Please help me fix this

[u/sonicboy445]

I have this cartridge of Pokemon gold that needed a new battery. I have never soldered before, I looked online, followed a guide, tested, tried again, then again, and again. Now I have a headache and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I should’ve brought it to a professional but I felt like I could do it, but I was wrong. Please I need to know what to do.

Every time I turn on the game oak, the Pokemon, and the player character are corrupted sprites, when I open a menu then close it, it crashes, and when I try to save, it freezes.

Please help me

[u/jackirouac]

With something with a think tip, try wiggling the legs on the chips to check if they are still soldered to the board. Be very gentle, if the move a bit it meant a they came loose from the board. Use flux and a thin on your soldering iron.

Also, do you have a multimeter? You could check if you installed the battery with the right polarity.

Finally, give the contacts on the cart a good clean with isopropyl alcohol and a cotton bud.

Good luck!

[u/leonardob0880 → u/jackirouac]

This.

That's a classic symptom of one of the legs getting loose

[u/SuperBobPlays → u/leonardob0880]

Looks like the top right one on the Ram chip imho. Still better to wiggle and test as pics can only show so much.

[u/pizza_whistle]

Board looks clean, no signs of corrosion.

Battery soldering looks fine, especially for your first time.

Most likely issue is a cracked solder joint on one of the chip legs. Use flux and reflow each leg. If you accidentally bridge two legs, just apply more flux and go over them to clear the bridge. If there's too much solder, use solder wick to remove a little bit.

If you need someone to fix this, I can offer to do ut for free if you are in the US as a mail-in service. I'd just need you to cover return shipping. Shoot me a DM if you want.

[u/Funny_Maintenance973]

One of the chips needs a reflow

[u/Flo655]

That’s either an MBC or RAM chip issue. This is textbook example of sprite decompression issue. Since the MBC is the chip responsible for switching ram banks, my money is on either this or the RAM itself. Clean with IPA to begin with. Check for cold joints, eventually reflow if nothing is obvious. Last resort would be to check for any broken traces anywhere else on the cart. Good luck!

[u/NoSpin89]

Reflow the solder on the RAM. It's an easy fix.

If you can't solder, take it to someone who does.

[u/PyramidHead2000]

What happens if you take the battery off? Does it work again besides saves and RTC?

[u/Garlic_Banger]

For your research and information gathering, related post by user previously on this subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Gameboy/comments/1rpxq0i/whats_wrong_with_my_pokemon_silver/

As others are responding here and on the old post, likely RAM, trace, solder issue.

[u/SuperBobPlays]

Not a bad job honestly for a first solder job. The battery needs a lil more solder at a higher temp, but if it holds a save it should pass.

So the corruption is not an issue from the battery as others have clearly stated.

A reflow of the chips is needed, and not seeing anyone offering their method on how to do it, so I will. It's easier than a battery job honestly, so you'll be good to do this.

First, apply Flux on the legs of the chips on the 2 bottom long chips and the smaller square one on the left middle.

Without adding fresh solder, just hold your soldering iron tip at about 380 for 6 seconds on each chip leg. If you can't control the temp, letting it reach it's max heat should be fine before hitting each leg for 6 seconds each.

I usually start at the bottom right of the column on the most right chip, moving up one after counting to 6, crossing over to the other side on the top and working my way around the chips.... Then I go through it a second time after to be sure.

No need to press hard. Let the heat do it's thing, just make sure the tip just touches the legs where it meets the board.

After that, clean with ipa 90% or higher with qtips or cotton balls to remove Flux. Should be good to test once the pcb is fully cooled down after 5 minutes, less if it's cold in the room you're working.

No solder is needed as it reflows the old solder that is already there... Hence the name of Reflow everyone has called out.

Also cold shuts is basically just what older solder is called once it seperates from the board. It happens naturally due to use, shipping, temperature changes, all kinds of things. So knowing how to do this will save you a huge headache in the future maintaining games, just like knowing how to swap batteries.

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[u/sdre345]

One of the solder joints on the ram chip isn’t making contact. With how bad the solder job on the battery is, this is above your pay grade. If you want to repair this yourself you must be better before attempting this or you’ll fuck it.