Trying to Fix 3 BROKEN Sega Game Gears (Including a rare blue one!)

PLUS: TronicsFix will be at VidCon 2023 at the BW-100 booth cleaning viewers joy-cons! So bring your dirty controllers and come by the booth. See you at Anaheim!

Trying to Fix 3 BROKEN Sega Game Gears - I've only fixed a couple Game Gears before so this was a fun challenge. One I couldn't get to fully turn on, one with excessive corrosion, and one that had horizontal moving lines on the screen.

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Tools I Use:

Equipment Used:

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[habbyhouse]

This guy just gave us an entire class on problem finding and fixing. He needs more subscribers. Love your content. Make me feel like I learned something.

[CrashFan]

it's amazing how much smaller the replacement capacitors are compared to the original ones. technology is crazy

[xilocex]

I have repaired over 100 Game Gears so far and just wanted to add some info for the DIY types out there. Firstly all Game Gears need new electrolytic capacitors, replace all of them not just some of them, that includes capacitors on all three boards. Further, with all ceramic capacitor replacement kits you will get undesirable hum on the audio circuit and possibly video interference as well to correct this use appropriately up rated Tantalum capacitors of matching values in place of the ceramics on the sound board and the nearest capacitors to the power input connector. Finally make sure you know what your purchasing before you buy it in other words do not buy 2103K Game Gears, they usually have unfixable screen issues and avoid anything that has rust or sever battery corrosion in the battery bay.

One more thing 😂 do yourself a favor and replace the original screen with one of the new TFT solutions your eyes will thank you and your battery budget will decrease dramatically. With some of the TFT kits I have tested play times increased from 2 to 4 hours to 16 hours.

[KrispyBizcut]

It's awesome to see how things have changed over the years.. from those big bucket capacitors to the little micro ones! Im no tec person by far but i sure love watching you do this!!! Keep up the amazing work my man!!!

[rockaholictom]

I did a full cap replacement on one last year it was honestly the most satisfying repair I've ever done. The difference was insane in brightness, sound and longevity.

[corydriver]

Talk about a nostalgic trip down memory lane. I grew up with one of these for many years and hearing that “Sega “ start up was amazing. It’s been so long

[notneb]

When I was a kid I never left batteries in my Game Gear - mostly because they were dead by the time I was done playing with it!

[PyroX]

Steve, I decided to break out one of my VA4 boards to figure out where those three capacitors go. That section in the bottom left delivers power to the screen and IC5. Here it is how it is all laid out:
The positive leg of C36 connects to both Pin 1 of D1 and R24. R24 connects to R25 which in turn connects to the positive leg of C41. D1 goes to Pin 7 on the power board connector. The negative leg of C41 goes to Pin 18 of the screen. The negative leg of C36 connects to the positive leg of C42 and Pin #5 on IC5. Negative C42 goes to R41 and D5. R41 connects to ground and D5 and pin 5 of IC5. Pin 1 of IC5 connects to the negative leg of C41.

[aerodigital]

The philosophy you have on repair and being thorough with replacing components is the best way to preserve these consoles for a longer life. I would definitely do battery and backlight mod on this if I came across one.

[dcarpenter]

The old Game Gear got 8 year old me through many a road trip. I remember the cigarette lighter power adapter being a must though as you were lucky if those 6 AAs lasted more than an hour lol.

[sprybug]

I've fixed so many of these over the years. On that first one when you went to replace the speaker to fix the sound I said out loud, "That isn't going to fix it". XD Sometimes a full recap won't fix a Game Gear too, like on that 2nd one. I've had ones where it'll turn on for a second and then turn off. It's pretty much an over current saving feature on the power board that will automatically shut itself off. Typically means there's a short or another bad component. I fixed one like that once when I found one of the smaller capacitors on the board had a short. I replaced that cap and it worked fine after that. Looks like however that LCD on the VA4 board might be bad with some missing lines. A temporary fix is to heat up the silicon on glass wafers that drive the signals to the LCD. This has only ever been a temporary fix though. It rather won't work or will only fix it temporarily before the lines will start showing up again. Good vid!

Oh, another thing I wanted to mention. There are 3 or 4 screws, forgot how many exactly, who's only purpose is to hold the LCD screen on to the mainboard. You can leave those in and still take the mainboard out of the case by removing all the other screws.

[gadgetrepairsfife]

Literally just got one repaired tonight, carried out a full recap of the soundboard and main board, was still having issues with no display but found this was another common fault with the 2 ASIC model (VA 1 board) had to solder a connecting wire between 2 points of this line and got it fully working again, been following your content since lock down and got into repairing electronics learning more and more from your videos you are a legend Steve

[datriaxsondor]

That blue unit is pretty sharp. They really should have used that blue as the base model, coinciding with Sega's blue theme.

In any case, nice saves on the ones you got going. Nicely done, as always.

[somebodyirrelevant]

It's really amazing seeing these old consoles get the attention they deserve. I loved your PlayStation video (that was probably my favorite video out of all of your videos), and repairing these Game Gears really makes my day. Thanks Steve!

[Bratwurstdealer]

In Game Gears you have to change every cap, that is included in these sets. But don't use ceramic caps for the audio board. They often create noises. Better to use tantalum or electrolyte caps.

[eric]

Awesome video. Thank you for bringing those Game Gears back to life. Your videos inspired me to get into repairing electronics and the Game Gear is what I chose to start with. (I couldn't get my VA4 board working either, maybe someday) Keep up the great work!

[MarcStift]

Hey Steve, great work on fixing 2 out of 3. You probably can fix the second one two. I think the reasons those caps are shorting is because the residue from the leaking capacitors are highly conductive wich can cause components to short out. Try giving it a thourough clean with some IPA and see if that helps.

[rixas]

just so fun to come to youtube and do something in the background while a chill repair video is playing :D

[Loki-]

I miss my game gear. Used to have one and the add on that allowed you to play sega master system games. Probably my favorite portable of all time. Compared to today it's not the best, but was fun back in the day.

[rocdaddy]

BRO! You are like the BOB ROSS of electronics repair 💯 he had happy trees..you have happy capacitors 😂. Always a pleasure to watch.