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Recap guide

Recap the Game Boy Advance and SP

Surface mount parts on a small board. The write-ups here show what the job looks like before you start.

Open the interactive checklist Tick off each capacitor as you replace it. It saves in your browser.

Difficulty: Medium

Which board do I have?

Boards changed during production. These notes come from the linked sources, and many are only partly documented, so check the board in front of you.

  • GBA AGB-001 with AGB-CPU-01 to AGB-CPU-04 (2001-2003) (Low confidence). How to tell: Board revision is visible inside the battery compartment through the battery clip hole; these early boards use a 40-pin LCD connector. Capacitors: No capacitor list per revision was found; a hitmanmcc log says an AGB-001 was recapped with fresh electrolytics but gives no board number or values. Capacitor list differs from other revisions: not known. Source
  • GBA AGB-001 with AGB-CPU-10 and later (2002 onward) (Low confidence). How to tell: Same battery compartment check; later boards use a 32-pin LCD connector and have better battery life. Capacitors: No capacitor difference from the early boards is documented. Capacitor list differs from other revisions: not known. Source
  • GBA SP AGS-001 (2003-2005) (Low confidence). How to tell: Frontlit screen that can be switched off; most board revisions are nearly identical and AGS-CPU-30 merges some ICs. Capacitors: One hitmanmcc write-up calls the SP's single electrolytic capacitor the lowest-maintenance Game Boy recap, mentioning the AGS-001 and AGS-101 without giving values or mounting style. Capacitor list differs from other revisions: not known. Source
  • GBA SP AGS-101 (2005-2009) (Low confidence). How to tell: Backlit screen with a slight gray-green tint when off; one board revision, AGT-CPU-01. Capacitors: Same hitmanmcc note about a single electrolytic; a GBAtemp thread has users asking about C48 and C67 on an AGS-101 and one posting a leaked electrolytic. Capacitor list differs from other revisions: not known. Source

Where to start

Clues from write-ups and forum threads, not a diagnosis. Low confidence means one thread or one repair; high means several write-ups agree.

  • Quiet or crackly sound (Low confidence). One iFixit fix for crackly, faint GBA sound was cleaning the headphone jack, with capacitors suggested only as an alternative. Try the jack first. Source
  • The SP is the easy one (Low confidence). One write-up says the SP has just one electrolytic capacitor, on both the AGS-001 and AGS-101 boards, which makes it the easiest recap in the family. Source

Tips, tales and maybes

Found in write-ups and forum threads. These are other people's reports, not tested by us. Check part references and values against your own board.

  • Tip: Quiet speaker: C31 (Low confidence). In an r/GameboyAdvance thread (seen on the lr.us.psf.lt Reddit mirror) replies listed what to try for a very quiet GBA: clean the volume wheel, jack and power switch, then replace the audio caps, naming C31 for speaker volume, then consider a dehum mod, with the amp IC as a last resort. The owner had already replaced the speaker. Source
  • Story: SP with a cap missing from the board (Low confidence). One iFixit asker found a capacitor had fallen off the mainboard of a dead-speaker SP and asked whether a 100uF 16V SMD part would do. The original was marked differently on that unit, and the thread has no answer. Source
  • Watch out: SP no sound even after replacing the cap (Low confidence). Another iFixit asker swapped in a known-good speaker and replaced the cap on an SP and still had no sound, so a cap swap is not guaranteed to fix SP audio. No resolution was posted. Source

Before you start

  • Surface mount parts are small. Practice on a dead board first if you can.

Guides we used

This page and the interactive bench are built from these. They have the photos and the full detail, so please read them and support their authors.

The ConsoleMods Game Boy capacitor page, content under Creative Commons Attribution unless noted.

The capacitor list

We have not checked a capacitor list for this machine yet, so none is shown. Follow the guide above for your board, then add the capacitors in the interactive checklist and it builds a shopping list for you.

Skip the sourcing

While you are in there

Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. These links only search by name. Disclosure

Steps, tools and safety

The steps, the tools in top, middle and budget picks, and the safety list are the same for every machine, so they live on one page: How to recap, step by step.

Values are shown as published in the guides above, and boards changed during production. Check the board in front of you. A recap involves hot tools and, on some machines, dangerous voltages. You do it at your own risk.

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