Here’s some pictures of the patient, it’s terminal.

(screenshot brightness/contrast adjusted, I’ve never had to take a picture of a VB screen before)

I’ve been picking away at this VB on and off, hoping it isn’t actually as hard as it looks, but I give up now. First it was the disintegrating ribbon cable that I pitched out, then it was trying to hand wire the display to the main board, which is where I’ve reached my limit. Clearly the VB is well beyond my capabilities, and I’ve had to solder rather difficult things before. The above pictures were the best I could do, given the tools I have and the ridiculously tiny soldering required. I’m not even gonna try to solder to the other side, seems the ribbon cable has a nasty crease in it, it barely displays anything.

I don’t know what else to do at this point. Sell it for parts? Forget about it? I guess if I offered enough money, maybe someone on here could fix my Virtual Boy, but I doubt that, I’ve pretty much buggered this thing up permanently. I’d be surprised if anyone could fix it now. Well, I guess the right display is still fine, it’s the left one that’s been soldered to death. None of the traces burned but it’s a mess.

What do you guys think I should do now?

If u want u can send me the lcd and what Evers left of ur cables I can surface mount them or I’ll convert it to a new style cable if the traces are screwed send me the full console only or just the lcds and cables send me photos of what u got if there bad enough I may need to do a bypass mod to them my email is drunkencat129@gmail.com thanks

lol you guys are crazy… just buy a new unit 😛

Baptist wrote:
lol you guys are crazy… just buy a new unit 😛

never lol

Don’t know if the OP is still around – but if you had the same problem as him (I did), I can verify replacing the ribbon cable with wires works. I managed to fix one eye so far.

I went to hell and back with my display, thought I shorted stuff out, had many wires touch.. saw a good picture, a bad picture, no picture.. back to a good pictures. The display chip took a lot of abuse in terms of heat… but it still works.

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This is insanity 😄😄 If you guys knew how little it would take for me to give up and go buy a new VB, you’d be laughing right along with (or at) me. 😄

Quaze wrote:
This is insanity 😄😄 If you guys knew how little it would take for me to give up and go buy a new VB, you’d be laughing right along with (or at) me. 😄

Thinking that a “new” VB is guaranteed to work, while not insanity, is at least naivety…

Even VBs that were never opened and sat perfectly still in a shipping container for over a decade exhibit the display problems. It’s inherent in the design, and this kind of cable bypass or the (relatively much easier) standard solder fix are the only ways to make sure the glitches don’t return.

How many easily reparable VBs have you thrown away? 😛

RunnerPack wrote:

Quaze wrote:
This is insanity 😄😄 If you guys knew how little it would take for me to give up and go buy a new VB, you’d be laughing right along with (or at) me. 😄

Thinking that a “new” VB is guaranteed to work, while not insanity, is at least naivety…

Even VBs that were never opened and sat perfectly still in a shipping container for over a decade exhibit the display problems. It’s inherent in the design, and this kind of cable bypass or the (relatively much easier) standard solder fix are the only ways to make sure the glitches don’t return.

How many easily reparable VBs have you thrown away? 😛

Lol ok maybe that came off a bit like I’d throw it in the trash for a scuffed lens :p What I meant was that if the repair required any more than a regular Joe’s workshop expertise or soldering iron finesse, I’d probably sell it as-is to someone on these boards who really know what they’re doing, and get myself another unit. To answer your question (yes I know it wasn’t a “real” question :p), I’ve been lucky to never experience any mechanical issues at all with my VBs. Then again I have paid higher prices before to ensure I got units in great cosmetic/functional order, and being an OCD sufferer I pretty much handle my VB with the care a new mother might exercise while handling her child for the first time :p Fingers crossed the good fortune keeps up!

I spoke too soon. After fixing the second display, I had about 5 seconds of clear picture in both eyes – as I was about to celebrate, the scan lines came back. I moved it around a little and get pure red in both.

I took off the second display, powered it on again and no scan lines in the first one.. Makes me think the first one I did was good right? Put it back on even more carefully – both have scan lines again.

Now I take off the second display, and the first one now has scan lines by itself… when before it was working great.

Does anyone on here have technical knowledge of the electronics on this? I’m looking for a wire diagram which will label each individual wire. Maybe the scan lines can be known to be caused by a certain wire.

I could afford a new virtual boy, but I’m looking at this like a challenging project.

OH SHIT i just moved it a little and got rid of the scan lines in the first.. I moved the display itself – maybe it was screwed down too tight..

The “repeating line” glitches aren’t caused by a specific signal (there are 16 data lines, and each one affects 1/16 of all rows), but some glitches are. e.g. the “mirror image” one is caused by problems with the “select” line (it determines which display is currently drawing; left and right alternate). The “whole screen is red” glitch probably requires a specific set of wires to be affected. Problems with the BRTA/B/C lines cause certain shades of red to go either black or full red. A completely black screen is, obviously, either the VCC or ground line, or both (no power means no lights).

The fact that the lines are coming and going sounds like A) it’s just a problem with the connector, or B) some of your splices are shorting together when you move it.

Thanks for that reply.
I’ve since given up on repairing the thing as per the pictures above. Sorry to get anyone’s hopes up.

One side would work, then I’d do the other side which would cause both sides to not work.. Maybe for 5 seconds I had both sides working until all by itself the lines re-appeared.

Sometimes one display would look great, then 1 minute later there were lines / glitching.. It’s almost like the voltage was building up somewhere until the problem became visible.

Both VBs I bought said they had display problems. When I unboxed them, there were no display problems until a few minutes into playing.. That’s my biggest frustration with this thing. The problems come and go randomly.

I bought a new one with display problems for $60. I don’t feel like investing the time only to be let down again, so I’m thinking about sending it to a guy on ebay to repair it.

Only thing is – he told me he doesn’t use the solder method or the oven method… but he guarantees his repair for the life of the thing (or until he hops off ebay).

Anybody have a guess on what this repair method could be?
The price is right at $30 + $10 shipping.

personally, i wouldn’t send hardware to anybody who did not clarify what they were going to do to it. i would ask for specifics.

in the mean time, have you sought out someone here to solder the ribbon cables for you? soldering is the only permanent fix we have seen so far.

Price is right if it is indeed repaired for good and the problems won’t come back. Though I am very curious what that person does to repair it permanently, can’t really think of anything else than soldering that can take care of this problem.

I would wait for HP LoveThrash (as you are located in the USA) to get ready to repair it rather than taking this chance to be honest.
I am pretty sure the guy on eBay hangs out here as well, but is not willing to share his method on here, which I find a very rude thing as we all share our findings here normally. Maybe he has found a great way that everyone can do themselves easily, would help out a lot of people.

mips5000 wrote:
I bought a new one with display problems for $60. I don’t feel like investing the time only to be let down again, so I’m thinking about sending it to a guy on ebay to repair it.

Only thing is – he told me he doesn’t use the solder method or the oven method… but he guarantees his repair for the life of the thing (or until he hops off ebay).

Anybody have a guess on what this repair method could be?
The price is right at $30 + $10 shipping.

If you do decide to have the eBay seller fix it, it would be great if you could open up the Virtual Boy and take pictures of the displays when you get it back, which would help to determine what method he used to fix them.

The seller says that if you ever have problems with it again, he’ll fix it again for free, so it doesn’t sound like too much of a risk to me, especially given his overwhelmingly large positive feedback.

I shipped it out today. What skeeved me out is the UPS and USPS both quoted $20 to ship the box from PA -> CA. Couldn’t believe it was that much for a 12x12x6″ box. How do Ebay sellers do it so cheap?

I initially asked if he uses solder. He said no, that it was too risky, and no oven either, but didn’t voluntarily disclose his method. Sounded like he wanted to keep it on the low, but has to assume I’ll open the thing (assuming I get it back).

Hair dryer. 😉

mips5000 wrote:
I shipped it out today. What skeeved me out is the UPS and USPS both quoted $20 to ship the box from PA -> CA. Couldn’t believe it was that much for a 12x12x6″ box. How do Ebay sellers do it so cheap?

I initially asked if he uses solder. He said no, that it was too risky, and no oven either, but didn’t voluntarily disclose his method. Sounded like he wanted to keep it on the low, but has to assume I’ll open the thing (assuming I get it back).

I could understand there would be an easier way to fix them (sounds unlikely though, but hey, what do I know 😉 ), but he saying that using solder is too risky, is just his way to say I doesn’t know how to solder.

Doesn’t necessarily say his method isn’t any good, but that part just isn’t true. Soldering is not risky, as long as you know what you are doing. Though that goes for everything in life I guess.

I have done hundreds now and only got three displays in total that gave problems and those either had bad connector cables (the part that goes in the VB mainboard) or had broken traces higher up in the cable. One once came back, I had to redo that one and all the others haven’t given problems since. The one that I had to redo, was one of my firsts. Didn’t happen anymore after that one.
A lot of them have been worked on years ago and still working, so no risks.

mips5000 wrote:
I shipped it out today. What skeeved me out is the UPS and USPS both quoted $20 to ship the box from PA -> CA. Couldn’t believe it was that much for a 12x12x6″ box. How do Ebay sellers do it so cheap?

For future reference, you might want to try out the flat-rate box option for USPS shipments that are small but heavy.

According to this page:
https://www.easypost.com/usps-flat-rate-boxes-and-pricing.html

One medium flat rate box that is 11 1/4″ x 8 3/4″ x 6″ will cost you $11.95 to ship it anywhere in the USA, regardless of the weight. I don’t know off hand if the VB head unit will fit in that very easily, but they say that if it fits, it ships, so even if the box has to be distorted a little for a bubble wrapped head unit to be shipped, it should still ship for that price.

I’ve also seen eBay sellers use the Media Mail service to ship non-qualifying items to me, which is criminal, but the items made it to me nonetheless, and the Ebay sellers certainly saved a lot on shipping costs.

My VB came back from repair from the source I mentioned above. I opened it and can’t tell that anything was done to it.. Which makes me think oven method, but the guy said he doesn’t use the oven method, and doesn’t solder them..

Anyone have any ideas?

About my original VB that I tried to fix by replacing the ribbon cable with blue wires; The best I could do with that was to get picture in both eyes, but with two solid red scan lines in both.. I’m giving up with it. Its crazy. When I turn it on after 2 days being off, there is great picture for 5 seconds, then solid scan lines..

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Huh…doesn’t look like he’s done a whole lot. Possibly he uses a heat gun to re-seat the glue. It’s technically not an oven!