CarrieStronggrog
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Hi everyone,

I've noticed that my DMG gets very hot around the bottom side corner where my Pro-Sound jack is situated.

The Pro-sound output works good though but the metallic piece sticking out gets very hot when using it for a long time.. And so is the plastic around that side. Has anyone of you experienced that ?

I had to bring all my screwdrivers and soldering irons etc. at my parents' when I moved to a smaller apartment where I can't have too much stuff laying around. Which mean that I can't really open it up and have a look on what's going on under the hood.

What's your ideas of what it could be ?

I've dropped my DMG a lot throughout the years, I don't know if that could've been the cause for that heat building up...

Apeshit
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Sounds like the regulator is overheating. Unrelated to the pro sound jack.

I'm guessing your gameboy is backlit. What kind of backlight/cart are you using if so?

irony7
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Power regulator heating up, perhaps?

If the Prosound jack is located in the corner on the bottom of the upper shell to the left of the headphone jack, it's right next to the DC converter board. I understand there are heat issues, especially with early revisions of that board.

CarrieStronggrog
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Apeshit wrote:

Sounds like the regulator is overheating. Unrelated to the pro sound jack.

I'm guessing your gameboy is backlit. What kind of backlight/cart are you using if so?

Ah, ok I use the EMS cart with nonfinites V5 backlight, according to what he wrote on his website when I bought it there was no need for resistors or any other components.. The backlight is soldered onto two points on the same board as the screen, just below it.

irony7 wrote:

Power regulator heating up, perhaps?

If the Prosound jack is located in the corner on the bottom of the upper shell to the left of the headphone jack, it's right next to the DC converter board. I understand there are heat issues, especially with early revisions of that board.


That's exactly it, I never use any AC adaptor though, only batteries.. Is that DC converter situated on the same small chip that holds the headphone output ?
Edit: After further investigation I found that the heat seems to come more from the lower shell around the curved left corner facing the ground when it's laying flat on its' back.

Last edited by CarrieStronggrog (Apr 17, 2017 1:47 pm)

irony7
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It's the little board that sits alongside the battery compartment.

It comes in two revisions, the newest being labelled DC CONV2 DMG on the side of the board facing the battery compartment.  The older version has a tendency to heat up, I understand from reading DMG-01 hardware descriptions.  I forget when the older version was phased out, generally it'seems recommended to use a CPU revision 07 or 08 to address this problem - with those revisions you will be getting the new version power supply.

Which CPU revision does your DMG have?

Last edited by irony7 (Apr 17, 2017 12:07 pm)

CarrieStronggrog
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Judging from your photo, I could only imagine that it would be that little guy underneath the two capacitors(?) in the very corner that's causing the heat..

My DMG is labeled G261... on the back, does that min that it's the newer revision ? Around the power adaptor port it's marked "USE ONLY DMG 03 - 05"

Is this heat actually damaging my gameboy ?

Last edited by CarrieStronggrog (Apr 17, 2017 1:53 pm)

irony7
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The heat could degrade the electrolytic capacitors, so yes, possibly.

On this image of the back of the new model power regulator board you can see the revision model DC CONV2 DMG:

This board SHOULD not have overheating problems, by all accounts.  The older power regulator board, the DC CONVERTER DMG, has, I understand, a tendency to heat up.
You can check the board type without removing from the shell by checking how many black barrel caps the board has - the new one has three, the old one has only one.
Alternatively, you can check the CPU revision type of your DMG. Ifor you peek through the hole the push tab of your battery cover goes through, you can see the text "DMG-CPU-0x", where"x"is a digit from 1 to 8.

The CPU revision for the DMG in the picture is a 06, and has the old style board.  The 07 and 08 revision should have the new board (with less chance of heat buildup).

Apeshit
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I'd desolder the backlight and add somewhere around a 47 ohm resistor and tap into the unregulated power source to bypass the regulator.

irony7
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Apeshit wrote:

I'd desolder the backlight and add somewhere around a 47 ohm resistor and tap into the unregulated power source to bypass the regulator.

Unregulated power source = directly from the batteries, Apeshit?

Apeshit
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irony7 wrote:
Apeshit wrote:

I'd desolder the backlight and add somewhere around a 47 ohm resistor and tap into the unregulated power source to bypass the regulator.

Unregulated power source = directly from the batteries, Apeshit?

Yeah, the battery terminals would work. Or the power LED source on the front board.

There'll be some dimming of the backlight as the batteries drain of course. But it's better than a roasted gameboy.

irony7
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I didn't realize there was unregulated power running through the beast, Apeshit, good to know.

The batteries cut out when running the Gameboy on external power through the 6v in jack, don't they?  Better over the LED then.

catskull
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NUMBSKULL

If you do use unregulated power, just be aware that the backlight brightness will go down as your batteries die. That may or may not be an issue for you. We used to desolder the power indicator LED for the backlight, but we switched to the regulated power source.

BennVenn claims to have a drop in replacement power regulator ready to go. So it's possible that you could simply upgrade your regulator if/when he finishes it. Until then, yeah I'd probably go with the unregulated power.

CarrieStronggrog
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I used these solderpoints:

And my backlight dims slightly when playing a song in LSDJ effectively or when the battery get low. Is it connected to an unregulated source ? Is that bad for the console ?

I'm sorry catskull I didn't quite understand what you ment by "a drop in replacement power regulator", is Benn Venn planning to release replacement boards of this kind ?
I just checked my DMG through the little hole of the battery cover and I have CPU-06, which I guess means that I have the old revision and therefore the heating would be seen as something 'normal' ?

Is this destroying the components internally ?

I'm also under the impression that the heat wasn't as bad like 1-2 years ago.. But I really don't know.

Last edited by CarrieStronggrog (Apr 17, 2017 6:33 pm)

irony7
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What about running an extra regulator (buck/boost 5v dc-dc) parallel to the stock regulatorer to power the backlight?  Could that work to relieve the stock regulator from overheating?

Apeshit
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That's connected to regulated 5v source. Connecting to the unregulated power source is not bad for the console, it bypasses everything. Putting strain on the regulator with the high current draw from an EMS cart and a backlight is damaging to the console.

Apeshit
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irony7 wrote:

What about running an extra regulator (buck/boost 5v dc-dc) parallel to the stock regulatorer to power the backlight?  Could that work to relieve the stock regulator from overheating?

If you mean regulating directly from the battery terminals, yes. It's not even really needed to be honest. Backlights are plenty bright, and people connected them to the power LED source for years without any serious issues.