Do cartridge saves(GBA) wear out over time?

[Leo]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.nintendo (More info?)

Hi there. I was wondering if anyone out there knows, or had any
experience due to lost saves with (GBA) cartridges. It never occured to
me I would ask this question, but my Yoshi's Island: Super Mario
Advance 3 no longer is able to save. I register a save, but if I ever
turn off my Nintendo DS, and turn it back on, the save is no longer
registered. It's LOST! I had the game for several years now with one
file saved, but all my lost work just went down the drain. :-(

Well, anyone out there with similar experiences? I would love to hear
them. I guess now I have an excuse to buy myself a new copy, and play
the whole game all over again. ;-)

Leo

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.nintendo (More info?)

"Do cartridge saves(GBA) wear out over time?"

I don't know the statistics or specs for the GBA save chips, but for
comparison let's consider the Atari Jaguar for a moment. Their
cartridges used an EEPROM chip for save data, and they claimed you
could rewrite the data at least 10,000 times without the chip failing.
If you saved your game 10 times a day, every day, you could go nearly
10 years before hitting the rated re-write limit. And even then the
component may still be good. And I would assume that Nintendo is using
a device at least as good as Atari had, if not better.

As for your problem, I see a few possibilities:

- the save memory was sub-standard, and died off early
- the cart may have been zapped by static electricity, erasing or
corrupting the data (perhaps even damaging the chip beyond use)
- you may have inserted the game into a console that was already
powered up, zapping the save memory as above
- you (or another player) may have inadvertently erased the file
- an unexpected bung or incompatibility may exist with this cart on
the DS (perhaps yur file will be accessible again on a GBA?)

Hmm... this isn't a battery backed save, is it? Many older (GB/GBC)
games had batteries for saved games, but I'm not sure about any GBA
carts like this. With these games, when the battery died, there went
your save file.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.nintendo (More info?)

Leo wrote:

> Hi there. I was wondering if anyone out there knows, or had any
> experience due to lost saves with (GBA) cartridges. It never occured to
> me I would ask this question, but my Yoshi's Island: Super Mario
> Advance 3 no longer is able to save. I register a save, but if I ever
> turn off my Nintendo DS, and turn it back on, the save is no longer
> registered. It's LOST! I had the game for several years now with one
> file saved, but all my lost work just went down the drain. :-(

I've never experienced this problem myself. Not even with my old
original GameBoy carts, and they're much older than the GBA ones I own.
The question about turning off while saving is valid. Are you sure it
was finished saving before you turned the DS off? I reccomend bringing
the game all the way back to gameplay status before shutting it off.
If the cartridge is defective somehow, it's not a problem I've run
into myself. Have you been storing carts at room temperature, in dust
sleeves, etc?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.nintendo (More info?)

"Leo" <leogamer@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1122231521.221143.257190@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hi there. I was wondering if anyone out there knows, or had any
> experience due to lost saves with (GBA) cartridges. It never occured to
> me I would ask this question, but my Yoshi's Island: Super Mario
> Advance 3 no longer is able to save. I register a save, but if I ever
> turn off my Nintendo DS, and turn it back on, the save is no longer
> registered. It's LOST! I had the game for several years now with one
> file saved, but all my lost work just went down the drain. :-(
>
> Well, anyone out there with similar experiences? I would love to hear
> them. I guess now I have an excuse to buy myself a new copy, and play
> the whole game all over again. ;-)
>
> Leo
>

I thought the GBA games used flash memory? Are you sure you didnt delete it
by mistake, or turn it off whilst saving?

 

[Leo]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.nintendo (More info?)

I've never experienced this problem myself. Not even with my old
original GameBoy carts, and they're much older than the GBA ones I own.
The question about turning off while saving is valid. Are you sure
it
was finished saving before you turned the DS off? I reccomend bringing
the game all the way back to gameplay status before shutting it off.
If the cartridge is defective somehow, it's not a problem I've run
into myself. Have you been storing carts at room temperature, in dust
sleeves, etc?

I been playing the game and saving it on several different places in
world one. Than carefully turning it off safely after the save. But is
not saving! Each time I turn it on, all files are new. I tried saving
on file #3, and my Nintendo DS just froze, or I'll get a MSG, 'Unable
to save to file #3.' As to your question storing my carts in room
temperature, yes. All my GBA carts are stored in my room, in a box, or
away from any heat sources. I tried checking my other cartridges and
they all work just fine. All my carts have their save files stored as I
had left them when last played. However, I don't know if this is a
possibility, but here in Livermore, the temperature has been close to
100 these past couple weeks, with the exception of a couple days. Maybe
that could had fried Yoshi! Hmmm, but anyhow, this is the first time is
ever happened to me. I got GBA carts older than Yoshi's Island, and
their saves files are still intact. So, I guess is just a cart going
bad on me.

Leo

 

[Leo]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.nintendo (More info?)

I thought the GBA games used flash memory? Are you sure you didnt
delete it by mistake, or turn it off whilst saving?

I think GBA do use flash memory for saves! I did not delete my old
file. Like my previous MSG states, new saved files are erased
immediately when turning my NDS off! Like another poster mentioned, it
could be an incompatibility issue by using a GBA cartridge on a NDS.
But I highly doubt that. I no longer have my GBA, so I don't know
wether the cartridge would save properly on the original system that
was intended. I can still play the game but it just refuses to save.
Tonight I was testing all my GBA cartridges and they all work just fine
on my NDS. All saved files are registered, including saving a new file,
deleting, etc. Only Yoshi's Island refuses to save! Strange, but I
think is just cartridge going bad, unfortunately.

Leo

 

[Leo]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.nintendo (More info?)

- the save memory was sub-standard, and died off early

I think I'll go with your first posibility as a most likely scenario.

- the cart may have been zapped by static electricity, erasing or
corrupting the data (perhaps even damaging the chip beyond use)

I don't believe this ever occurred. I did have Yoshi in my suitcase,
together with my Fujitsu laptop for several days, but my laptop was
never used at the time.

- you may have inserted the game into a console that was already
powered up, zapping the save memory as above

It never happened....

- you (or another player) may have inadvertently erased the file

Never happened....

- an unexpected bung or incompatibility may exist with this cart on
the DS (perhaps yur file will be accessible again on a GBA?)

I was thinking about this, but I no longer have my GBA to test this
possibility.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.nintendo (More info?)

"Leo" <leogamer@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1122231521.221143.257190@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hi there. I was wondering if anyone out there knows, or had any
> experience due to lost saves with (GBA) cartridges. It never occured to
> me I would ask this question, but my Yoshi's Island: Super Mario
> Advance 3 no longer is able to save. I register a save, but if I ever
> turn off my Nintendo DS, and turn it back on, the save is no longer
> registered. It's LOST! I had the game for several years now with one
> file saved, but all my lost work just went down the drain. :-(
>
> Well, anyone out there with similar experiences? I would love to hear
> them. I guess now I have an excuse to buy myself a new copy, and play
> the whole game all over again. ;-)
>
> Leo
>

Is it the original game? ITs not a pirate copy by any chance?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.nintendo (More info?)

Flash ROM has a limit to the number times it can be written; maybe you
saved _so_ often that you went past this limit...

[The number of write cycles depends on the memory, but you often see
numbers like 10,000 or 100,000 cycles.]

-miles
--
Any man who is a triangle, has thee right, when in Cartesian Space, to
have angles, which when summed, come to know more, nor no less, than
nine score degrees, should he so wish. [TEMPLE OV THEE LEMUR]

 

[Leo]

Archived from groups: rec.games.video.nintendo (More info?)

Is it the original game? ITs not a pirate copy by any chance?

Nope, its legit.

 

[rpggamerman220]

hey you typt this a long time ago but i just had a game die on it would earase my saves evey time i would turn it off. well good news dont throw it away because you can fix it your self what i did is took it apart. and replaced the battery with one ibought at the store and soder it . well here is the battery specs.it is a panisonic (dosent have to be replaced with that brand though )
its a (cr2025...3v.it was reel easy to fix.works and saves perfectly.