A problem often encountered by Virtual Boy users are glitchy displays, leading to horizontal lines, reversed or generally distorted images, or even complete loss of display activity.
All those symptoms are usually caused by the ribbon cables connecting the LEDs to the motherboard becoming loose, or peeling away from the display PCB.
Fixing your Diplay: Oven method
DogP has come up with a way to fix the problem by opening the system up, removing the display, sticking it in the oven to re-melt the adhesive, and reassemble. It’s not a difficult procedure, except that the typical security bit can’t get to the deepest screws on the VB, so you either need a special screwdiver, a modified bit, or a modified screwdriver.
You can find a guide to fix your displays on DogP’s Project:VB.
Fixing your Diplay: Bypass method
Another way has been proposed by DanB. To permanently fix the problem, his idea was to replace the loosening ribbon cables with some better wires, which he soldered to the PCB. This solution requires much more skill, though, and should only be performed by solder experienced people with a steady hand and a huge portion of patience.
The complete guide can be found here.
Fixing your Diplay: New methods (RECOMMENDED)
Some more methods have recently been developed by DogP to permanently fix the cable problem (contrary to the probably non-permanent oven method): Thread.
Hey guys – I f’ed up my ribbon cable. First the oven didn’t work, then soldering didn’t work.. kept soldering until the ribbon cable melted / twisted / really didn’t work… I think it might have had a crease in it as the original problem. I lost a metal ribbon wire on the board and thought it was all over.
It took hours of patience and finding the right supplies. But this worked for one eye so far (I didn’t start working on the second one yet). I don’t have any experience soldering, but just winged it. It was very meticulous work. I’m hoping it still works when I insulate the joints and put the cover back on. I used a cheap radio shak soldering iron.
Bumping an old thread but hopefully this will help someone.
I recently got a VB headset from ebay that had one working display. After fiddling with it, both displays went out.
I managed to start the repairs using the needle method and the soldering method. I used a normal sewing needle to slowly pry up the laminate by very carefully sliding it in between the copper lines. You then just do the same thing very carefully on each channel until you peel off enough to cut off the excess.
I then did the standard soldering method to fix up the ribbon wire connection and now the displays work great!
Note: you do have the possibility of pulling up the copper lines along with the laminate if you aren’t careful as you can see in the pictures. I was able to resolder those lines but do keep that in mind.
Greetings everyone!
I’m going to post this here because it relates to fixing VB displays. Essentially, I need some help with ribbon cables.
Sometimes when I swap out ribbon cables, the end that goes into the motherboard gets damaged (see pic).
How does this happen? What can I do to prevent it? And is there any way to fix it?
Any help is appreciated.
Cheers!
