Sapphire Internal Battery Help?

[~Piika]

Hey guys! I'm having a bit of trouble with my two copies of Pokémon Sapphire and I figured here would be the best place to ask for help.

So, for about maybe a year, I've had this message come up: "The internal battery has run dry. The game can be played. However, clock-based events will no longer occur."

I know that this is the message that people associate with the Berry Glitch, so I went on Bulbapedia and followed the steps to repairing it on this page: bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Berry_glitch

First, I hooked up my games to a copy of Fire Red. As it began to download the patch, Sapphire told me the berry program couldn't be updated... I tried again with a different link cable, Emerald, Leaf Green... all of them gave me the same message.

Then I decided to connect to Pokémon XD. I did a standard 6v6 battle with Sapphire's team and XD's team, then turned my Sapphire on again. It still gave me the message.

Can anyone tell me what I may be doing wrong? I'm really frustrated, as this glitch is messing up the Match Call trainers, whom I love training on. And yes, this is happening with TWO different copies of Pokémon Sapphire.

(And if this helps at all, one of the games has 580:30 play time; the glitch probably occurred sometime after 500 hours. The other copy was used when I got it and has been restarted multiple times, and has had the glitch on it since I got it.)

[taiyo]

I have the same problem on my sapphire cart. It means you have to replace the battery. Me and my dad got my cart open a while back, but we decided not to fix the problem after we realized that replacing the battery would wipe all save data. (The loss of contact when the battery is taken out would erase the save file.) If you can back up your save, replacing the battery would be your best option. You may have to put in a piece of cardboard or something if you do replace the battery, since the tabs need to have constant contact and they can be loose unless you pad the case inside.

Be careful though - I tried to fix a ruby cart a month ago and cut off the tabs soldered onto the battery (rather than cutting through the solder.) It was very sad.

There's a guide on replacing the battery in a gold/silver cart here:

www.pokemasters.net/forums/showthread.php?t=15464

It may be a different game, but the method is practically the same. Also, if you can't get the tri-wing screw out, I've found that the small foldable scissors (like at the dollar store) have tips small enough to use.

[~Piika]

Mmm, that's unfortunate. I'm not all that tech-savvy in terms of backing things up... I would hate to destroy 580+ hours by accident. I could probably fix the other one, though. Thanks for your help!

[iimarckus]

Oct 23, 2011 17:24:43 GMT -5 ~Piika said:

Hey guys! I'm having a bit of trouble with my two copies of Pokémon Sapphire and I figured here would be the best place to ask for help.

So, for about maybe a year, I've had this message come up: "The internal battery has run dry. The game can be played. However, clock-based events will no longer occur."

I know that this is the message that people associate with the Berry Glitch

People associate the message with the Berry Glitch, but I don’t think they’re related.

The Berry Glitch is a software bug that causes time‐based events to no longer occur. That’s why you can patch it via software. The battery running dry is a hardware issue. I vaguely recall getting the Berry Glitch without the message coming up.

Oct 23, 2011 18:51:09 GMT -5 taiyo said:

I have the same problem on my sapphire cart. It means you have to replace the battery. Me and my dad got my cart open a while back, but we decided not to fix the problem after we realized that replacing the battery would wipe all save data. (The loss of contact when the battery is taken out would erase the save file.)

This isn’t true. It is true that GSC rely on the battery to hold game saves, but Ruby and Sapphire keep their saves in flash memory on the cart, and the battery is used only to keep time. Replacing it won’t wipe your save.

[~Piika]

Oct 24, 2011 19:55:50 GMT -5 iimarckus said:

This isn’t true. It is true that GSC rely on the battery to hold game saves, but Ruby and Sapphire keep their saves in flash memory on the cart, and the battery is used only to keep time. Replacing it won’t wipe your save.

Ah, really? Well, that's great news, then! I guess all I need to do now is get some batteries. And somebody who can help me with soldering.

It's really interesting to see the insides of the cartridges... I think I opened up six or seven games just to see the differences inside.