I have a weird issue going on with my new VB. It works perfectly fine on some games like Mario’s Tennis. Others, like Wario Land and Teleroboxer I seem to have a line in the middle of the screen. The odd thing is that if I move my head, the line moves. So it doesn’t seem tied down to any pixels on the actual screen. I appears one some games, and others not. And I’m extremely confused. It’s right in the center.

Is this a display issue or dirty cart, or what? I wouldnt even know how to clean these carts if I wanted to. I have a Galactic Pinball that won’t boot up and don’t know what to do.

Thanks for the suggestions.

For the second part I think it sounds like corroded contacts. Wipe them with alcohol or contact cleaner.

The first issues sounds like defective displays…had the same problem with my vb. Turned out that it reacted with lines showing up the most when i was playing 3d-intense graphics-heavy (bg, mg, fg at the same time) games.

This defect can have the silliest appearances, as I noticed so far. But quite certainly it sounds like a defective display cable….

i have two black lines in my right eye that i can notice on backgrounds with lots of red. i see it in wario ware, during the intro of panic bomber, and others. the lines move as i move my head/eyes. if i back away they get smaller, if i move closer they get larger. i’ve come to the determination that they are on the red plastic lenses.

does this describe what you are experiencing?

try some compressed air in the slot and around the contacts of the carts. once its cleaned keep a cart in the slot at all times, its the only way to really keep dust out.

Lester Knight wrote:
i have two black lines in my right eye that i can notice on backgrounds with lots of red. i see it in wario ware, during the intro of panic bomber, and others. the lines move as i move my head/eyes. if i back away they get smaller, if i move closer they get larger. i’ve come to the determination that they are on the red plastic lenses.

does this describe what you are experiencing?

try some compressed air in the slot and around the contacts of the carts. once its cleaned keep a cart in the slot at all times, its the only way to really keep dust out.

Yes that’s EXACTLY what I’m describing. The look smaller when I move my head back and move with my head. Right in the freakin center :(. What should I do?

Thanks for the tip on how to clean the games…

when i hold a really bright light up to the lense i can see imperfections in the plastic. i don’t see dirt, dust, or anything like that. i do not know if there is a way to fix it. you problem could be dirt or dust, so try carefully cleaning the outside. i would recommend a 100% cotton t-shirt. do not use anything like paper towels or tissue as those are made with wood fiber. you can also clean dirt on the inside but you would need to take the vb apart.

Lester Knight wrote:
when i hold a really bright light up to the lense i can see imperfections in the plastic. i don’t see dirt, dust, or anything like that. i do not know if there is a way to fix it. you problem could be dirt or dust, so try carefully cleaning the outside. i would recommend a 100% cotton t-shirt. do not use anything like paper towels or tissue as those are made with wood fiber. you can also clean dirt on the inside but you would need to take the vb apart.

Only thing is… it’s a perfectly straight horizontal line. I mean, you could be right. It could make sense it’s on the lense. Next time I boot up the VB I’ll see if the line is only in one eye. But like I said, it’s perfectly horizontal, and only visible in certain games. But it does “move” when my head moves. I donno. I don’t have the ability to open the VB. I know I was going to have to send it in for “repair” eventually, I just thought I’d have more time. I really hope this isn’t the ribbon going bad.

Ok, cleaning the lens seems to have helped. I don’t see the line as badly. Though I don’t know if it was the cleaning or the focus adjustments I did. The right lense is the trouble maker. After cleaning and focusing a few times in a row, I seem to have fixed the issue. I’m hoping it was a dirty lense and not the focusing that fixed it. I’ll keep you posted. I’ll leave it cool off and play it again later and see what happens.

Looks like i am experiencing the same now. Happened today when I installed my newly repaired screens. Shows up on the left eye, starting from the far right reaching to the middle (fading off after 2/5 of the screen lenghth).

I always kept it clean and treated it well. It cant be a scratch…what else could that be, except for dust?

I am sad to hear people having these issues, maybe a bad solder area?

These lines have nothing to do with the connection of the cables on the displays themselves. I also have done some cleaning which seemed to have helped it in my particular case.

Wolfman, try to use some rubbing alcohol (here in the Netherlands we call it washing benzeen) with a q-tip on the screen (rubbing alcohol is very good to clean plastic without damaging it at all).

The cleaning that I have seen most effect with was on the lenses though. It seems that they get dirty quite easily though are very hard to clean well since they have a very curvy surface.

WoLfMaN wrote:
Looks like i am experiencing the same now. Happened today when I installed my newly repaired screens. Shows up on the left eye, starting from the far right reaching to the middle (fading off after 2/5 of the screen lenghth).

I always kept it clean and treated it well. It cant be a scratch…what else could that be, except for dust?

I’ve noticed that it’s very hard to keep dust off of the mirrors. This can cause a darker, horizontal streak that doesn’t seem to span the whole width of the image. And you have to be careful cleaning it, because they smudge and scratch very easily, being “first surface” mirrors.

Also, you have to take a bit of care installing the display PCBs. I’ve had the foil on the non-soldered end delaminate and cause shorts. You can usually straighten them up and carefully reinsert them into the connector, though.