As I’m now short on space for all my retro stuff, I’m focusing on maintaining and repairing what I already have or looking for small items.

I recently bought a pair of non-working Nintendo DSi XLs with the intention of repairing them; the price obviously reflected the consoles‘ condition. The seller wrote in the ad that both consoles would eventually display a generic error screen prompting the user to turn off the console.

Once I had received the consoles, I verified that the error occurred at different times on the two consoles: on one, it appeared only when launching a game from a cartridge (the internal applications worked fine), while on the other, the error appeared when launching any application or game.

Nintendo DSi XL (burgundy red)

In the first case, I immediately identified the problem: a pin in the cartridge slot had broken.

Although the digitiser (the component that receives touch input on the lower screen) was working properly, it had some fairly noticeable scratches. I therefore separated it from the lower screen in order to replace it.

I ordered the spare parts on AliExpress: a cartridge slot, a digitiser and a stylus, as the original one was missing.

Meanwhile, I disassembled the DSi and removed the defective cartridge slot.

A few days later, I received the parts and was able to repair the motherboard.

The top screen was in good condition and, in general, the console had only a few small, not very noticeable scratches.

After a thorough cleaning, I reassembled the Nintendo DSi and tested it. I am very satisfied with the final result:

Nintendo DSi XL (yellow)

I was unable to resolve the error in the second console, however. From what I read online, it could have been a partially failed Wi-Fi card, but that was not the case. There is probably another problem with the motherboard that I cannot diagnose. So, I looked for a replacement motherboard, checking the ads for consoles that were worn out or had a broken display, in order to spend as little as possible. After a few days, I found this one:

The description said that the console would turn on and the blue LED and screen would glow for a moment before immediately turning off.

This console checks various components when booting up, and shuts down if one doesn’t respond: in this case, it detected that the top screen was missing. The fact that it still turned on for tests at boot time gave me hope that the motherboard was functioning properly.

In addition to the motherboard, which was fully functional, I also salvaged the bottom screen and its digitiser, both of which were in excellent condition (the original screen was slightly yellowed and its digitiser was scratched), and the bottom shell (the original had a damaged corner).

As the original yellow and black colouring has now been lost, I have decided to keep the red DSi as a collector’s item, while this will become my beater console, which I will occasionally use to play games. To this end, I have kept the red frame of the lower screen and replaced the yellow buttons with red ones. It’s my “Frankenstein” DSi XL.

The two screens are in very good condition.

There are a few more scratches on the shell than on the red DSi, but it works perfectly now, and I can discover all the best games released for this console.

I’d just like to add one more thing about the photos. Normally, I use my Canon SLR with an external flash, but this time I used an iPhone 16 Pro with a spotlight instead.