Final Fantasy 7 Nes Saving issue

So, i was super interested in these, and ordered one off of aliexpress... from a seller whos post says they save... well mine does NOT save.... at first i thought probably battery as its probably sat on a shelf and it was probably a cheap battery, battery is fine... but i was surprised when i opened it up, i expected a very cheap pcb and globs everywhere... instead i was given a very sleek, well manufactured pcb with 2x Winbond W24655-70LL, 1x AMD AM29F016B, and 1x XILINX XC9536XL if it had been globs, and the battery was good, i was going to file a complaint (and probably have to send the damn thing back) but judging from this setup, i feel like this was some sort of flash cart board and that maybe it can be fixed... anyone have any ideas/suggestions?

 

Protip: You should always double check everything with the seller in pm on aliexpress before paying.

 

I am sure they would have said it saves....

Why include a battery if saving wasnt designed to work,

 

it sorta does save... ive been able to save, and then load only occasionally....

if you turn the system off too long, leave it on too long (while your playing as an example) or hit reset too many times, the save wipes....
could it be that the sram on this cart sucks? are those good chips?

i vaguely remember one of the versions of the remake/english rom having saving issues... could it be that they did not use the last version of the rom for the cart? im pretty sure v1.1 was the last, is there any easy way to determine the version on the chip? if its not 1.1 i might try to desolder the chip and throw it in my usb flasher and see if i can get it to 1.1 just looking for someone who knows a bit more about the translation/remake....

 

If there's nothing on the title screen about the version you would need to dump the game and compare the checksum to v1.1 rom

 

Yes, but then you'll have the chatlog in case of a dispute.

 

Not to sound too stupid but is the battery holder actually soldered in place correctly? It looks like it it is a surface mount part, but on the back of the pcb there seems to be at least one solder pad for a battery...

 

i have since determined that it is infact the game, its saving is just shoddy, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesnt, sometimes it does but wont load, sometimes it loads, its a shame i cant use save states on original hardware... but oh well, wont be the first time in my life ive left a console on to keep my progress, ill just beat it in "1 sitting", and as far as the battery, both contacts are actually quite well soldered, one of them is under the battery and not visible though....

 

There is a bug on this cartridge, sram #oe need pullup.(connector a 10k resistance from diode out vcc to #oe)
otherwise，The battery will soon run out.

 

oh? did you do the fix? could you provide a pic please?

 

SRAM Chip P20 is /CS, Can be connected like this: /cs<-->R10K<-->1N4148<-->battery+

 

i did some poking around on the board, and this doesnt seem to be an issue on the cartridge, the sram is wired up correctly and the battery is still full months later...

 

For w2465 is not a problem, because it has a cs+ signal, but for others chip (ex:w24257),if no cs+, it's need a pullup the /cs

 

Ya know....I was just looking at these carts on ebay and such.....eBay rapes people for these damn carts