Newer Dreamcast

Hello All,

I have 2 old Dreamcasts (both w/ Mfg date = Dec 99). Both don't really work (anymore). 1 is very unresponsive. After pressing any button, it takes about 1.5 seconds before it registers. The other doesn't recognize any games. I just got a new one off Ebay. It seems to work fine with store-bought games, but doesn't play any CDRs. According to some posts on the Internet, later model Dreamcasts don't play CDR games (self-booting backups). Does anyone know what part changed in the newer models? I'm wondering if I could swap out a part or two from the old ones with the new one. After the 2nd Ebay dreamcast got unresponsive, I tried swapping every single part with the other one, but I couldn't get a working console. I can only assume the part (motherboard?) that caused the unresponsiveness on one was also not reading disks on the other.

Thanks in advance.

I belive the only thing that stops the ebay bought DC from playing CD-Rs is that sega fixed the loophole in its bios so people couldnt boot from Audio Cd's anymore but there are ways to specially burn cds to get it to boot, but it could just be that the lazer need calibrated.

Also I think that the DC that cannot read games anymore needs its lazer recalibrated unless there is visable damage to the GD-ROM if so then just swap the GD-ROM from the DC that isnt responsive.

I havent seen this unresponsiveness before, it probbally has something due to a blown resistor on the controller sub-board.

A laser recab can fix most problems, but sometimes it will only give you a few more weeks before the laser dies permanently.

That problem with the delayed controller sounds interesting, it could be numerous things that could cause but I'd imagine it would be on the motherboard not the controller board. It is almost certainly a blown cap/resistor on the mobo that is making an IC behave oddly.

Could swap out the controller boards to see.

As for not reading CDR, you have a revision 2 Dreamcast. The motherboard has a differant layout and the BIOS is indeed differant - making booting CDR homebrew etc. impossible without some extensive work on the BIOS and possibly other hardware.

Better to just get another DC or fix the others.

Accually I belive there is a way to get a revision 2 dreamcast to boot cd-r's it involves burning the cds differently then normal DC's but your best off getting another dreamcast.