Ugh, I think I may have the dreaded “glitchy display” problem in my VB. It has always worked fine but I haven’t played it for a couple weeks, and now when I booted it up I sometimes notice something odd. I don’t get the usual characteristics of the glitchy display problem, such as horizontal/vertical lines or mirrored images or one side not working.

What happens is, the left eye sometimes has slightly-flickering brightness. I can only really tell this when there is a static image on screen, and if I look at it with the right eye only it appears solid and accurate, but when I look with the left eye the brightest reds appear to slightly flicker in brightness. It doesn’t seem to happen with any darker shades of red, it only does it on the “true red” parts of the image. Now, when I view both eyepieces together the flickering is still there but less obvious, and the 3D depth still works fine, and there are no artifacts on screen that shouldn’t be there. Gameplay is still fine and I usually don’t notice the flickering in-game. But there was one time while playing Teleroboxer that the left eye suddenly jumped up in brightness. As in, the whole image in the left eye became brighter than the right eye, which caused a weird ghosting effect while looking with both eyes.

So, is this due to the ribbon cable? I don’t have a modified bit or special screwdriver to open up my VB so I can’t try touching the ribbon cable to see if the display glitches. I am very proficient at soldering and I would be able to fix the display if I could get it open, but I don’t want to invest time and resources into this if the ribbon cable isn’t the problem. And I haven’t heard of these symptoms happening to other people so I’m not 100% sure that is the problem. So is the cable what is causing the brightness changes or not?

Hmm…I haven’t heard of that problem before.

Have you tried the VB in a different position to see if the problem changes? As in, try it horizontal, vertical (ie, screens facing the floor), upside down, and so on. While this won’t solve the problem, it might help troubleshoot it.

Also, are you running it off batteries or is it plugged in to the wall? If using batteries, have you tried new/fresh ones? (might it be a power-related issue?)

I run the VB off of the official AC adapter only. However, when I had the VB set up at my computer desk I never noticed this issue, and then when I moved the VB to a different room and played it on the floor (and plugged into a different outlet), that’s when I started noticing it. But like I said, there were a few weeks in between so I suppose anything could have happened. The outlet that it’s plugged into now is actually an extension cord with some phone chargers also plugged in, so maybe there is a noise problem in the cord or the VB is causing erratic current draw or something. When I get home I’ll try it straight from the outlet and see if the problem goes away.

I will try your suggestion of playing from different angles and see if it gets better or worse. Again, it doesn’t always do this. It seems like when I first turn the system on it is fine, and then after a few minutes (5ish) it may or may not start to get the flickering brightness problem. And it’s more obvious in some games than others – games like Red Alarm make it very hard to tell there is anything wrong, because there is so much black in that game.

And like I said, I have never seen any artifacts or lines that shouldn’t be there, and the depth works perfectly.

I have had the brightness problem before and it went away with soldering the ribbon cable. Doesn’t say it will solve it for you, but it might certainly be the glitchy display problem….. Only real problem of the VB design in my opinion. Though when you have solved it by soldering, you are a happy camper and it won’t return!

How do I obtain a screw driver that is capable of taking apart the VB? Is there stock product somewhere that will work or is it necessary to modify something?

Yep… that’s the normal display cable problem. One of the brightness clock pins is probably floating/intermittent.

DogP