Duo-RX saves corrupted - causes?

[SamIAm]

I'm a recent first-time Duo-RX owner, and I've experienced my save files corrupting twice in 6 months. It's not exactly easy to pinpoint the cause, but one correlation I have noticed is that it's happened very soon after using the RUN/Select soft reset function. If that's it, then great, I just won't do it anymore. In that's maybe not it, though, I'd like to know about other things that cause save file corruptions. Could my new arcade card have anything to do with it? Are any particular games noteworthy for writing funky save data? Anything about the Duo-RX in particular?

I've got a Tennokoe bank and everything, so I won't lose the really important stuff. It'd be nice to avoid this all the same. Any thoughts?

[nat]

I'd say maybe the capacitor that holds the save RAM, but you have a Duo RX.

There's absolutely no reason a soft reset would corrupt your saves.

[TheOldMan]

I'd say maybe the capacitor that holds the save RAM

Corrected:
I'd say maybe the capacitor that powers the save RAM.

Yeah, it's probably one of two things. Either the capacitor is going, and not supplying enough
power to keep the bits in the bram correctly, or the bram itself is going.

[SamIAm]

Thanks for the replies, guys. Have there been confirmed cases of the actual BRAM going bad? If it's just a capacitor, I can replace that without too much trouble (assuming I can find the part).

I'll wait and see if I have any more problems. I sure hope not!

Thanks again.

[SignOfZeta]

I had the weirdest back-up issue the other day with my Duo R. Whenever I entered the file delete screen (select from the boot screen) it would show the one save I had in there (Dracula X) but it would scramble the screen! I was all tweaked like when you are displaying something at a resolution that isn't compatible with your TV.

It did this twice. I reformatted and now it doesn't do it anymore.

[SamIAm]

That's basically what happened during one of the two times my saves corrupted. I soft reset, checked the save screen, and the new Valis save that had been made very recently showed jibberish in the text. The screen fritzed out pretty quickly, and it only stopped after I reformatted.

The other time was soft resetting after playing TMII. I just wanted to reset the game for some reason, but when I did, it killed the save I was using! I almost wonder if it was in the process of automatically saving something when I reset it.

Well, I'll do another total reformat soon. I'll just have to write down my Cotton high score or something.

[roflmao]

Do SNES's store save files the same way?  I recently lost both my Super Mario World and Zelda: A Link to the Past save files while rebooting my RetroDuo. (After the second one I boxed up the Duo and hooked up the NES and SNES separately) Needless to say, I was pretty bummed.

Do you think that's just what older hardware does these days?  Should gamers start avoiding resetting their games?

[SignOfZeta]

If a SMB or LttP save disappears I would suspect the battery in the cart. SNES systems have no save mechanism whatsoever.

[BlueBMW]

Are SNES carts like the old NES carts that instructed you to hold the reset button while shutting the system off?

[SignOfZeta]

No.

[SamIAm]

One thing I remember from a lot of those battery-back-up carts is that if the battery is in the process of dying, then the data tends to get more corrupt as time passes not being powered on by the system. For example, with an RPG with 3 save slots, they would usually go corrupt one at a time. Also, if your data can survive a whole week powered off and not go bad, the battery is probably fine.

I have an SNES copier back in the states, and I remember one game losing all of its save data when I played it passed-through the copier, even though the battery was fine.