Pokemon Red GB Repair?

[Kimura]

Maybe someone could help me.
I got Pokemon Red from a friend of mine.
Problem i that the game does`t "boot". I testet it in diffrent GB/GBC/GBA`s and everywhere the same failure.

Here is the failure hope u can see what i mean.


Pictures of the "board"



Hope someone has an idea.

[vince4321]

Using a multimeter, check for continuity between vias, you can put a probe on a via and the other probe on another via connected with a trace, if there is no continuity and there is a trace clearly connecting the two vias then you have a broken trace. bridge the trace with a piece of wire and add some solder. I am betting there is a broken trace preventing it from booting. Fixed a pokemon silver that had the same problem that way recently.

[Kimura]

Thx for your reply :) But a question , what`s a via? My english is not so good and i don`t know what u mean. Maybe u could mark it on one of my pictures?

[vince4321]

Those tiny holes in the pcb are vias.

[vince4321]

Otherwise known as through-hole connections. See here.

[Kimura]

Thx :) That would help :) I`ll test it tommorow after getting a multimeter from my dad :)

[vince4321]

You're welcome. I found a broken trace near where the screw goes through the pcb on mine. Somebody had spilled pop on the cartridge in my case and it had eaten through a trace, a magnifying glass is also your friend to find broken traces. Good luck.

[CRTGAMER]

Take a pencil eraser to those dirty contacts!

[MottZilla]

Yes it might work just after cleaning the contacts on the cartridge. If they are dirty enough, it won't work at all. Pencil erasers can do a decent job at cleaning up cartridge contacts. The contacts are the gold part that goes into the gameboy, at the bottom of the pictures.

[ThetaSigma]

Eraser works like a charm.

[JamesMichael]

While you have it open I'd replace the battery after backing up the game I've been hearing a lot of reports saying they only last 15 years from being made and thats coming up in the next year or so.

[finkmac]

Currently, Most of these batteries are still working, but they will bite the dust quite soon... Very soon...

I need to get myself a GB Transferer...

[Kimura]

Thx for all ur tips :) doesn`t try them all atm, but the eraser trick doesn`t work :) The contacs are blank now and nothing changed so i must try it with a multimeter :)

[Pikkon]

I have a gameboy cart that would not work at all,even after cleaning the contacts didn't do anything so I took some sand paper and gently sanded until the contacts were shinny,it worked a treat.

[APE]

I've got a Pokemon Sapphire cart I attempted to (extremely stupidly I might add) swap in a CR2032 battery to get the RTC working again. Thing is the CR2032 is much larger than the stock battery and it fit and bulged the cart a bit.

Now it doesn't boot at all and in the process of reworking some of the solder joints in hopes one was cracked I knocked a surface mount resistor off the board. Assuming the resistor near it is the same value its a run of the mill 100kohm resistor but I don't have any that small nor can I do it easily with the equipment I have. Maybe I'll destroy my eyes and try using a multimeter to check every connection for kicks.

Thing is a GBA save dumper that is booted from a DS flashcart can still recognize the cartridge as being Pokemon Sapphire. It can't dump the ROM or the save but it is a good sign either way.

[vince4321]

Here's a pic of the pokemon silver I repaired, not sure how useful this will be but, thought it was relevent. I was getting a glitched nintendo logo and it would not boot the game. I found the broken trace and jumpered it with some wire. I had trouble soldering the wires down so I i just covered them with nail varnish. It works now.
IMG_8344a.JPG