Simply put I have Mario’s tennis and a new virtual boy which won’t turn on, how do I identify what part of the system isn’t working and is there an easy fix?

Have you tried turning it off and then back on?

Sometimes Tallmonster2 there is a loose connection between the controller and the adapter. I’m not an engineer so I can’t help you much but I do know that sometimes the connection of the adapter and the controller is faulty. Also if using the battery pak be sure that the contacts arn’t corroded. I hope some of this helps.

Are you able to test other games? Sometimes the game may not work. You should also try and clean the contacts of the cartridge port and the game itself, because unlike the GameBoy, the VB will not turn on if it doesn’t detect a game plugged in, if I understand that correctly.

For the rest of this post, I’m going to assume you are using an AC adapter. In theory, you could do the same thing with a six-double-A battery pack. Monrintari does have a point, it could be a loose connection from the controller. What you could do is use some wire and electrical tape and stick the wires into the barrel of the power supply and, paying attention to the polarity of the power supply, attach the other end of the wires to the contacts of the controller to make sure it’s not the AC tap causing the problem. I think the left contact, with the controller facing down, is the positive side. If you don’t feel comfortable doing that, then you probably shouldn’t do that.

If you have a multimeter, you could check to see if you are getting the correct voltage out of the power supply, and if you do, you can use some wires to probe the 5th and 6th pin of the controller port to see if that voltage makes it through the controller.

If the voltage does make it through the controller, the next step is to check the voltage regulator. My system had a fauly voltage regulator, where the 5 volt pin was running significantly under 5 volts. That would cause the system to not show any signs of life.

Let’s say your problem is the voltage regulator. It’s probably not, but if it is, I am not aware of an easy fix for that short of buying another system and hoping the regulator is good. There was a recent post from speedyink showing a design for a supposed drop in replacement for that voltage regulator, but to my knowledge nothing like that is currently being produced.

The console does get power the speakers have feedback when turning off and I can hear the mirrors oscillating, I took it back to the game store and their copy of mario clash seemed to work on it (I didn’t test but I heard music) and they tried my Mario’s tennis in their other vb and it didn’t work, so I have a couple of other games on order to be here soon, so hopefully I’m all good and was indeed just my game!

Most likely problem is one of the capacitors throughout the virtual boy going bad, this is a common problem, and two of the virtual boys have had capacitors go bad in two different places from each-other. The older they get, the more likely they are to succumb to this problem, and luckily you can replace them opretty easily if you know how to solder. Console5 makes a complete re-cap kit with every capacitor to their specifications for replacing the entire console’s capacitors, which you can find here:
https://console5.com/store/virtual-boy-cap-kit.html

It may also just be that both the LED’s in both eyes have gone bad, try putting in mario clash again and pushing buttons on the controller for a minute to see if the music changes. If it doesn’t, then it’s refusing to boot so it’s probably a capacitor that went bad, (could be something else, but probably a capacitor somewhere) BUT if you can go through the menus and hear the music changing and buttons being pressed, then it could be the LED’s going bad. It’s the most common problem with Virtual Boys, but also the easier fix. The ribbon cable is held on by glue instead of soldered to the LED board from the main motherboard, and overtime it seperates, so to fix it you’ll have to either solder the VB ribbon cable yourself if you have some solder experience (here’s a great video tutorial that I used to solder my VB eyes:)

[Ethan.Snyder98]

Or get someone to solder them for you, which NES Freak is pretty fantastic at (here’s a link:)

Virtual boy Permanent Solder Screen Professional Repair Service

If re-capping or soldering based on troubleshooting doesn’t work, then it may be an individual part going bad, but this is a lot less common and would take some more troubleshooting, but hopefully I could at least steer you in the right direction to go about fixing your VB! 🙂
(also apologies for multiple posts, but it won’t show up as one post like it used to, guess that’s a glitch with the new website)

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Ethan.Snyder98.

All good on the multiple posts, I do appreciate the help, at the moment I believe it’s the game as the employees (2 of them) at the store tried there copy of mario clash and worked on mine and their other system, my game didn’t work on either, so I’m going to see what I can do about the game and this week I should be getting wario land and Japanese mario tennis (in box so score there) and it’ll all be good, if not then I’ll do some more troubleshooting and partial teardown, if needed I’ll definitely peruse the links you sent it’s very much appreciated!