I fried it right there, when I bridged it and turned on the Game Boy.
The battery goes on the board upside-down, where the larger half is touching the large blob of solder on the right:
http://webpages.charter.net/ichinisan/images/doctor_gb_card_64m_001.jpg
http://webpages.charter.net/ichinisan/images/doctor_gb_card_64m_002.jpg
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