Gaming DSi XL power issue

[CynicalPotatoe]

Hello there, this is my first post on GBATemp. I have a DSi XL that doesn’t power on, but it charges. After opening it up and taking a look at it, I found that the capacitor on the power board (which houses the battery pins, power button and d-pad) has blown.

Now, I found a post on this website were someone temporarily fixed it by replacing the capacitor with a “straight bridge”, I was wondering if anyone knows what exactly that is or how to do it? If you do, it would help me out a lot

I would link the post I saw but GBATemp said I couldn’t, sorry about that

 

[IC_]

I was wondering if anyone knows what exactly that is or how to do it?

You take a soldering iron and get the capacitor off the board, and then you put some solder in the place of that capacitor so the 2 pads that the capacitor would connect to are just connected to each other instead.

A replacement power board probably isn't too expensive though, if you can get one then it would be a much better solution.

 

[CynicalPotatoe]

You take a soldering iron and get the capacitor off the board, and then you put some solder in the place of that capacitor so the 2 pads that the capacitor would connect to are just connected to each other instead.

A replacement power board probably isn't too expensive though, if you can get one then it would be a much better solution.

Ive already ordered one but it’s going to take roughly a month to get here cause it’s coming from China so I wanted a temporary fix so I can see what’s on it as I just bought it. I appreciate the advice, gonna give it a shot later

 

[CynicalPotatoe]

The new board came in, when it arrived I noticed that the ground and positive cables coming from the connector were mixed up, I decided to try it anyway, all it did was make it so the screens turned white, red battery light came on, then it immediately went off. I figured it was doing this because it was getting the power from the battery but because the cables were mixed up the system couldn’t properly utilize the battery. Because of this, I took it upon myself to resolder the cables in the right way, when I did this it stopped working. The device with the new board no longer recognizes the battery, it just sits there and blinks with the orange charging light. As far as I can tell I didn’t damage anything on the board while resoldering the wires, anyone have any ideas what might have happened?

 

[IC_]

The new board came in, when it arrived I noticed that the ground and positive cables coming from the connector were mixed up, I decided to try it anyway, all it did was make it so the screens turned white, red battery light came on, then it immediately went off. I figured it was doing this because it was getting the power from the battery but because the cables were mixed up the system couldn’t properly utilize the battery. Because of this, I took it upon myself to resolder the cables in the right way, when I did this it stopped working. The device with the new board no longer recognizes the battery, it just sits there and blinks with the orange charging light. As far as I can tell I didn’t damage anything on the board while resoldering the wires, anyone have any ideas what might have happened?

The wires were probably the right way from the beginning, you should resolder them to their previous position again.

 

[Flame]

is it possible you post pictures, simpler and better way of understanding stuff.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

The new board came in, when it arrived I noticed that the ground and positive cables coming from the connector were mixed up, I decided to try it anyway, all it did was make it so the screens turned white, red battery light came on, then it immediately went off. I figured it was doing this because it was getting the power from the battery but because the cables were mixed up the system couldn’t properly utilize the battery. Because of this, I took it upon myself to resolder the cables in the right way, when I did this it stopped working. The device with the new board no longer recognizes the battery, it just sits there and blinks with the orange charging light. As far as I can tell I didn’t damage anything on the board while resoldering the wires, anyone have any ideas what might have happened?

The second behavior you are talking about is more like what you would expect when the polarity is reversed. Usually in electronics there will be a diode preventing you from using the battery the wrong way, because if power is allowed to pass through the wrong way it will usually blow something. But that is only true when using electronics where there's actually a chance of inserting the battery the wrong way (like when using AA/AAA batteries), flat lipos can usually only be inserted one way where the battery contacts make contact with the pins.
Anyway, if the polarity was wrong the screens would not likely light up, because LEDs are polarized and only allow power to pass through when they're connected the right way (up to a point, if you go much above the rated voltage the LEDs will just blow and short)
It is likely there are other issues preventing it from booting, and you might very well have blown something when you swapped the polarity thinking that was the issue.

 

[CynicalPotatoe]

The second behavior you are talking about is more like what you would expect when the polarity is reversed. Usually in electronics there will be a diode preventing you from using the battery the wrong way, because if power is allowed to pass through the wrong way it will usually blow something. But that is only true when using electronics where there's actually a chance of inserting the battery the wrong way (like when using AA/AAA batteries), flat lipos can usually only be inserted one way where the battery contacts make contact with the pins.
Anyway, if the polarity was wrong the screens would not likely light up, because LEDs are polarized and only allow power to pass through when they're connected the right way (up to a point, if you go much above the rated voltage the LEDs will just blow and short)
It is likely there are other issues preventing it from booting, and you might very well have blown something when you swapped the polarity thinking that was the issue.

Yikes, well they’re sending me another board so I can confirm whether or not that board was bad. It doesn’t make sense that they would send it with the ground cable soldered to the positive joint and the positive cable soldered to the ground joint. Either way, I’m waiting for the new board to arrive and if it’s still the same problem I’ll continue diagnosis from there. Luckily, if I did damage the main board, they’re fairly inexpensive. Thank for your help

 

[Amez]

Yikes, well they’re sending me another board so I can confirm whether or not that board was bad. It doesn’t make sense that they would send it with the ground cable soldered to the positive joint and the positive cable soldered to the ground joint. Either way, I’m waiting for the new board to arrive and if it’s still the same problem I’ll continue diagnosis from there. Luckily, if I did damage the main board, they’re fairly inexpensive. Thank for your help

I brought a bundle of DSi power boards from China a couple of years ago and they also appeared to have the wires the wrong way but they all worked fine. They had just mixed the colours of the wires up.