GBASP battery: How long does it last?

2004-04-14 03:13:24 pm

My GBASP battery is starting to act a little weird :(

I got it Sept. 22 2003 & I doubt I have so far reloaded it more than 100 times (lasting time should be over 500!). Yet I can only play MF & ZM for like 5 - 6 hours it seems with the backlight on. The little machine should be able to handle around 10+ hours with light on. A fullycharged battery usually means around 3 playthroughs of ZM. This is kinda weird because Golden Sun when I got it together with my GBASP lasted around 12 hours with light on. Sure, I die sometimes & need to restart but that doesn't add that much time to total amount I'd say.

So does the Metroid games suck extra amounts of power or what? IT certainly seems that way 'cause I find it hard to believe that my battery is faulty already. Not even a year old. Anyone know? 'Cause Nintendo never give me any good answers :D

Thread title:

professor_scissors

2004-04-14 05:08:46 pm

Far more electricity is needed to power ZM's awesome than to power Golden Sun's awesome.

MetalRidley

2004-04-14 05:18:31 pm

Why would it take more power? They're both GBA carts...

What don't I know about this time?

Yoshi348

2004-04-14 06:36:55 pm

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

It's sarcasm.

*shrug* I dunno, hasn't been affected at all for me, and I've had my one a year+.

Alec

2004-04-14 06:57:34 pm

Quote from MetalRidley:

Why would it take more power? They're both GBA carts...

What don't I know about this time?

I just thought that it might be a possibility that Nintendo screwed up the handling of the electricity or something :)

Did a test they had on the U.S. Nintendo page to check the machine for power problems & it seems that the battery is indeed the problem. Waiting for response right now.

Edit: Might add that my GBASP have been sort of defect since day one practically. Weird noises from the speaker, the screen tilts diagonally :D & now this... It seems I might be cursed by the evil tech-demon ;)

Syl

2004-04-14 07:50:49 pm

my SP's battery has gotten a shorter life as well, but i believe thats because of how many times ive drained the life outa that thing. It barely lasts me a full schoolday if i leave it on all the time. (without light on whenever im not looking at it, good habit i got into)

I'lll buy another battery soon, its been over a year since i got the lovely thing. So the fact that its battery life is lowering makes perfect sense to me.

savage-monkey

2004-04-14 10:15:22 pm

I don't have a problem with my sp. I really love it.

Alec

2004-04-15 03:09:43 am

Syl: you wouldn't happen to know any good stores who sells it that's located near Sweden? :)

Syl

2004-04-15 09:29:13 am

surprisingly, BestBuy actually has 3rd party batteries that promise "twice the life of an original battery". Thats where im grabbing mine (its like 20$)

Near sweden? uhh...
www.ebay.com
www.amazon.com

Alec

2004-04-15 12:40:50 pm

Cool. Hope they don't lie then ;)

I'm currently doing my own battery capability test with ZM. I've had my GBASP running since 9:15 this morning. Just turned red on me. The timer is @ 8:15 but I accidentally left it in pause mode during lunch but I noticed that after like 20 minutes. Maybe, just maybe, my actual playing time was longer than 6ish hours :) Since it just turned red, that means there's around 20 - 30% capacity left in it. So it will most likely go over 10 hours.

But this is 10 hours without sound & passive playing (Samus is simply standing in a save room doing nothing) so there has been minimal button activity except for pressing the start button a couple of times to check the timer. If it dies on me today, I'll charge it & test this with Golden Sun tomorrow :) If the results are the same, I guess the battery ain't that weird after all. And this thread can most likely be locked ;)

Update: It died @ around 9:30... oh well I did save like 3 times. I bet that uses up more energy.

2nd Update: Okay tested this with Golden Sun 2 days ago (Friday the 16th). The game lasted for around 11:30. About 2 hours longer than ZM. And I saved a lot since that's the only way AFAIK to see how long you've been playing. And I believe saving uses up more power than if it's just idle. This gets weirder by the minute ;)

Thanks for shown interest!

Cool. Hope they don't lie then ;)

I'm currently doing my own battery capability test with ZM. I've had my GBASP running since 9:15 this morning. Just turned red on me. The timer is @ 8:15 but I accidentally left it in pause mode during lunch but I noticed that after like 20 minutes. Maybe, just maybe, my actual playing time was longer than 6ish hours :) Since it just turned red, that means there's around 20 - 30% capacity left in it. So it will most likely go over 10 hours.

But this is 10 hours without sound & passive playing (Samus is simply standing in a save room doing nothing) so there has been minimal button activity except for pressing the start button a couple of times to check the timer. If it dies on me today, I'll charge it & test this with Golden Sun tomorrow :) If the results are the same, I guess the battery ain't that weird after all. And this thread can most likely be locked ;)

Update: It died @ around 9:30... oh well I did save like 3 times. I bet that uses up more energy.

2nd Update: Okay tested this with Golden Sun 2 days ago (Friday the 16th). The game lasted for around 11:30. About 2 hours longer than ZM. And I saved a lot since that's the only way AFAIK to see how long you've been playing. And I believe saving uses up more power than if it's just idle. This gets weirder by the minute ;)

Thanks for shown interest!

Chet Rippo

2004-04-21 05:04:40 pm

I think the batery works just fine for the GBASP