Gameboy Advance SP has power but won't boot

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steo2k10
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Gameboy Advance SP has power but won't boot

Post by steo2k10 » Wed Sep 15, 2010 3:37 am

Hi. I have 3 GBA SP's for and 2 of them I had for 6 years work great. But my friend gave me the third one 2 or 3 years back and when I turn on the power the screen just stays white and nothing happens. Sometimes if I turn it off and back on several times gameboy comes up and it makes the sound but when it makes the second sound (the sound that sounds kind of like collecting a coin in mario) it's really low pitched and slow for some reason. I never got it to boot and make it that far with a game inserted, turning it off and back on results in the white screen again. Does anyone know what might be wrong with this or is it no use unless I replace the PCB?

Thanks in advance.

Snow_Cat
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Re: Gameboy Advance SP has power but won't boot

Post by Snow_Cat » Wed Sep 15, 2010 10:40 am

Could be the resonator/crystal.
Do you have an oscilloscope?

steo2k10
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Re: Gameboy Advance SP has power but won't boot

Post by steo2k10 » Thu Sep 16, 2010 12:27 pm

No I don't have one. it has to be a failing chip because putting pressure on parts makes no difference whether it boots or not and I haven't got it to boot in a while now.

Snow_Cat
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Re: Gameboy Advance SP has power but won't boot

Post by Snow_Cat » Thu Sep 16, 2010 4:10 pm

Or it could be a failing oscillator that isn't triggering the clock correctly, causing it the chip to misstep, to slow down, and crash.

This is sometimes 'helped' by interrupting power to the system, since that causes 'ringing' that gets the oscilator to sort-of-work a little. And would not be affected by applying pressure to different parts, since it is not a mechanical -connection problem.

I don't know how to instruct you to test for this though.

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