How to replace the Capacitors in your Sega Game Gear 

I was a little intimidated trying this on a broken game gear I bought but you made me feel better after watching this. Mind you I have replaced capacitors on a Xbox that I brought back from the dead too. Not many videos out there as good as this one. Bookmarked for when I try this. Thank you!

Thanks for the video. You did a fantastic job explaining everything and it must have been satisfying to nail it on the first shot. I’ve fixed many and never ceases to amaze that regardless of what issues the unit has, a simple recap as worked every time, ever unit, every version and model number etc...

It's like watching Bob Ross working on a sega gamegear, very nice!

Great job I learned a lot about re-Caping. Looking forward to your future videos.

Thanks for taking the time to go through this on you tube. About to do my own and just wanted to be familiarized with the process. Wish me luck.

Outstanding work!

Cool! I just found my game gear and it’s working great. Screen and sound are nice. Knock on wood! If it ever goes out I’m going to fix it! Thank you!

Thank you! Appreciate this walkthrough!

Great job, I learned so much.

Brilliant job and excellent advice

Getting ready to hopefully repair my first game gear! You explain a lot of the stuff really well and make it seem easy lol, at the same time I know how horrible it can be.

Thank you very much good sir, saved my childhood game gear 😀

Very good... I'm impressed thank you for the video share.

Very nice video. Would have been nice to see how you placed the problematic capacitors at 29:00.

Love your videos

Brilliant! Thanks for sharing that was a very good video!

Some tips... a bad sound board can actually cause issues with screen and power. Some guides will say you ‘can get away with only doing a couple’ but if your sound is like you are trying to tune into an am radio version of your game, or you still have no power then replace all the capacitors on the sound board. I’ve fixed 20+ of these, never once have I failed to revive one, but more importantly i have also yet to see one where the power board caps failed. 99% of the time I can bet the sound board is bad, as well as the main board ones. So if skimping, skimp on powerboard, but never on the soundboard. Often times any soundboard cap that hasn’t failed soon will after you replace just a couple.

Great video, very well explained, my game gear had a black screen for a minute or 2 and then it used to work, but now its a black screen, it has sound, i assume it has bad caps, I'll try to replace them and see if it gets back to life.

Wonderful video man, the Gamegear sure is a different beast compared to Nintendo Handhelds.

Thank you very much. Videos like these are just gold. I'm subscribed. I will be trying this within a couple of weeks. What size heat shrink did you use for the capacitors that you bent?

Thank you for this video. I just recent completed a recap on a game gear and this was HUGE help. I only replaced broken caps (not all) and was wondering if there were any tips for the cap that hugs next to the large pin connector? Did you have to remove it in order to replace the cap?

Holy Faded-out Display, Batman! Nice job but next time, turn off studio light when showing the screen contents.

Hi there, great vid…. Complete novice at this but I’ve done a few capacitors but one I’m finding tricking, so much so the pad which you solder the capacitor onto have come off, do you have any advise to repair this?

awesome

I think my soldering skill level is just a touch below where it needs to be to do this. But I also have non functional game gears to attempt this on. I think I'll give it a shot.

Me and my nephew were doing some serious cleaning at his place and we came across his original game gear he got as a present back in the 90's. He had played it off and on with a very few long hours of serious gaming. Lasted about 3 years until the capacitors died. He had buried it away and forgotten about it until now. I did a look up and it's got the same problem as most people. Turns on and green screen. Shame on Sega for putting such crappy capacitors on an expensive hand held gaming device at the time. Capacitors are suppose to last at least 15-20 years especially when only exposed to a very light load put on them. Sega should have at least put in quality Japanese solid capacitors. Example, I'm still using a motherboard I bought back in 2010 and I made sure I bought one with all Japanese solid capacitors. I haven't had a single capacitor issue (or any other issue) with my motherboard even to this day and each day it's used under heavy loads.

what’s the white marker thing that he uses, and what’s the use for it

I have two of these that have been in a bag for years. I tried to turn these on but nothing happened at all with one. The other looked like it was starting up but switched itself off after a few seconds. Is there something more obvious wrong with the one that is trying to start. Will this need the power board caps replaced only? I can try a full cap replacement on the completely dead one. But I hate soldering surface mount stuff! Far too fiddley for me, just annoying.

you shouldnt be trimming the legs until after you solder them, just stick them through the holes and solder from under the board, THEN trim the legs. otherwise good going. same goes for SMD caps, just bend them the way you need and then solder, THEN trim the legs.

This is probably a stupid question but I'm totally new to this, so please excuse my ignorance. I ordered a kit from Console5 for the VA1 repair, and you as well as every guide I can find have the 820 uF 6.3V, but I don't see that in this kit. The closest thing I'm seeing is a 820 uF 10V, but from what I understand that shouldn't work for that. Can anyone give me some insight on this?

I heard that the game gear screens have been too dim from the beginning and that age and use isn't necessarily the cause. What is your opinion about that?

Which capacitors control the start button?

I changed the capacitors out and it didn’t change anything unfortunately...I still have a blank white screen, any ideas would be appreciated

Link to capacitors is dead. Can you re-up please?

I've never soldered anything in my entire life. I'm ready to fry my game gear! I hope it's still under warranty!

C54 and c55 is 0.47uf or 47uf pls

You broke my Game gear using my hands!!! 🤪🤪🤪

How much would u charge me to fix mine? I don’t have the patience for this. 2 afraid to think I’ll burn it lol

Someone give this man some tweezers! 18:50

does anyone sell a capacitor kit that are the same size so you don't have to worry about bending or putting shrink wrap on the leads to bend them?

That's impossible for me to do I never worked on a sega game gear

Why don't you invest in a hot air desoldering tool. Instead of switching between contact points and trying to yank em out quickly you can heat up both areas at once and just pull. Lol

A ticking time bomb in that? Not great at all. I really hope that we don't see this problem ever again in any other product...

OMG!!! please replace smd capacitors by smd capacitors !