Nothing’s more frustrating than a controller refusing to charge just as you want to game with it. First off: Reset your hardware. That tends to remove any little glitches keeping it from recognizing power.
The little reset button is located on the rear of the controller. Find it next to label that has your controller’s model number on it. Using a pin, depress the button, and keep USB cable attached. This will force device to restart its internal connection logic.
Testing Battery Voltage
Simple resets resolve issues that might be harder to address. Wait for the device to respond via blue light bar. The light will flash briefly, which is a good sign.
Try a reset first and then bypass the console. No? OK. Maybe it’s not your controller at all. Perhaps your PlayStation just has a bad USB port. Check the label for power input in the rear of your console to rule that out.
On your adapter, it will say something like 800 milliamps at 5 volts. So you’ll be looking for an adapter that has roughly the same amount of current and voltage. This is very important because using a different adapter could damage battery. Then you locate a USB wall charger that matches the specs, and then plug the controller right into that.
If not, then this step will tell you if the console are holding you back.
You’ve exhausted all options: external charging doesn’t work. It’s time to take it apart. Time to use that screwdriver. Time to patiently open up the controller. Carefully remove screws securing the back plate. I am looking at battery now, checking for any signs of failure or wear.
Remove the shell and you get to the guts of it all. Here’s the battery, a small lithium-ion rectangle. Use a digital multimeter to check voltage. The readout is 3.630 volts. Why does that matter? Well, a good battery will register roughly 3.
Fully charged it reads 6 volts. Anything significantly lower then that means the cell is bad. It can’t holds a charge very well. You take the new replacement to be compared to the old battery. The new battery clearly shows safety markings and label information.
If your battery were dead, you would of throw it out and install the fresh one.
When was the last time that if your car battery were dead, you’d just chuck it? You’d put a new one in.
But it has a good voltage reading on your meter. So your battery should be okay. This leads us to the next likely culprit. Check connection between the controller and the PCB where the battery connects. That’s the control board. The control board controls the charge process. If you have a bad control board, no current will ever reach cells.
Next, you’ll take your multimeter and use it to check voltage on both ends of the circuit board where your battery terminals attaches. When you plug in the charger and test, the display reads 4.193 volts.
This means that current is traveling properly through the charging system. If your meter displays roughly 4.2 volts, it’s safe to assume the charging circuit are also working.
The problem has to be somewhere else along the cable path if it’s getting power into the battery. Maybe the USB port itself is damaged or no longer seated correctly within its housing. Perhaps there’s a break in the internal wiring that connects it to the board? Those are hardware problems deeper in the system and will need to be replaced as well.
Eliminate variables one by one
To fix a controller, you remove variables until it works. Software reset first, then external power source. Only check the internal battery as a last resort.
Why? It’s cheaper and faster this way. You know exactly where the issue happened. Knowing exactly what needs to be fixed means there is no guessing game. Worth it.
