Gameboy DMG screen too dim

I just received a gameboy that I bought in the mail. However, the screen is way too hard to see.
How do I fix this?


Here is a picture from ebay of what I described. The top is what a screen SHOULD look like, the bottom is what mine looks like.

 

Buy a Gameboy Pocket or Light instead. The original Gameboys had terrible screens.

 

Could this be a problem with the contrast dial?

 

I tested the capacitors using an LED from RadioShack. I just touched the positive labeled side to the positive and neg to neg.
There was one capacitor behind the screen that was unable to power the LED. I tried about 10 different times to be sure.

I am going to replace this capacitor and see if that helps. I'll probably get to it in about a week or 2.

 

I replaced that POLARIZED capacitor with a NON-POLARZIED capacitor with the same specs. (50v, 1uF) The old one was radially wired and the new one was axial.
This did not help.

BUT, when I bridged the two points with a paperclip, the screen improved greatly.

What went wrong? Should I try to find a polarized capacitor to replace the current one? Why isn't the non-polarized capactor helping?
I am sure the non-polarized capacitor is wired correctly.
I am also sure that the problem is with this particular part.

 

Could be the non-polarized capacitor simply isn't able to let power flow through it in a fashion the GameBoy needs.

I'd definitely suggest trying a polarized model.

 

Go through and replace every single electrolytic cap with a cap of the same value and equal or higher voltage rating.

It's the only way you're going to get anywhere.

generally non-polarized caps can be swapped in anywhere a polarized cap is used. However it's usually more expensive and the caps are physically bigger, so there's no reason to do it.

 

I fiddled with it and now it works.

Pics later. I'm currently playing Link's Awakening.