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GB Speaker volume is rather quiet

clueless

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Sep 5, 2019
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snobgamergr
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29 August 2015
I took my backlight-bivert modded gameboy out of storage to play some link's awakening.
I discovered that the speaker volume is really quiet, turning up the volume doesn't change much. Soldered another speaker but it remained quiet.
Some tests later, I discovered that it is an issue with that specific screen board. If I plug the screen board of my childhood gameboy (unmodded) to the biverted board, sound is loud and clear, while the backlight board on the childhood gameboy remains quiet.
What should I check next? Capacitors? Flexcable?
 

clueless

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I had some free time and decided to have a second glimpse at the issue.
I discovered that the culprit were the capacitors c1,c2 and c3. I swapped the corresponding caps from a broken unit I had lying around. The sound now is loud and clear as it should be :)
 

speedyink

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Wow, super late to the party but yup, caps. Sorry, not exactly helpful, lol
 
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Vorde

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Vorde
I had some free time and decided to have a second glimpse at the issue.
I discovered that the culprit were the capacitors c1,c2 and c3. I swapped the corresponding caps from a broken unit I had lying around. The sound now is loud and clear as it should be :)
Are sound issues usually caused by bad capacitors if continuity is not an issue?
 

clueless

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Are sound issues usually caused by bad capacitors if continuity is not an issue?

Not sure, never had to deal with this issue before. Some people suggest that you check the ribbon cable for any possible breaks/bents . It is reported that this can resolve some sound issues along with other issues (screen related most of the times), that can't be fixed otherwise. In my case though, the ribbon cable was perfect, since that gameboy hasn't been disassembled before.

I'm curious also, since I backlight modded my console, if doing a full recap might be meaningful in helping improve something in the operation of this specific gameboy. So far, everything seems to be running smoothly.
 
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cta

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Only semi related, but I ran into a similar issue while doing some modding on a GBA. Wasn't the caps this time, but the backlit screen I put in drawing more power, making the volume suffer greatly. Had to add an amp inbetween the logic board and speaker. So yeh, when doing mods that go far beyond the factory use case all bets are off.
 

speedyink

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Only semi related, but I ran into a similar issue while doing some modding on a GBA. Wasn't the caps this time, but the backlit screen I put in drawing more power, making the volume suffer greatly. Had to add an amp inbetween the logic board and speaker. So yeh, when doing mods that go far beyond the factory use case all bets are off.

Good to know (y)
 

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