Dim screen, silent speaker? That’s the caps talking.
The Game Gear is the most famous capacitor casualty in retro gaming, and the original Game Boy isn’t far behind. We give both a full recap, every board in the unit, not just the easy one, with quality Japanese parts, and post them back playing. Most handhelds are home about a week after you send them.
Handheld recap pricing
£15 deposit books it, balance on completion before return post. Modded units welcome, just tell us what’s fitted.
The classic handheld failures
Thirty years of leaking electrolyte produces a very predictable set of complaints.
Game Gear: dim or dark screen
Backlight barely glowing, or a picture you can only see at an angle. The caps feeding the screen’s power circuitry have leaked, the defining Game Gear fault.
Game Gear: no sound
Silence, or audio only through headphones. The dedicated sound board’s caps fail early and often, and a recap that skips that board leaves the fault behind.
Won’t power on
Dead, or the power LED flickers and gives up. Leaking caps around the DC-DC power circuitry stop the console generating the rails it needs to start.
Game Boy: screen fade
The DMG display washes out, loses contrast or drifts darker over a session. That drifting behaviour is capacitor territory, and a recap is the cure.
Game Boy: garbled sound
Buzzing, crunchy or missing audio from the internal speaker. The caps in the DMG’s audio path are usually behind it, not the speaker itself.
Vertical lines on a DMG?
Being honest: that one is not capacitors. It’s the screen’s ribbon connection letting go, a different repair we can quote via our soldering service. Ask us.
Every board in the unit, not just the easy one
A Game Gear hides up to three boards, and the fault is rarely polite enough to stay on the accessible one.
The full recap, as the community intends it
Open a Game Gear and you’ll find a main board, a power board and, on most revisions, a separate sound board. All of them carry the same doomed electrolytics. The retro community settled this debate years ago: the standard cure for a sick Game Gear is a full recap of everything, because a half recap has a habit of coming back with the other half’s symptoms a few months later.
That’s exactly what the flat price buys here. Every board fitted to your unit is stripped of its old caps, cleaned of leaked electrolyte, and refitted with quality Japanese parts, and the same every-board rule applies to Game Boys. The old caps go back in the box with the console, so you can see exactly what three decades did to them.
- Main, power and sound boards all recapped where fitted
- Leaked electrolyte neutralised and cleaned off
- Battery terminals given a minor cleanup as standard
- Screen, sound and power tested before return
Two handhelds, two flat prices
Book with a £15 deposit. Balance on completion, before return post. Return tracked postage is in the price.
Game Gear full recap
Sega Game Gear, every board in the unit: main, power, and sound where fitted.
£39
- All boards recapped, not just the main one
- Cures the dim screen and dead sound classics
- Quality Japanese capacitors throughout
- Minor battery terminal cleanup included
- Old caps returned in the box
Game Boy full recap
Original DMG, with Game Boy Color and Pocket welcome at the same price.
£45
- Every electrolytic in the unit replaced
- Sorts no-power, garbled sound and screen fade
- Quality Japanese capacitors throughout
- Minor battery terminal cleanup included
- Old caps returned in the box
One honest caveat. Vertical lines on an original Game Boy screen are a ribbon connection fault, not a capacitor fault, so a recap won’t touch them. We can still fix it, the work is quoted through our soldering service, so mention the lines when you get in touch and we’ll price both jobs together.
If we open a console and find damage beyond the recap, severe battery corrosion into the board, for instance, we photograph it and quote before any chargeable work. If you’d rather not proceed, we post it back and only the deposit is used.
Stock, modded, and somewhere in between
Original hardware and upgraded units are equally welcome on the bench.
Sega Game Gear
All revisions, including the units with the separate sound board. The £39 covers every board fitted, which is the only recap worth doing on this machine.
Game Boy DMG
The 1989 original. No power, washed-out screen and rough audio are the cap complaints; the £45 full recap addresses the lot in one visit.
Game Boy Color & Pocket
Fewer caps, fiddlier boards, same £45. Both benefit from fresh electrolytics, especially units that have spent years in a drawer with batteries in.
Modded units
IPS screens, backlights, amps and glass lenses are no problem: we recap around them and leave the mods alone. Tell us exactly what’s fitted when you book.
Battery corrosion
Minor terminal corrosion is cleaned up within the flat price. If it’s spread into the board, we photograph it and quote the extra work before touching anything chargeable.
Another handheld?
Atari Lynx, Sega Nomad and friends have the same ageing-cap disease. Send photos and we’ll quote it for free. (Joy-Con drift, though? Nintendo fixes that free, go to them first.)
What the flat price includes
Handheld boards are dense and the pads are small. Careful, magnified work is the whole job.
| Every board | Main, power and sound boards all recapped where fitted; a single-board recap on a Game Gear is a job half done |
| Every electrolytic | The complete set replaced in one pass with quality Japanese parts matched to or exceeding the original values |
| Leak cleanup | Escaped electrolyte neutralised and cleaned from pads and traces before new parts go on, never soldered over |
| Battery terminals | Minor corrosion on the battery contacts cleaned up as standard; anything deeper is photographed and quoted first |
| Mod awareness | IPS screens, backlights and other upgrades worked around and left exactly as fitted |
| Testing | Power-up, screen brightness, speaker and headphone audio, and a game cartridge run before the console is packed for return |
Part of our wider capacitor replacement service. The old caps come back in the box, so you can see what was starving the screen of power.
About a week, door to door
Weeks-long waiting lists are the norm in retro repair. Your handheld goes straight onto the bench instead.
Book online
£15 deposit secures your slot. We email the postal address straight away.
Post it in
Batteries out, cartridge out, well padded. Inspected under magnification on arrival.
The recap
Every board stripped of old caps, cleaned, refitted with Japanese parts and tested with a game.
Back to you
Balance settled, posted back tracked. Old caps in the box, 90 days on the workmanship.
More retro on the bench
Board & component soldering
DMG vertical lines, broken power switches, snapped headphone jacks and other non-cap faults go through our board-level repair service, starting with a £40 assessment that comes off the repair.
Capacitor replacement & recap
Home consoles, monitors, vintage PCs and 90s vehicle ECUs get the same treatment on our general recap service, Original Xbox clock cap included.
Amiga, Spectrum & C64 recaps
Home computers get their own pages: Amiga recapping from £39 with a never-leaks polymer option, and Spectrum & C64 recaps that protect the irreplaceable chips.
Common questions
My Game Gear has a dim screen and no sound. Is that really just capacitors?
Almost always, yes. The Game Gear is probably the most famous capacitor casualty in retro gaming: the surface-mount electrolytics Sega used leak as they age, and a dim or dark screen, silent or crackling sound, or a console that won’t power on at all are the textbook results. The community consensus and ours is the same: a full recap of every board in the unit is the standard cure, and it’s what the £39 covers.
How much does a Game Gear or Game Boy recap cost?
A Sega Game Gear full recap is £39 flat, covering all the boards in the unit: main board, power board and the sound board where fitted. An original Game Boy DMG full recap is £45 flat, and a Game Boy Color or Game Boy Pocket is welcome at the same £45. Quality Japanese capacitors, minor battery terminal cleanup and return tracked postage are included. You book with a £15 deposit and pay the balance when the work is done.
My Game Boy has vertical lines on the screen. Will a recap fix that?
No, and we’d rather tell you that now than after you’ve paid for the wrong repair. Vertical lines on a DMG are a failing ribbon cable connection at the screen, not a capacitor problem, and the fix involves rebonding that connection with careful heat. We can absolutely do it, but it’s quoted through our soldering service rather than the recap price, so mention the lines when you get in touch. Caps are the right suspect for no power, garbled or fading sound, and a screen that fades or loses contrast.
My console has an IPS screen or other mods fitted. Can you still recap it?
Yes. Modded handhelds are welcome, IPS screens, backlights, glass lenses, amp mods and the rest. We recap around whatever is fitted and leave the mods untouched. Just tell us exactly what’s been installed when you book, so we know what we’ll find inside and how the boards are laid out.
How long does a handheld recap take?
Typical turnaround is about a week door to door. Waiting lists measured in weeks are common in the retro repair world; recap jobs here are scheduled so they hit the bench the day they arrive, not the back of a queue. If we find anything beyond the recap, you hear about it straight away.
Is there a warranty?
90 days on the workmanship. If a capacitor we fitted or a joint we made fails in normal use, we put it right free.
There’s battery corrosion in the compartment. Is that a problem?
It’s common and usually manageable. Minor corrosion on the battery terminals is cleaned up as part of the recap at no extra charge. If the corrosion has spread beyond the terminals and into the board itself, we photograph what we find and quote the extra work before doing anything chargeable; if you’d rather not proceed we return the console and only the deposit is used.
How should I pack a handheld for posting?
Take the batteries out first, always. Then bubble wrap the console generously and post it in a small box with padding on all sides, not a bare padded envelope, which offers very little protection against a sorting office. Remove any game cartridge. We email you the postal address as soon as you book. Royal Mail Tracked 48 is about £5 over the counter and covers you up to £150.
Bring the batteries, we’ll bring the caps
Game Gear £39, Game Boy £45, every board recapped with Japanese capacitors, return tracked postage included and 90 days on the workmanship. Serving the whole UK by post from Basingstoke.