I finally gave up on my Game Boy micro after a bad flea market find

Found one at a flea market in Portland for $40 but the screen had dead pixels I couldn't fix no matter how hard I tried. Took me 2 hours to realize it was just a bad ribbon cable inside, and now I only trust my old GBA SP for daily carry. Anyone else run into a dead screen you couldn't save?

2 comments

2 Comments

blairwhite1mo ago

Did you try reseating the ribbon cable before you gave up on it? I had a similar issue with a DS Lite once, and it turned out the cable just needed to be pushed in a little harder. Sometimes those connectors are finicky and just need a good firm click to make contact again. If you still have the Micro, it might be worth trying to open it up again and mess with the cable. Might save you from having to hunt down another one.

paulb981mo agoOG Member

Disagree hard with @blairwhite on this one. I've bricked two Game Boy Micros being too aggressive with those ribbon cables, and most of the time the problem is a torn trace from the screen, not a loose connection. Once that plastic flex circuit cracks, no amount of reseating is gonna fix it. If your screen is showing lines or glitching, just accept the loss and start hunting for a replacement console.