Hellooo @chacal231077,
.. and that's exactly what happened
it worked for a while,
now I was testing again as I replaced the battery with a battery holder and it stopped working..
Luckily I have another one, but it is a different revision.. so motherboard and daughter are different (only the cpu board is interchangeable),
and if I use this other known working daughterboard with the compromised motherboard it boots (even though the game is glitchy, characters don't get rendered! only the environment.)..
I figured there was something wrong with the daughterboard then, but wasn't sure what..
I started reflowing some of those little chips, but still no luck.
I'll try the connector pins as you suggested.
Thanks for the help!!
.. and that's exactly what happened

it worked for a while,
now I was testing again as I replaced the battery with a battery holder and it stopped working..
Luckily I have another one, but it is a different revision.. so motherboard and daughter are different (only the cpu board is interchangeable),
and if I use this other known working daughterboard with the compromised motherboard it boots (even though the game is glitchy, characters don't get rendered! only the environment.)..
I figured there was something wrong with the daughterboard then, but wasn't sure what..
I started reflowing some of those little chips, but still no luck.
I'll try the connector pins as you suggested.
Thanks for the help!!