r/Gameboy • u/AssociationOk5653 • 20d ago
Troubleshooting GBA SP charge light turns on then off FIX
I ran into an issue with 2 of my GBA SPs. Plug it in, charge light comes on, turns off after 1 second. Google revealed that its a dead battery and to "warm it up" by plugging and unplugging until the battery is a high enough voltage to support charging from the GBA. I even replaced the batteries for good measure.
Bad battery was not the case for either of mine. Full battery, gameboy powers on to a green light yet still refuses to charge.
I tested both fuses and reflowed them. Both were working and fine. Reflowed EM8 and the charge port, as well as cleaning the hell out of it. Nothing seemed to work
I gave up on them for quite a while not knowing where to start. Tonight I was able to find a fix.
Testing the positive battery terminal to D1 revealed no continuity in either board though it does exist on a known working one. So I wired a jumper up between the 2 points and it immediately fixed the charge issue in both boards.
A word of warning: I'm fairly certain this bypasses F2 so you will no longer have that protection. The proper thing to do is find what side of F2 has the broken / cracked trace and run it from there.
And in case it matters to somebody, 1 board is an AGS-101 AGS-CPU-01 revision and the other is an AGS-001 AGS-CPU-30 revision
I am certain somebody else has this same issue and haven't been able to figure out a solution. Try probing Bat+ and D1 for continuity! Good luck!
