Just tried this, sure enough it was the problem. The little thing on the end is too short to reach, and on that one specifically there's a lot of plastic in the way.
I might add a glob of solder to the metal to see if that sorts it, otherwise i'll need to shave away some plastic. It's an aftermarket case so I'm happy to, but it works perfectly with a bit of tin foil.

Yay, thanks!

AndehX's solution is very likely to work; I've had this happen with weird batteries before.

That contact doesn't "bend" (it's behind the plastic of the shell) so yeah, you'll need to stuff something in there to get them to work.

Ultimately I'm with Danimal - I've used Eneloops for ages and love them. Ultimately you don't want to be at a gig backstage needing to change batteries and you drop your little foil ball and can't find it and can't get your gameboy to turn on and... so yeah, just get some better batteries.

I'll tell you exactly what is happening here.  The positive end of the rechargable (the end that protrudes) doesn't protrude enough to touch the contact inside the Gameboy.  The same end on the none-rechargeable battery, however, does protrude enough, which is why it works in that far right slot.

I would suggest opening the Gameboy up and bend that right contact forward so that it can make contact with the rechargeable battery, or just pad the space out with some tin foil or something.

I use Eneloops, they work great

There is that, but there is also the fact that Nintendo produced a licensed DMG-rechargeable battery pack.

i believe so, but keep in mind that rechargeable battery technology 20+ years ago was awful compared to modern rechargeable batteries

Doesn't the nintendo Gameboy manual say not to use rechargeable batteries anyway?

Weirdly they all tested perfect with a voltmeter, and they all seemed to work in other devices without any problems at all.

I'll give eneloops a look, thanks!

mAh

You could have a bad battery?

i'd recommend not using them, doesn't sound like whoever makes the ikea batteries does good quality control... i can definitely recommend eneloops, and as a bonus they hold charge very well in between uses...

Thanks for that link, I'll give it a read through later.

I'm super confused honestly, but they just don't work.
Actually something interesting just happened. If the normal battery is in the right hand slot with 3 rechargables, it works. If it's in any of the other 3 slots with 3 rechargables, it doesn't turn on at all.

This is super weird.

I can't really help you, I can only link you this: http://blog.gg8.se/wordpress/2009/07/22 … ge-ranges/ and say it's not normal for your batteries to do this

I've recently bought 4 IKEA NiMH rechargable batteries, thinking I'd be able to use them in my DMG to firstly save on the cost of a ton of batteries, but secondly to prevent the possibility of the batteries leaking which seems to happen to me a HUGE amount.

Unfortunately though, they don't work. Well, all 4 of them don't.
I've checked the voltages with a meter, and they all output 1.38 volts. Two of them work fine in a GBC, and I've got a USB power adapter that lets me run it off that which is only 5v.

With 3 rechargables and a normal battery in, the GB powers on and is perfect. With 4 rechargables, I get absolutely nothing. No hints of life whatsotever, even though it's only 0.12 of a volt lower.

It doesn't make sense to me why dropping below ~5.6v would result in it totally refusing to turn on, considering the USB adapter only runs at 5 and that works fine.

It's not an issue if they don't work since I can use the batteries elsewhere, but I was hoping it would.

Thanks