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gavin
March 25th, 2005, 15:37
Hi,

My Dreamcast, along with all my other consoles, got completely wrecked when our house flooded. Now that they've all dried out and I have a bit of time to kill, I was thinking of doing a little comparison of their relative indestructibility. I'll post it online with some pics when I'm done.

So far, the dreamcast is starting up, but the disc drive doesn't seem to be spinning, and I'm thinking maybe it's rusted or something... it could even just be clogged up with gunk. I'm not really expecting any of the consoles to work, but they've been through a lot, so I figured I owed them a try.

So basically, has anyone got any tips or suggestions? Doesn't really matter how good they are, I'll give anything a try.

In the meantime, here's a link to photo I just found online of my wife being rescued from our home:-
http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/photos/details.aspx?id=32792&category=470

Thanks,

Gavin

Darksaviour69
March 26th, 2005, 12:50
open it up an see inside ;) btw i hope your insureance will replace all you toys!

gavin
March 27th, 2005, 23:06
Thanks darksaviour, I'll be sure to try that... :)

Insurance will get us back on our feet, but the lesson I've learned is that it's not worth cutting back on cover to save a few pound, because it is possible to lose everything!

And, if anyone is wondering what consoles that've spent some time submerged in 6 foot of river water might look like, here's a preview:

Devlin
March 28th, 2005, 16:30
ouch...

ptr.exe
March 28th, 2005, 20:03
that doesnt look good...

i didnt realise there would be that much mud.

gavin
March 29th, 2005, 23:00
i didnt realise there would be that much mud.

It gets everywhere, that's the worst of it... and who knows what it is :eek:

Even deep inside the console is dirty - the picture below is of the DC disc drive unit.

Darksaviour69
March 30th, 2005, 16:15
ok, i can safely say " thats not good"

ptr.exe
March 30th, 2005, 16:40
ouch, safe to say that gd-rom has seen its day.

Hows the GC? if its knackered i'd be willing to buy it as im in need of a case/parts. if your interested PM me.

Darksaviour69
March 30th, 2005, 16:59
whats this, a dreamcast inside a gamecube, it would be easier to do that with an xbox

Pryonic
March 31st, 2005, 00:55
to my mind the only way to clean ur DC is to :

dismantle it completly

flood any piece with "WD40" ( that will remove mud and probably stop any rust )...

when everything is perfectly clean of mud

then flood it with "contact cleaner" (look in electronics shops for that)
it will remove any oil left there by WD40
and fisrt of all it will dry all the electronics parts and boards ...

make sure everything is perfectly DRY before powering ur DC again

hope that'll help

of course u can do the same for all ur electronic stuff

gavin
March 31st, 2005, 12:01
Thanks for the tips Pryonic, I'll look out for the contact cleaner.

Actually though, the biggest problem with all the consoles seems to be getting the disc drive to actually spin. I have a feeling the DC one has rusted stuck, because its difficult to even turn it manually.

ptr, some of the steps I took to get inside the GC were kind of medieval, (long story with weird shaped screws, bic pens and too much melting) so you probably won't want the case. You could have it if it were down to me, but that could probably give me a problem with the insurance, as all this stuff is condemned and written off... and even if it did work it probably couldn't be called safe.

This pic certainly surprised me, I'm looking at the contents of my memory card.

Pryonic
March 31st, 2005, 23:50
according to the picture,
i'm not sure it was a good idea to power up ur DC with all the dry mud still inside

that might have "****ed" or damage mechanical parts of the disc drive ....

save ur DC ... clean it before doing any "live" test again ...

:o)

ptr.exe
April 1st, 2005, 16:07
gavin, okay mate no worries, those game-bit screws that ninty use are well annoying ive had to do that bic trick many times.

DS69, i never said putting a DC in a GC, where did you get that from? :) it wouldnt be possible as the DC mobo is wider than the GC case so without massive amounts of soldering and basically remaking the mobo it couldnt be done. I wanted the case for a differant GC mod where i was gonna put a DVD player inside a GC, oh the irony...

pezza
April 12th, 2005, 00:50
man, that's the first time i've seen anything like that! a unique experiment and i must say that your quite light harted seeing as you've been flooded, respect to you for keeping your chin up.