Repairing a broken Nintendo DS Lite hinge
Recently I bought a few Nintendo DS Lites, just to tinker with them. I didn’t want to pay too much so I didn’t mind if something was wrong with them. I bought three from different sellers for about 50 euros (excl. postage) in total: one has a cart slot that doesn’t work 100% of the time, a broken hinge and looks like a dog had been chewing on it. Another one was fine but had dried up Coca Cola inside the slot-2 area and the slot-2 cover. A black one looked decent, but just had a broken hinge and was missing a stylus and slot-2 cover. There were also two flash carts, an R4 (seemed original) and an M3 Real Sakura with a 4Gb micro SD card. The R4 would only take a regular micro SD card (no hc or xc) and I needed to find a suitable firmware for it. LinFox Domain archives all firmwares for probably all flash carts out there, an invaluable resource!
As I said, the black one was missing the slot-2 cover, the stylus and a broken hinge. The broken hinge is a very common problem that’s not too hard to fix. Even with a broken hinge the system plays fine, but if you get excited during gameplay you might just suddenly flip the screen and close the clamshell… I think it’s worth fixing.
To fix the hinge you need to replace the top frame that holds the screen. Unfortunately you have to take the whole system apart in order to replace this top frame. It seems that you can only buy entire replacement shells (on AliExpress for example, not Nintendo original obviously) and they go for 10 to 14 dollars which isn’t particularly cheap if you just need the top frame. I could use a stylus and a slot-2 cover so in the end the price is ok.
As always, consult a teardown before taking things apart! The teardown at iFixit is great!
Bottom half
Top half, speakers left and right, top right is the wifi antenna, screen in the middle.
Initially I wanted to just replace the top frame and keep the original outer shell but it wouldn’t fit nicely. Remember, these replacement parts are not made by Nintendo so they aren’t manufactured with the same quality standards.
When I got everything back together I tried to power it on but the bottom screen would just flash white once and the system would turn itself off again. I took it apart again and tried reseating the cable that connects the top screen, which fixed the problem. It has to be seated properly. The DS looks great again and the working hinge is such a relief.
Hinge repaired!