dreamcast crashed?

hi all,

two hours ago i was playing shenmue when suddenly the picture got white stripes and the game slows down heavily. Also it started flickering. first i thought the game crashed, but when i restarted it i got the same picture.
just bought the dreamcast in used condition via ebay one week ago...so this is fairly annoying:crying:
anyone knows whats going on? in my opinion the gpu got crashed.

greets from germany

 

Could you post some pictures?

 

I do not know dreamcast hardware, but it does sound like a hardware related issue.

Very rare that you would need to 're-flow' a dreamcast's BGA setup.

 

here are some pictures taken with a bad digi-cam resulting in the black stripes, so these parts don´t come from my dreamcast. but i think the problem is visible.
http://imageshack.us/g/641/p9270001.jpg/

 

Can't be a faulty GPU because it is giving a good picture. Then again, it is possible it can do this if a ball has cracked.

I reckon it is the Video Output / Encoder or a resistor or capacitor has fried :shrug:


Either way, open it up and take a took.

 

So, it cant be GPU but it could be? Nice work.

If you dont know, you dont have to actually reply. No answer is better than the wrong answer (or just throwing all the answers out there and seeing what sticks).

 

I just type on the spot and contradict myself a lot xD
I give up though on this issue

 

open it up and look for signs of damage (leaky caps etc) and give the console a good clean inside with some compressed air etc

 

ok, thanks for the hints. i´ll try it out this evening.

 

I've tried to repair consoles with faults similar to that one and replacing the video memories did not help so I'd say it could be the Holly ASIC(GPU+ BUS control), sadly.

 

well i´ve cleared it out (was surprised how many screws the dreamcast has) and it´s working again! don´t know how long though...anyway, thanks for your help!

 

Make sure you have the thermal pads working right. You don't want the Holly chip getting too hot. :thumbsup:

 

Check the av cable i fixed a dreamcast for a retro shop.

And ring me up saying its not working.

So i whent to the store i repluged it in fully not forceing the cable in and worked.

If not then i would have that sent for bga reball at a prober place.

Or replace the motherboard.

 

You're padding your post count and making yourself look very foolish. Being ignorant of a topic is just fine and you'll note I admit to it regularly. Being ignorant of a topic and presenting yourself as knowledgeable is disgruntling.

What probably happened was a tinge of overheating if cleaning it out cleared up the issue, especially given the images provided.

 

Thanks for the tip.


If it was dust in the console, how would that make it give bad video?
Does it ruin the solder joints??

I reckon now it just had a cold joint somewhere. Especially if he flexed the board a little bit while cleaning it.

 

Dust blocks the airflow a bit, making it easier to overheat components. Here it seems that the problem was the gpu overheating because of dust.

FG

 

Well now I am curious to know how much dust was in it :lol:

 

I am not sure it was just heat from dust, as he was posting here over a couple of days - so you would think it had time to cool down.

 

I have had DC overheat issues too few times, but mostly from overclocking experiments. Results were similiar.
Problems continue as long as DC is hot, it took me good 10 mins for things to cool down enough not to have any problems again (until next time )