Game Gear Coloured Lines

Hi,

A friend just gave me a Sega Game Gear for free. It has seen better days sadly and it has a screen problem. I'm aware of screen issues like low contrast or horizontal black lines that can be fixed by swapping capacitors and heating the screen cable, but this particular Game Gear has some vertical coloured lines, and I've only been able to find one forum post online talking about it. Sadly it suggests that the screen might be irrepairable. I just wondered if anyone here could shed any light on it?


Thanks!

 

I have never managed to repair one with vertical lines. Best bet is too change the caps and see if that improves anything.

 

If I felt confident that it was a caps issue then I'd definitely be interested in replacing them. I have a feeling it's a more serious issue though, like a broken LCD.

 

check the ribbon cable to the LCD and see if it needs some TLC and if it doesn't fix it, LCD upgrade!

 

If the LCD isn't fixable, I recommend replacing it with McWill's screen on AtariAge. It uses the GG's digital video signals so it looks really good. It even has an optional VGA output.

 

I opened the system up last night and couldn't see anything obviously wrong with it. No leaky capacitors, the screen ribbon all looked ok. I tried running a soldering iron along it, but that did nothing at all. I think the LCD is just damaged.

 

You won't see bad capacitors - you could measure them with an ESR meter. It doesn't look good, though.