Algorhythm
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Louisville, KY

Hey everyone,

First time poster, but I've been reading the forums for months. I decided to try my hand at biverting and backlighting a black Play it Loud DMG that I found on eBay. I got my backlight and bivert chip from Hand-Held Legend.

Everything seemed to have gone smoothly, but for some reason the pixels fade away shortly after I turn it on. I get the Gameboy 'ding' noise, Nintendo scrolls down just fine and I get to the LSDJ song screen. The first time I played it after doing the mods, it worked fine for over an hour, with a tiny little bit of dimming when I pressed any button. Now, I get to the LSDJ song screen and within 15 seconds or so, all the pixels gradually fade to white (white backlight).

Has anybody encountered this issue before? I've done a lot of searching the web for this issue but haven't found anything quite like it. I'm thinking maybe I need to resolder the points on my bivert chip and I'm praying that it's not the ribbon cable because I already broke two DMG's like a dumbass while trying to peel that reflective layer off the screen. I've read that bad capacitors can cause the screen to fade out, but if they were bad, why would the screen start out just fine when I boot it?

Any help you guys can offer would be greatly appreciated!

EDIT: Even more weird, after playing around with it some more, sometimes I can play it for 30 minutes+ and it doesn't ever fade away. Sometimes I turn it on and it's faded within 30 seconds. I'm at a loss, lol.

Here is a short video of what I'm talking about it. The problem happens at 35 seconds in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtDhjBi0Pic

Last edited by Algorhythm (Aug 30, 2016 6:57 pm)

Apeshit
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.

Last edited by Apeshit (Jul 16, 2019 7:01 pm)

Algorhythm
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Louisville, KY

The IC? Not sure what that stands for, honestly haha.

I wasn't aware that LSDj had a power saver mode, I'll look into that and give it a shot!

Apeshit
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.

Last edited by Apeshit (Jul 16, 2019 7:01 pm)

Algorhythm
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Louisville, KY

How can I avoid this problem in the future? I didn't know there was a way to purchase high quality IC's? I just assumed you had to buy them from e-bay and peddler's malls and just roll the dice.

Apeshit
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.

Last edited by Apeshit (Jul 16, 2019 7:01 pm)

Algorhythm
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Louisville, KY

Yeah, I'm going to pop it back open and make sure all of my connections are secure again. Thank you for trying to help, seriously. Could you possibly give me a little more info on getting the IC's from Digikey? I visited the site and it seems like you obviously need to know exactly what you're looking for to get anywhere and I do not, lol.

Algorhythm
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Louisville, KY

Just as a reference in case anyone else stumbles across this thread with the same issue, I'm pretty certain I fixed the problem. I took it back apart and examined all of my connections closely. I noticed that the ribbon cable was putting a decent amount of pressure on the bottom part of my Hex bivert chip. I resoldered the connections to the chip, including the two pins, and I also touch on a few of the other pins along the row, just making sure the connections were nice and smooth. I added a small cushion to the ribbon cable to balance out the pressure on the bivert chip and closed it all back up. The screen doesn't dim when I press play now and after about a half hour of use, the pixels have not faded away. I'll come back and confirm the fix in a day or two if it holds.

Apeshit
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.

Last edited by Apeshit (Jul 16, 2019 7:01 pm)

Algorhythm
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Louisville, KY

Yeah, it does seem like a pretty poor design choice lol. But you have to lift and connect the two pins from the ribbon cable connection so I suppose there really isn't an alternative. Also, here to confirm that I've been using the gameboy for a couple days without any further issues so my strange problem must be solved!

Apeshit
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.

Last edited by Apeshit (Jul 16, 2019 7:01 pm)