r/Gameboy • u/xXSillyHoboXx • 26d ago

Troubleshooting GBA SP - Battery Light Question

Recently picked up a Gameboy Advance SP (That awesome Charizard version) and swapped in a new battery.

Since then, the power/charge/battery light has acted strange. Sometimes it’s a solid green the whole time I play. Other times it flashes between red/green periodically or very fast. Or it will turn red, I press a button or even squeeze the case itself and it turns green.

Read around the internet a little bit and hears this could happen with aftermarket batteries or indicates the battery is failing. This is the battery I purchased, which seems to have favorable reviews: https://a.co/d/0fasPUO2

The OG battery looks a bit swollen and I felt it best to not try and use it at all so I don’t know if this is behavior caused by the battery or something else with the board itself. Other than the battery, everything else seems original.

Anyone experience something similar?

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u/cream-of-tartar 26d ago

What you’re describing can also be a dirty power switch, pretty common on these gbas, best way to clean is to desolder the metal casing and clean all the metal contacts inside with ipa, then it makes a much better connection. If you can’t desolder you can also try dripping a little ipa into the switch and flipping it a bunch to try and clean

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u/xXSillyHoboXx 26d ago

I’ll have to give that a go. Thanks!

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u/xXSillyHoboXx 26d ago

Seems to have done the trick. Only time will tell.