Any Virtual Boy experts here that could give me a hand identifying this?

[BomberHead]

I bought my VB new from Target when they were blowing them out at about $20 or so, I've always kept mine clean and stored well. However It recently started doing this weird thing where the right eye looks all glitched up, making it totally unplayable. I read up on VB repair and the only thing i could find was how to repair the ribbon cables to the LED units. I guess when these go bad they start showing scan lines and progressivly get worse, but on mine it just happened suddenly. I just got a copy of Jack Bros and WaterWorld and was super excited to finally play them, jack bros booted up just fine, then quickly the right eye started glitching. i tried several other carts but it made no difference. Here are some pictures.

Left eye:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1371049/New%...9/100_2995.JPG

Right eye:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1371049/New%...9/100_2996.JPG
and
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1371049/New%...9/100_2997.JPG

Any help you guys could give me would be awesome.

[ccovell]

Well, the mirrors are spinning but it looks like the LEDs are not changing in time... so just from my guesses, it's a mirror<->LED sensor malfunction, an LED controller malfunction, or a VRAM chip error. For all of these, I have no idea how to fix them.

[Rickstilwell1]

Hmmm, if it needs repair anyway, then might as well save it for a hardware hacker that knows how to give it 2D TV output. It has been done before. I wonder if systems are still an average of $40?

[Culex4096]

Virtual Boys are really finicky. I have three and everyone has a different issue. There is really nothing to do except get it repaired unfortunately I'm not sure who works on them because if I did I'd get mine fixed too

[Cornelius]

That looks like the ribbon cable issue to me. How long has it been since you played your VB? I think when people say it gets gradually worse, they mean that once they notice the problem it gets worse. But the problem can develop and get worse even if the VB is just sitting on the shelf, you just won't know until it is actually used, so it would appear to have happened suddenly. And even if you've been using it a lot and it just happened one day, it still looks like the ribbon cable problem to me. Doing that fix isn't too bad, at least. The fix doesn't last forever, though, but can be repeated.

[Niku-Sama]

i have 4 VB headsets and 3 of them have this problem, i fixed one of them but to be honest, in terms of fixing it its not that hard like the poster above me has already said. the pain in the ass part is actually getting the system open to fix it.
you either have to get the super long security bit or get creative with the standard legenth one, alot of people say drill it out but i dont like doing that. huge potental to screw something up there

and yea it looks alot like the ribbon problem, atleast its only on one side, all of my defects have it on both sides

[xelement5x]

I've got the same issue with one I just picked up, from everything I've read it's a ribbon issue. I think I've found a fellow to fix it but the issue with the gamebits to open them is a huge hassle as well. I have a thread in the Tech Restoration section here in DP where I went back and forth on it.

[BomberHead]

So I bought a long 4.5mm Gamebit on ebay. Its being shipped from the UK and it cost $16. I hope i am able to repair this. I'll bump this thread with the results.

Thanks for the help

[InsaneDavid]

Doing that fix isn't too bad, at least. The fix doesn't last forever, though, but can be repeated.

Yup, after you do it once the repair isn't that big of a deal. You can also re-enforce where the connections are after using the oven re-adhere method, and of course keeping the IPD adjustment set for minimal stress on the ribbon cable connection when not in use will stretch out the length of time the fix holds for.

[PapaStu]

Shimmy to Tech & Resto