Hacking a strange charging problem

[themockingbird]

well i had my ds lite for a little over a year, and over the past few days, i was wondering why my ds was always turning red when i charged it the night before. well today, i was charging it doing the afternoon while i was playing. when i was done playing, i put it to sleep mode, hoping to come back to it later. later on, i realized i had no time to play, so i turned the ds off. but the charging light turned off as well. so i took out the plug and reinserted it. the orange light turned on for a second, then went off again. i knew the battery wasn't fully charged because when i turned on the ds and then put the charger in, the orange light stayed on, for awhile, but would go off later. this would also explain why the battery was dead the day after i charged it.
any insights, suggestions would be greatly appreciated. thank you.

 

[DanTheManMS]

It just means that you're very close to having a full charge, at least according to the software monitoring the battery. When you turned the DS off, it realized that it no longer needed to support your game anymore and turned off since it was almost full to begin with. When you turn the DS on and reinsert the plug, it powers your game while slowly charging the battery the rest of the way. It's not that much of a difference really.

You don't state how much you use your DS in a day, so saying that it dies after a day doesn't really help. It could be due to a number of things:
1. homebrew devices, especially slot-2 devices with RAM, cut down the battery life significantly, even if they're just inserted into the DS and aren't being used at the time
2. screen brightness - lower brightness = longer battery life
3. The Wifi sucks up lots of battery power
4. Using the external speakers rather than headphones uses up a significant amount of battery to power the amplifier.
5. Your battery could just need a full power cycle. Leave it on until it completely dies (but do NOT keep powering it back on afterwards, you need a tiny bit of charge left and the DS shuts down before you hit rock bottom) and then charge it fully. I doubt this is the case, but it might help.

Personally my DS Phat only lasts two days for me, using it about 2 hours a day max, but that's because I'm using a Phat with a slot-2 Supercard, so I know it's to be expected.

 

[DarkAura]

A DS has a battery similar to an iPod. The more you use it, the more the battery deteriorates. Less play time every time you charge it. You may want to consider a new battery. Just a suggestion.

 

[themockingbird]

thanks for the replies guys. i think i got it figured out...the battery was already fully charged, yet i somehow thought it wasn't. this was probably due to because before, when the battery was fully charged, the orange light would not turn on at all when i inserted the plug. i'm not sure why this time it still flickered on for a second.

 

[DarkAura]

But if the battery was fully charged, then why would the DS run out of power?

Like I said before, try buying a new battery. They are like, $3o each ish, I'm not sure the actual price. It could be an investment that is worth an.. investment.