Repairing a Nintendo Gameboy Advance SP

Fixing the Gameboy to play classic Zelda

Mar. 26, 2017 - Willem L. Middelkoop

This month Nintendo released the Switch with Zelda "Breath of the Wild". The new console received positive reviews. The new Zelda game is amazing and can be played on-the-go, thanks to the portability of the Nintendo Switch. But it its hardly the first Nintendo device that features the mythical kingdom of Hyrule with Link and princess Zelda. I found an old Gameboy Advance, perfect for playing classic Zelda games... but it was in need for repair!

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Zelda — Zelda "Link's awakening" from 1993 on the repaired Gameboy Advance SP

The buttons can be removed easily to be cleaned

Arrange the screws around something easy to recognise (the battery) to easily keep track of where the (different) screws should

This old Gameboy was broken: it stops working if you — This old Gameboy was broken: it stops working if you "squeeze" it... an indication of some electrical failure.

The new Zelda game — The new Zelda game "Breath of the Wild" sets the new benchmark for open world games according to the popular blog The Verge. It looks amazing!

Spot the differences: the original faulty logic board above and the replacement on the bottom

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