I have a GBA SP (AGS-CPU-01) I received for a song and a dance, but it never liked charging. I always had to really bend the charger port to get the orange LED to turn on.
Finally deciding I would sit down and play with it, I thought these problems might be due to EM8, which appears to be a common-mode RF choke on the inputs. I found this imgur gallery: https://imgur.com/a/FjS2Z that seemed to corroborate that this could be the culprit. So I tried to reflow the solder a few times (successfully fixing the +5.2V connection, but not the ground one), and after the fourth round of course I broke it. (To be fair, after three times, it may not have been fixable in this way...)
It's not great, but I've now bypassed it with a pair of 50ga jumpers. RF chokes aren't "supposed" to be urgent in this way, anyway, and it now charges happily.
For reference, this part is 100 thou by 80 thou and 50 thou thick; it appears to be exactly the same as TDK's ACM2520 common-mode chokes. Can't tell which compromise of inductance vs conductivity they chose here, but I only see 10 turns on the outside of the choke.
Anyway, I'm just posting this on the off chance that it sounds familiar, or so that if it happens to someone else's GBA SP in the future it'll be sitting waiting to be remembered.
Finally deciding I would sit down and play with it, I thought these problems might be due to EM8, which appears to be a common-mode RF choke on the inputs. I found this imgur gallery: https://imgur.com/a/FjS2Z that seemed to corroborate that this could be the culprit. So I tried to reflow the solder a few times (successfully fixing the +5.2V connection, but not the ground one), and after the fourth round of course I broke it. (To be fair, after three times, it may not have been fixable in this way...)
It's not great, but I've now bypassed it with a pair of 50ga jumpers. RF chokes aren't "supposed" to be urgent in this way, anyway, and it now charges happily.
For reference, this part is 100 thou by 80 thou and 50 thou thick; it appears to be exactly the same as TDK's ACM2520 common-mode chokes. Can't tell which compromise of inductance vs conductivity they chose here, but I only see 10 turns on the outside of the choke.
Anyway, I'm just posting this on the off chance that it sounds familiar, or so that if it happens to someone else's GBA SP in the future it'll be sitting waiting to be remembered.