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The Game Boy released on April 21, 1989 in Japan, followed by North America on July 31, 1989, and lastly in Europe on September 28, 1990. It is characterized by a large grey casing and model number DMG-01.

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Cleaned battery corrosion, but A and B buttons don't work

Hi! I came upon my brother's old original Gameboy yesterday. It had battery corrosion from years ago; I don't know much at all about electronics but have fixed a few toys with battery corrosion before. Gameboy wouldn't turn on; I took it apart and cleaned all the corrosion I could, first a little with baking soda/water and then with vinegar....Turns on now and everything works, EXCEPT for the A and B buttons, obviously making gameplay impossible...Links to pics below: is there anything I can do to get it working/what part is keeping it from working? I realize it's not completely clean but don't want to spend more time on if I've broken something beyond repair (some of the green...plastic? started "melting" off on the back side....was vinegar not supposed to touch that....?) If it can't be fixed, I guess we'll at least have a very cool Super Mario World 1-1 music player, haha. Thanks!

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[IMG]http://i67.tinypic.com/35mozmg.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i67.tinypic.com/1054jsw.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i65.tinypic.com/2ldj1w2.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i66.tinypic.com/ay0npe.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i68.tinypic.com/kcxcah.jpg[/IMG]

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Hi!

Looks like you used the wrong type of alcohol, the vinegar seems to have corroded the electrical traces inside the mother board. You should have used Isopropyl Alcohol.

Now, about the repair: I've seen people fixing this kind of problem by basically bridging the corroded area with a cable: What you have to do is to is to scrub the protective green layer off the board (before the corroded area) on the side where you can see the traces (pics 2 to 4) until you get to the conductive trace itself, solder a wire there and where the corroded are ends.

This is not 100% guaranteed fix, but if you feel confident it could save yourself the hustle of buying a new board.

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Hi @alexniculescu ,

"Rubbing" alcohol will do if you cannot get anything better but you should really use IPA 90%+ (Isopropyl Alcohol - available at most pharmacies) to clean off corrosion and to disperse liquids when cleaning electronics.

Rubbing alcohol is usually <70% IPA and can contain scents. It is not as effective as the purer IPA. Check the label on the bottle to verify the amount of IPA and "other" ingredients before using rubbing alcohol.

Cheers

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Hi @jayeff

Sorry, I meant the same thing as you mention, just did not remember the English name...

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