Hi

I recently received a virtual boy that had the glitchy display problem. I sended it to a friend of mine that works in soldering components to fix it, It seems the displays are fixed (or at least have continuity) but the virtual boy is not booting, it gets stuck with no image but game sound
Also, when booting up it makes a strange noise from the left mirror that seems to be caused by the mirror colliding with the topper

What could be the problem?

I’ll tell you the problem…

first the game contacts need cleaning. you can clean them by putting some contact cleaner on the end of a cheap game and inserting that in to the console in and out. next the mirrors are out of sync the sensor that detects the vibration is not registering thus you get a mirror thats trying to re sync but cant.

i might be able to fix that for you but i cant guarantee its repair. i have fixed out of sync mirrors before and game contact issues too

As a first step in attempting to fix the mirrors, you should try to blow the dust out of your galvanometer sensors:
http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=28999#forumpost28999

Also, be sure you’re plugging the display cables in correctly:
http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=25021#forumpost25021

With all due respect to Nes Freak, if you are getting sound, there’s nothing wrong with your cartridge port. Unlike the NES/Famicom, the VB’s cartridge is kind of an “all-or-nothing” deal; either it works perfectly or not at all. Also, even if it does get dirty/tarnished enough to stop booting, simply inserting and removing a game a few times should clean it just fine with no chemicals needed.

RunnerPack wrote:
As a first step in attempting to fix the mirrors, you should try to blow the dust out of your galvanometer sensors:
http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=28999#forumpost28999

Also, be sure you’re plugging the display cables in correctly:
http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=25021#forumpost25021

With all due respect to Nes Freak, if you are getting sound, there’s nothing wrong with your cartridge port. Unlike the NES/Famicom, the VB’s cartridge is kind of an “all-or-nothing” deal; either it works perfectly or not at all. Also, even if it does get dirty/tarnished enough to stop booting, simply inserting and removing a game a few times should clean it just fine with no chemicals needed.

not the situation Ive experienced. so far with my experiences with VB ive had games stop working wile i was playing after a quick cleaning with contact cleaner it was fine. but there was this one time i thought the sound chip was faulty cause i wasnt getting much sound out of one side with alot of static. after i cleaned the slot it was working perfectly.

Nes Freak wrote:

RunnerPack wrote:
With all due respect to Nes Freak, if you are getting sound, there’s nothing wrong with your cartridge port. Unlike the NES/Famicom, the VB’s cartridge is kind of an “all-or-nothing” deal; either it works perfectly or not at all. Also, even if it does get dirty/tarnished enough to stop booting, simply inserting and removing a game a few times should clean it just fine with no chemicals needed.

not the situation Ive experienced. so far with my experiences with VB ive had games stop working wile i was playing after a quick cleaning with contact cleaner it was fine. but there was this one time i thought the sound chip was faulty cause i wasnt getting much sound out of one side with alot of static. after i cleaned the slot it was working perfectly.

Actually, it sounds like your experiences back up what I said. If even one cartridge pin (with the exception of a handful of commonly unused signals) loses contact for even a moment, the game stops working completely. A dirty cart or slot can cause noise or silence because the analog audio signals from the VB pass through the cart on the way to the amplifier. However, if you do get clean audio, it means the cart and slot are working fine.

Also, I didn’t say contact cleaner wouldn’t work, just that it’s not really necessary. We don’t know if removing and reinserting would have worked for you, since you exercised the “nuclear option” 😉

Tried to clean the opto with a q-tip and canned air and the cartridge slot, same results, the console still doesnt boot but, but I noticed that when the virtual boy stops the mirrors after some tries the music seems to slow down.