In Hardware

Anyone else got one of these things?

I read some place that when the internal battery finally dies, it erases some kind of NES ROM table or whatnot causing the unit to cease functioning.

Ive got a few Capcom JAMMA boards that have what they call a "suicide battery" in them. Same kind of deal with the Game Action Replay. When these Capcom boards die, you can simply burn a new EPROM and replace the old EPROM and battery and things will be fine. Now I know that I am never going to find a Game Action Replay NES ROM image anywhere, so my only solution is to replace the battery without losing the voltage supply to the NES ROM.

Can I simply attach my new battery while the old one is in place, then remove the old battery? Perhaps this may supply too much voltage to the components and damage the hardware?

Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks.

That should work, if the current battery is dead, then it's not supplying any voltage.

Unfortunately, if the battery is already dead, then the NES ROM is also erased...

As I recall, it takes some time for the NES ROM to actually be erased without POWer, sometimes upward of 30 minutes. failing all else, You could just try to replace the battery as quickly as possible, and hope for the best.

Im going to take a look see and figure out if my existing battery is ok for the time being.

What I would like to do is add a CR2032 socket in there, so changing batterys in the future won't be such a hassle. I know ive got a couple of sockets laying around, now I just need to find a juicy CR2032.

There's a guy on another forum (I think NES World or DP) who can fix your GAR battery. I'm gonna test mine again sometime soon, see if it still works, and probably try and get it fixed as well. Would be a shame to lose it...