Who has taken their DS apart? (need to fix/clean touch screen)

[ma]

My good old launch day DS Lite has had touch screen calibration issues in the upper right corner, and I finally got annoyed with it and tried the toothbrush cleaning method shown on Nintendo's web site. This actually made things much, much worse (maybe pushing the dirt even further under the lip of the screen?), and now the upper right quadrant of my touch screen is completely hosed.

So before I replace this thing, I thought I'd try to take it apart and clean the edges of the screen. I ordered the necessary screwdriver from play-asia, and am just waiting for it to show up to attempt this repair. So has anybody else had to do anything similar? What am I getting myself into?

I figure the best case scenario is that I fix my DS Lite for $5, and the worst case scenario is that I ruin a very nice Gameboy DS (that's what I call it now that it's only good for gameboy games).

 

[crunchewy]

First - that cleaning info on the Nintendo site is for the fat DS only! Their equivalent troubleshooting guide for the DS Lite makes no mention of that technique. So, unfortunately, trying to do that may have been a mistake.

As far as self-replacing the touchscreen, my advice is to not do it, and instead sell it on ebay with full disclosure of its condition. You will be surprised how much money you'll get for it and you'll feel good about yourself since you didn't rip anyone off. Then use that money to fund a new DS.

I tried to replace the touchscreen on my old DS Lite and it was an absolute failure. First, it wasn't easy replacing the touchscreen. You have to actually separate the touchscreen from the LCD, then put the the new one on, and hope that in the process you don't trash the double-sided tape that holds both together. I more or less managed to do all that, but then I got to the point of needing to reconnect the touchscreen cable to the DS. That connector is very akwardly placed and very small and, as it turns out, fragile. I broke the tiny black piece that hold the cable in place. At this point I really did have a DS Lite that could only play GBA games. There was no way to connect the touchscreen at all without replacing that connector. Ouch.

So... I sold it on ebay with full disclosure not only of the condition, but with how it got into that condition and I still got something like $50 for it. If you sell one that simply has calibration issues and that you haven't tried to repair you'll get more.

Of course if you are especially handy with these type of things you could probably do it yourself, but I obviously wasn't good enough at it.

 

[AndrewCP]

I think you should be able to find some nice visual tutorials online with a lot of pictures. There's some videos on youtube as well for disassembling the DS. I don't think I'll ever attempt this anyway, it seems a bit complicated to take the DS apart and put it back together again. I might end up screwing it up.

I guess the $5 sending it to Nintendo solution sounds better if you're unsure of what to do. Why does it cost $5? You can request that they send you a pre-paid envelope but that takes some time so I'm assuming that's why you're paying money to send the DS so you don't have to wait?

The thing is though, the DS Lite build quality doesn't seem that great (mostly around the hinge area) and what I'd do is probably get used to taking these things apart so I can fix any problems that occur with the system.

 

[Miranda]

Here's a DS Lite disassembly guide. It looks like the directions there will get you to a point where you can have the touch screen fully exposed so that you can try to clean the edges of it.

 

[ma]

Thanks for the replies folks. Several clarifications:

Nintendo gave me two options.
Option 1: Send in DS, pay $75 for replacement + $7.50 shipping.
Option 2: Pay $85+tax for a refurb unit.

Looking on ebay, it looks like completely broken DS Lites sell for ~$50, so that seems like a pretty good option. Thanks for pointing that out cruchewy. Combined with the $85 unit from Nintendo I won't be out that much moneyu.

AndrewCP-sorry if it wasn't clear, but the $5 was to order a tri-wing screwdriver from play-asia to take this thing apart.

At this point, I think I'll probably not bother trying to take it apart. I assume that it will be worth more on Ebay as it is now, rather than risk messing up the internals.

Thanks for the tips folks!