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I got a Game Gear from a Garage Sale yesterday. It was a freebie, so I thought I could have some fun with it. Took it home, got some good batteries, and popped in the only game that came with it: Sonic 2.

I flip the power switch, see a pure blue screen, and then it cuts off. I tried it a few more times, then rapidly toggled it twice. It stayed on this time. I turned up the volume and heard the SEGA sound, and heard the music (and it responded to my button presses, like start and all that). But the screen seemed to be dead. I eventually tried tweaking the contrast, and got a ton of horizontal white lines.

By cranking the contrast all the way up, the screen is mostly white, full of these vertical bars, but also appears to have a stretching problem. I can read "Sega Enterprises LTD. on the bottom half, but then the top is usually stretched beyond recognition. The lower half of the screen is usually the one in the best condition to see ANYTHING, but once the level starts, I only see vertical color smears (with most of the rings visible in the top of the bottom half of the screen). And all this is overlayed with horizontal lines.

It doesn't do this when its cold. I just picked it up after getting back from school, and it didn't have the horiz lines...but I couldn't see much of anything at all anymore. After tweaking the contrast some more, the stretched picture came in again, followed quickly by the horiz lines.

I took it apart, and found that this is a IC BD GG MAIN USA VA4 board, from 1993. The only game I have is Sonic 2, and its no big deal if this doesn't work anymore. I just kinda hoped I could get it going, for nostalgia's sake.

This could well be related to the problem that afflicts most second-hand Game Gears: faulty capacitors. See the stickied topic - Game Gear turns itself off/screen is unreadable/sound is gone/screen flashes.

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atariangamer Joined: 04 May 2010 Posts: 1	Game Gear video whacked? Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 7:57 pm
atariangamer Joined: 04 May 2010 Posts: 1	I got a Game Gear from a Garage Sale yesterday. It was a freebie, so I thought I could have some fun with it. Took it home, got some good batteries, and popped in the only game that came with it: Sonic 2. I flip the power switch, see a pure blue screen, and then it cuts off. I tried it a few more times, then rapidly toggled it twice. It stayed on this time. I turned up the volume and heard the SEGA sound, and heard the music (and it responded to my button presses, like start and all that). But the screen seemed to be dead. I eventually tried tweaking the contrast, and got a ton of horizontal white lines. By cranking the contrast all the way up, the screen is mostly white, full of these vertical bars, but also appears to have a stretching problem. I can read "Sega Enterprises LTD. on the bottom half, but then the top is usually stretched beyond recognition. The lower half of the screen is usually the one in the best condition to see ANYTHING, but once the level starts, I only see vertical color smears (with most of the rings visible in the top of the bottom half of the screen). And all this is overlayed with horizontal lines. It doesn't do this when its cold. I just picked it up after getting back from school, and it didn't have the horiz lines...but I couldn't see much of anything at all anymore. After tweaking the contrast some more, the stretched picture came in again, followed quickly by the horiz lines. I took it apart, and found that this is a IC BD GG MAIN USA VA4 board, from 1993. The only game I have is Sonic 2, and its no big deal if this doesn't work anymore. I just kinda hoped I could get it going, for nostalgia's sake.

benryves Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 391 Location: London, United Kingdom	Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 8:26 pm
	This could well be related to the problem that afflicts most second-hand Game Gears: faulty capacitors. See the stickied topic - Game Gear turns itself off/screen is unreadable/sound is gone/screen flashes.

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