Solved PMS2 behaving like it's in shipping mode

[s00per64]

I'm near completion of my N64/Wii portable (see Summer Contest) and I've hit a snag. I've reassembled the whole thing in a new back half and connected an RVL-AMP but it's doing something weird now.

The system only boots when it's plugged in. It's acting as though the PMS2 is permanently stuck in shipping mode. When plugged in, it will power on and off without issue but when unplugged it can only be powered off and not back on. The battery is receiving current and charging according to RVLoader.

The RVL-AMP also seems to need some troubleshooting, but IDK if that's related.

 

[JamesPi]

Hmm, I believe I remember someone having this issue a while back. Have you tried removing the batteries yet? I believe that's another way that resets shipping mode to off if it is shipping mode that's causing the issue.

 

[s00per64]

Found the problem... I don't know how this happened as I didn't touch any of these lines when I swapped case halves, but the UP and BTN lines shorted together from the PD board. Not sure how the false high/low states messed with things, but it's booting fine now that that's fixed.

@JamesPi Thanks for the suggestion anyway!

 

[JamesPi]

Found the problem... I don't know how this happened as I didn't touch any of these lines when I swapped case halves, but the UP and BTN lines shorted together from the PD board. Not sure how the false high/low states messed with things, but it's booting fine now that that's fixed.

@JamesPi Thanks for the suggestion anyway!

Ahh, that makes a lot of sense actually. Glad you were able to figure it out in time! The final build is incredible, great work on it. The reason that messed with things is because UP is the power for the SD card, and BTN is (as you probably know) the power button signal. When it's not plugged in, UP has some power on the line, usually around 0.5V and when plugged in I believe it goes to ground. So when it's not plugged in, I'm assuming that however the ground ends up getting to the BTN pad, it's not enough to bring both the UP pad and the BTN pad on the PMS down to ground, or the other possibility is bringing it to ground just messes the PMS up from booting at all. Either way, I'm glad everything was a simple fix, and congrats on your build!