Battery life without card inserted

[artrugamer85]

I'm wondering if the battery in my everdrive gba X5 would improve if I leave the microSD card out when not in use. I don't play all that often and it's starting to be irritating finding out I'm losing all my save files and progress when I pick it up after three months of no use.

Anybody else having this issue? Has anyone tried taking the card out? If so, did it make a diffeence?

[Localhorst86]

It shouldn't make a difference because the battery is not powering the SD card. The battery on the PCB is used to power the RTC and the SRAM.

When the savegame is saved to the SD card (I am uncertain if the EDGBA X5 does that on boot or when loading a game), the battery doesn't play any role in keeping the savegames on the card.

That being said, the battery should last longer than three months, a few years should be the expected time for the battery to run dry (probably close to a decade, really)

[nuu]

And you should only loose the save file currently in the SRAM if the battery runs out. Save files on the SD card are safe.
The file in the SRAM is copied to SD when you load up a different game.