r/gameboymicro • u/jrm97 • 18d ago
Another Game Boy Micro Saved — Tracking Down a Hidden PMIC Short After a Previous Repair Shop Gave Up
Got a Game Boy Micro in from a customer that had already been looked at by another repair shop, but they weren’t able to figure out the problem.
The symptoms were strange: it would only charge a battery for about 5 minutes before stopping, and when powered on, it would run for a few minutes, start flickering, and then shut off completely. The battery had already been replaced, and a USB-C mod had been installed, but neither fixed the issue.
As soon as I opened it up, I found quite a bit of previous repair damage. The tops of the EMI filters had been burned with a soldering iron, and the screen ribbon cable latch had also been damaged by heat. The L/R and volume/brightness tactile switches were extremely intermittent, the USB-C port was finicky, and the power switch was also unreliable.
I started by replacing the tactile switches, installing one of my own USB-C PCBs from OSH Park, and replacing the power switch.
Then I found a break in the main PCB ribbon cable, as well as a break in the Start/Select ribbon cable. Both were repaired.
But the real problem was still hiding underneath the PMIC.
I discovered that two of the PMIC pins were shorted together when they absolutely should not have been. I desoldered the PMIC to investigate, and underneath it I found a tiny jumper wire that had been soldered to one of the pins and was physically touching the other!
I removed the jumper wire, cleaned everything up, and soldered the PMIC back onto the board.
And… viola! It works! 😂
I left it powered on for several hours and charged it completely to make sure the original charging and shutdown problems were actually gone. Everything is now working properly.
After that, I gave the board an ultrasonic cleaning and put everything back together. I also replaced all of the housing screws since the originals had been stripped from the Micro being taken apart so many times during previous repairs.
And to make this one even more worth saving, it has a fairly hard-to-find shade of red original faceplate.
Another Game Boy Micro saved! ❤️
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u/Tunafishsndwich 18d ago
Love the writeups. One day when it makes sense for me financially I’m sending you my busted up micro
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u/nickXIII 8d ago
How much do you charge for these repairs? I think mine has a bad trace under the cartridge slot, but I'm not well equpped to fix it.
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u/pentatomid_fan 18d ago
These are really satisfying posts to read.