Ive always wanted to add a VB to my game collection so when one popped up on craigslist for $100 a mile away from my moms house I bought it and had her mail it to me. I figured it came with the stand, the controller, the battery pack, the ac pack, Teleroboxer, Warioland, Mario Tennis, Mario Clash and Red Zone so it was worth it even if I had to bake one of the led strips. So low and behold I get it and the right eye has massive scan lines.. so I try baking it numerous times just making things worse. So I brake down and get out the soldering iron and do the solder technique. That got it back to how it was when I got it but didn’t fix it.I tried swapping the left and right eye strips and the scan lines followed so its something to so with the led strips or the ribbon cable. Going to do continuity tests on the ribbon cable tonight. Any other suggestions?? Dead leds?? Does anyone have a led strip they would like to sell? Thanks!

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Pretty impossible to see from the picture you just shared here. I have come across a few displays that had one or a couple of dead pixels. If the repair has been done right, the dead pixels show as horizontal perfect lines and do not shift any time at all.

This problem really sucks as it is impossible to fix unfortunately and totally breaks the experience of playing your Virtual Boy the way it is supposed to play.

Only way is to indeed just replace it. I have no spare displays laying around for that though.

If you make a picture of it with a camera on a tri-pod in a total dark room, it is pretty easy to make a good photo of the picture the VB is displaying.

The reason it shows as a complete horizontal dead line, is because there is only one horizontal pixel over the whole display per vertical pixel. The VB makes the picture have more horizontal pixels by using the vibrating mirrors to create a full picture. Hence getting a completely dead horizontal line.

Yeah the pic kinda sucks.. took it with phone as it was the only thing I had at the moment. I’m pretty sure its dead leds. Prior to soldering the black lines never went away but if you even slightly touched the ribbon cable you would get all kinds of garbage on the screen(minus where the black lines are). After the soldier fix no more garbage but black lines are still there. Much more then one or two leds though… if it has 224 leds then id say more like 10-20 are dead. Going to check ribbon cable tonight make sure there’s no broken leads as that seems like a lot of failed leds.

So I did a continuity test from the array board to the opposite end of the ribbon cable where it plugs into the motherboard and it passed with flying colors. So I’m assuming that unless there is something that can be fixed on an array board its not fixable. Is this a common problem? Just wondering as I plan to get a parts unit that had faulty displays from ebay or something. Are a majority of them fixable with the solder fix?? Thanks. I’m uploading another attempt at pic too.

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This is indeed a severe case of dead pixels. It is a very rare thing in my experience and haven’t seen it on US models yet. Is yours a JAP or USA model?

I think 99% of the displays should be fixable if you are good with soldering as you seem you are. So that could be a good solution, buying a broken one cheap and fix the displays.

My experience with buying broken VB’s “as is” isn’t all that good though, once had two VBs where one didn’t have its displays anymore. After some discussion with the seller, I got a partial refund (to my satisfactory as well), but I don’t like these kind of practices.

I’m assuming USA. VN102208717.