gameboy screen issue

[dimefan90]

i recently bought a original gameboy (dmg-01) and the screen was missing lines vertically, i knew how to fix it so i opened the gb up and undid the screen but in doing so the entire screen turned black bar a few horizontal lines on the bottom,

i dont know what has happened to it. does anyone have any ideas, i know i may not be able to remedy it without replacing the lcd but i would like to know what i did wrong,

my guess is that i somehow twisted a ribbon cable too much, i have tried reattaching cables but it doesnt work.

(yes i have tried adjusting the contrast, the only thing that is affected is the white part at the bottom of the screen.)

[Bibin]

This happened to my Game Boy Pocket LCD while I was mucking around with the cables (the two are electronically identical). It looks like you've just messed up the cables, or even worse, the small little glop-top responsible for brightening and darkening the various lines. You will have to replace the LCD. Sorry.

Also, get yourself a screen lens.

[dimefan90]

thanks,i thought that would be the case.

haha this is one of 7 dmg's out of a total 18 gameboys i have, i took the lens of this to put on one of the better condition dmg's

[re-volume-tion]

I know it's been a while since the last post, but I have a solution and I couldn't find it anywhere when I needed it.

I've been recently mucking around with handheld insides, the GB when the cables are not connected properly from the board to the LCD has a reset mechanism to make the entire screen flash black and then continue from where you were - whether in game, on the GameBoy screen etc. If the cables are only partially connected the screen will stay black, as the GB is constantly resetting the screen to try and fix itself. My GB had the same vertical line problem, when I moved the cables around the lines would disappear and reappear all over the place. I got the screen to reset back to normal by having the daughterboard and motherboard disconnected, turning it on, then reattatching both boards. The screen resets, and all vertical lines are visible. This is only a temporary fix, the cables would have been knocked about, the gameboy dropped, heat damaged, to create the vertical line problem so it will continue happening if you are not more careful with it.

I suggest cautiously putting it securely back together with the GB still on so you can see that the screen is still working, if lines appear again, restart the process by resetting the screen. It's tedious, I know, but my GB screen has been working properly for the past few weeks now.

A long term suggestion would be to apply heat so that the laminate/glue allows enough movement for the small connections to reseat. A weak soldering iron I suppose? 25W possibly.

Sincerelely,
Your Avid Retro Buddy