How To Fix Nintendo DSi L and R Buttons

My son’s been having a problem with his Nintendo DSi. The L and R buttons (also known as shoulder buttons) seem to intermittently fail. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t.

This is not the first time he’s had an issue with the DSi. While it was under warranty he did something that would be called stupid if someone my age did it but innocent and cute for a kid his age. Since it was under warranty I was able to send it back to Nintendo for repair with minimal cost.

Because of what he previously did (which I will not reveal here) and the fact that the unit was no longer under warranty I kept telling him that I couldn’t send it for repair and he’d have to learn to take better care of his stuff.

Earlier this week I spotted him using my daughter’s DSi to play one of his games. When I asked him why he wasn’t using his own he said because this was a game that absolutely needed the shoulder buttons. So I set off on a search to see if I could find a way to fix it.

My first inclination was to open the unit and re-seat the buttons. So I got out my screwdrivers and started to loosen the first screw. But before I got too far I thought I’d do some checking online to see if anyone else had done this before. I’d hate to open it up and see that I can’t fix it the way I thought or it goes back together in a different way than I thought. It’s a good thing I thought to do this because the solution was much simpler than I would have thought.

The solution I found works under the assumption that the buttons and contacts are in proper position but that dirt has somehow worked its way between the contacts so as to render the buttons not functional. The solution is odd but it worked for me. Here it is:

  1. Wrap your lips around the buttons to form a seal around the shell that surrounds them. The whole button as well as the gap between the button and the shell should be inside the seal.
  2. Blow as hard as you can.

Though it sounds (and looks) odd the idea here is simple: blow the dirt off the contacts. Thankfully it worked for me and my son was able to use his own DSi again. Maybe it’ll work for you too.

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