Sega Game Gear Repair

A weakness of all Sega manufactured Game Gears is a particular type of electronic component used in various parts of the internal circuitry; the SMD (surface mount) electrolytic capacitor. Many years ago these components were a common cause of camcorder faults. Now, as Game Gears getting to be 15+ years old, they are suffering from the "bad cap's" phenomenon too.

The symptoms of faulty capacitors include:

LCD Screen only looks good when viewed at an unnatural angle (anything other than 90 degrees).
Bright parts of the picture create 'ghost lines' in the dark parts.
Screen looks washed out, dim, and lacking in contrast.
Turns itself off (in extreme cases).
Problems are alleviated when unit has warmed up a bit.

Further confirmation can be had by opening the unit and examining the board area around the capacitors. Faulty capacitors will often (but not always) leak their corrosive electrolyte onto the surrounding board. This is a clear, oily substance which can may attack the cap's legs and surrounding components, leaving a green corrosion behind.

What do they look like?

If one is faulty, the rest won't be far behind. Replaced them all at once!

These capacitors are glued and soldered to the board. To remove one, carefully rock it from side to side with a small pair of pliers until to feel the glue break, then desolder each leg from the PCB. When they're off, take the opportunity to clean up any leaked electrolyte and corrosion. Metho (rubbing alcohol to the Yanks) is good for this.

There are two versions of the Game Gear, the main difference being the main board layout. The later model also combined it's two ASICs (custom chips) into a single IC. There are other board layouts out there, if you have a Game Gear whose capacitor collection doesn't match the table send me a list and I'll update the page. Here is a list of all electro capacitors on the main board.

Mainboard

ONE ASIC (VA1)	TWO ASIC	VALUE		ONE ASIC (VA4)	VALUE
C68 C43 C45 C55 C54 C48 C49 C1 C4 C14 C42 C11	C31 C49 C35 C45 C44 C38 C39 C1 C3 C14 C48 -	100μ 6.3V 22μ 6.3V 4.7μ 35V 0.47μ 50V 0.47μ 50V 68μ 6.3V 100μ 4V 33μ 6.3V 10μ 6.3V 10μ 6.3V 10μ 6.3V 10μ 6.3V		C38 C36 C33 C44 C39 C47 C42 C40 C41 C1 C55 C31 C43 C37	22μ 35V 22μ 6.3V 22μ 6.3V 22μ 6.3V 10μ 50V 10μ 50V 10μ 50V 47μ 6.3V 47μ 6.3V 33μ 6.3V 100μ 6.3V 100μ 6.3V 1μ 50V 10μ 16V

Audio Amplifier Board

DESIGNATOR	VALUE
C1 C2 C3 C5 C7	100μ 6.3V 100μ 6.3V 100μ 6.3V 47μ 4V 47μ 4V

Some things to consider when shopping for replacement capacitors:

Replacements should have the same capacitance (in μ - micro farad) and the same or higher voltage rating.
Standard RB/Radial (both legs poke out from the bottom) electrolytic capacitors are fine.
Sub-miniature types are even better.
If you cannot find the correct value then connect two small caps in parallel. Tolerance is typically +/- 20% so no need to be too precise. E.g. 47μ // 22μ in place of a 68μ value.

If you find the sound from the internal speaker to be missing or distorted then a faulty C7 (47μ) on the audio board is the likely cause. If there also distorted audio on from the headphone jack then you many need to replace all capacitors on the audio board.

Capacitors on the power supply board are generally reliable, not being of the surface mount type.

Changelog
12/8/10 - Included a capacitor list for the later version One ASIC board (marked VA4 USA).
22/9/09 - Added a list of capacitors for the audio amplifier board.
24/4/07 - Page created.

RETURN TO INDEX