ok, picked up a Super Mario RPG and it was held together by 2 pieces of tape. Took the tape off and noticed it had been worked on. It appears the battery has been replaced as well as this wire soldered from one side to the other. Worst part is the game wont boot up. My system recognizes the game is on but I just get a black screen.

So, what is that soldered wire supposed to be doing? What is its purpose if any?

Would removing the wire help?

Here are pics of it next to a regular working Mario RPG. Any help is appreciated. thanks

I'd remove the wire, although I believe the tab is just an extra ground wire basically so it shouldn't affect it. It doesn't need to be there, so that's why I'd remove it. I'd also just check the pins of the chips to see if any look like they were badly resoldered or just broken traces.

And this should be in help wanted.

hmmm...i should solder those points on mine and see if it makes it not boot. Although if it were to ruin it id be super pissed.

Damn, so weird. I see no reason for the soldered wire, but also no reason why this thing wouldn't work. I'm stumped.

Im gonna unsolder the wire and see what happens.

no luck as I expected.

looks like someones failed science project

Yeah i suspect they fried the board. Why couldnt it have been Metal Combat or something...

since you removed the wire, is that ground tab that is attached to the cart casing making contact with the board now? it seems to me that with such a big glob of solder, the ground tab wouldve gotten bent back. so now that the solder is gone, the tab may not be making contact. i doubt itll make the cart start working, but its just an observation i made.

I left the solder on it for the reason you mentioned.

I also tested the board both in case and just PCB.

A working one works either way. This one doesnt work regardless.

I emailed the dude who sold me it to see if he can solve the mystery for me at least.

This is part of a big collection I just bought. I will be posting pics and details when I get a chance. The dude loved his RPG's.

Sellers response:

The taped one I soldered because the metal grounding for the FX# chip on one side of the cart fell out somehow. By connecting the two it restored the grounding and made the cart function. That particular one hasn't been played since the end of the first 6 months it was released. I didn't much care for it, though was hyped up to think it would be my taste

Tell him he's full of shit because there's only one tab and both those tabs ground the same piece of metal anyway. I have 2 SMRPG's and neither have both tabs either, and they don't just "fall out." He's just lieing.

I've never found a Super FX game (or any SNES game really) that had both grounding pins. I have some that don't have either but they still work.

Also, as you can see from the pictures, the ground plating that surrounds and permeats the PCB is all connected via several pins on the edge connector. That wire does absolutely nothing. The seller probably had this dead cart, jumped to the conclusion it needed the ground to be fully connected, found that it still didn't work, then proceeded to sell it.