Question GBA SP's buttons turned to mush after mod attempt (is it fixable?)

[TheCorruptedBit]

Hello everyone,

Recently I did a shell-swap on my GBA SP and attempted some modding, but nothing came out of it and I re-sealed the case. Upon firing it up for a test, I noticed something odd - the A and B buttons are almost completely unresponsive, with an incredible amount of pressure needing to be applied to register a press. I thought that perhaps the button membrane was too short to push the switch down all the way, but after swapping in my original things aren't much better. Is this a known issue, and is there any way to fix it?

PS - I did some soldering around, including C25. I'm not sure if it's relevant but I want to include it in case it is.

 

[Wesk]

Pics plz

 

[TheCorruptedBit]

You asked and you shall recieve! /s
Gameboy still powers up and runs as usual, only problem being A&B.

Here's the (seemingly maligned) attempt at soldering to C25. Although the soldering worked, the joint was ripped out as it was not strong enough.

And here are AB.

One thing I did notice was that the replacement membrane I got was thinner and less firm than the OEM one, but even after replacing with OEM membranes and buttons AB were still unresponsive.

If there's any other pieces of the puzzle that are missing, please let me know so that I can get down to the bottom of this.

 

[Wesk]

What is the purpose of the C25 capacitor?

 

[TheCorruptedBit]

Audio switching capacitor, but I thought that perhaps a fried one could cause chaos elsewhere.