Gaming water damage repair on nearly dead DSI XL (possible broken specific component)

mistermcsenpai

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My DSI XL sustained water damage around 6 years ago has never worked since. When I try to turn it on the lights flashes orange, and thats all.

I opened up my DSI and found a bunch of white residue which i thoroughly cleaned off with isopropyl alcohol and the board looks like new. However, the board still did not turn on, so I also decided to change the fuses and it still wont turn on. When I use my voltmeter, I can 5V flows around the board fine. However, an interesting thing happens when I test the voltage on a specific component. When I connect one end of the voltmeter prongs on the charging port prong, and the other voltmeter prong on this component, it seems to temporary kill my charger. The charger for about 10 minutes does not work at all, as I have tested the charger on my other devices and it doesn't work for a while. After a while, the charger starts to work again.

** The component in question is the little thing near the charging port with a tiny copper spool within it, and the number 2 on top. Does anyone know what this is?

Is it possible this component might be the faulty and I may simply have to change it and my thing should hopefully work?
 

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Do you have a battery in the DSi? It will never turn on with only the charger plugged in, the flashing orange charging light is normal behavior when the charger is plugged in but there is no battery. If you don't have a battery, you could use a variable power supply set to some voltage between 3.6V-4.2V and connect it directly to the battery terminals of the DSi to make a fake battery.
 
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mistermcsenpai

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Do you have a battery in the DSi? It will never turn on with only the charger plugged in, the flashing orange charging light is normal behavior when the charger is plugged in but there is no battery. If you don't have a battery, you could use a variable power supply set to some voltage between 3.6V-4.2V and connect it directly to the battery terminals of the DSi to make a fake battery.
funny you say that. Like 5 minutes ago the socket on the motherboard for the powerboard broke off, what now? Would I have to solder it back on?

Prior to the socket breaking off, I tested a 3DS battery with the powerboard and I got a flashing blue light when I try to turn it on, until it went black, but this time no orange light(or screen as I'm about to mention).

Furthermore, i would like to mention the ribbon cable for the upper half of the screen is broken. I just recently heard if the DSI does not detect both screens it doesn't turn on.

Initially when this had water damage like 7 years ago, both screens would flash on and the blue light would also flash. However, after I started to tinker with it 3 years ago, it started doing different things like flashing orange lights when plugged in.
 
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IC_

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Furthermore, i would like to mention the ribbon cable for the upper half of the screen is broken. I just recently heard if the DSI does not detect both screens it doesn't turn on.
That's true, if one of the screens or another important system component is not detected, the DSi will just shut off right after being turned on. It will also make a popping sound in the speakers and flash the screens white for a short moment, if those parts are working.

You should solder the power connector back on if you're able to do that, there's no other way to power the system.
 

mistermcsenpai

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That's true, if one of the screens or another important system component is not detected, the DSi will just shut off right after being turned on. It will also make a popping sound in the speakers and flash the screens white for a short moment, if those parts are working.

You should solder the power connector back on if you're able to do that, there's no other way to power the system.
yep I did that. I have attached the motherboard, bottom screen, powerboard together and 3ds battery, and when I pressed the on button, the blue light turned on. No flashing, red or orange. But the bottom screen didnt turn on. What does this suggest? Its working, and just looking for the top screen?

Or is it too soon to make any guesses?
 

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Unfortunately, the blue light being on like that often means that the problem is much deeper (at least that's how it is on 3DS systems, not sure if it's the same on DSi). Do you have the wireless card properly attached and connected? I know that the older DS systems will have the same behavior with the power light being on and nothing else happening when the wireless card is not connected.
 

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Unfortunately, the blue light being on like that often means that the problem is much deeper (at least that's how it is on 3DS systems, not sure if it's the same on DSi). Do you have the wireless card properly attached and connected? I know that the older DS systems will have the same behavior with the power light being on and nothing else happening when the wireless card is not connected.
Yes, I have disconnected the wireless card
 

mistermcsenpai

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Try connecting the wireless card and turning on the DSi again. Before doing that you could also clean the contacts on both the wireless card and the connector for it on the motherboard, if they have any water damage.
okay, i connected the wifi card, and now the blue light comes on for 1 second then shuts off, while the bottom scream remains off. Am all I missing now is the top screen? Or could this be due to a short somewhere in the motherboard. I've already extensively cleaned the motherboard with alcohol.
 

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Yes, you should now try to get a working top screen. Is there no short white flash on the bottom screen? Make sure you also have the small backlight cable from the bottom screen connected to the motherboard.
 

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Yes, you should now try to get a working top screen. Is there no short white flash on the bottom screen? Make sure you also have the small backlight cable from the bottom screen connected to the motherboard.
No bottom screen flash, and I have connected all bottom cables. However, when I try to charge the thing, instead of giving me a flashing orange light before, its solid orange now.
 

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That's great, it means that it is now normally detecting the battery and charging it.
So it seems I should only replace my top screen and battery, correct? (motherboard is fine?) I am currently using a 3ds battery, so it isn't very convenient to use haha

EDIT:
now all of a sudden the blue light wont come on nor will she charge at all. No signs of life rn, seems to have happened out of the blue,

EDIT 2: NVM, the battery wasn't in properly, lol. This 3ds battery solution isn't that great in the long term lmao
I'm glad this motherboard saga is over with for me.
 
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We can't know for sure if the motherboard is good, there could still be some other issue even if you get a working top screen and even if it turns on normally.

If you are comfortable with even more soldering, you could try doing this mod to allow the DSi to power on without a top screen connected: https://www.reddit.com/r/gameboymacro/comments/g476vn/solder_points_for_all_nds_models/
The DSi wouldn't be very useful without a top screen, so I wouldn't recommend doing unless you are really sure about it. I accidentally blew a fuse on one of my original DS motherboards when trying to do a similar mod.

Also, is the ribbon cable for the top screen part actually ripped or is there only some smaller damage on it? There is a chance that the DSi will power on with that screen connected, even if it won't be able to send a video signal to the screen through that cable.
 

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A charger stopping working for 10 minutes sounds like a short and maybe resettable fuse inside it. Probably best not to do that too much.

It happening when you measure voltage... the resistance for voltage with a meter should be ridiculously high (if you had left it in amps mode or in the amps hole on a cheapy one then yeah different matter) so presumably no short because of that*. To that end assuming you did not touch the probes together (metal-metal acting a short then) or something next to a point then I am left with the force applied seeing a short happen either under a component or elsewhere in the board as a result of flexing (just as you can flex things and have them work you can also flex them into not working until the strain is removed).
What that might be in this instance I don't know but that is what I would suspect if I was fixing something generally. First step is around and under whatever is nearby what you probed, after that you can go further afield to where the strain lines might take you, if it is between layers then have fun there.

*simple test there. If you can measure a voltage across the charger itself and it does not die on you then the meter should be fine.

Other than that it seems the others here know what minimum requirements for booting are (depending upon what goes you might want to investigate if you can use resistors to fake a load which is what most things in most electronics tend to detect for rather than expecting a real response).
 
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mistermcsenpai

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We can't know for sure if the motherboard is good, there could still be some other issue even if you get a working top screen and even if it turns on normally.

If you are comfortable with even more soldering, you could try doing this mod to allow the DSi to power on without a top screen connected: https://www.reddit.com/r/gameboymacro/comments/g476vn/solder_points_for_all_nds_models/
The DSi wouldn't be very useful without a top screen, so I wouldn't recommend doing unless you are really sure about it. I accidentally blew a fuse on one of my original DS motherboards when trying to do a similar mod.

Also, is the ribbon cable for the top screen part actually ripped or is there only some smaller damage on it? There is a chance that the DSi will power on with that screen connected, even if it won't be able to send a video signal to the screen through that cable.
about 75% of the connections on the ribbon cable are severed, so its safe to say its probably dead and needs a replacement.
 

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