I got a broken Dreamcast off eBay and I've gone through it with a fine tooth comb and have found only one problem with it. It's got the black swirl animation when it boots up and refuses to read all disc that are placed in it. Funny thing is, when a Dreamcast game is inserted it goes straight to the CD player and if i hit "Play" ... it tells me it's a Dreamcast game and not to play it in a regular CD player (amusing huh?) I've tried Utopia, Dreamshell, etc. ... nothing want's to load! I'm guessing this console has had a bad region mod change (think I read something about that a while back) and now the region settings are wipe hence it won't read a freaking thing? Well, here's my question ... if I remove the TSOP 40 Flash ROM chip ... can I rewrite it to fix the problem. Here's why I'm asking, I downloaded the Dreamcast BIOS and Flash ROM bin files ... and was wondering if this is a possible fix because I'm assuming if you can read it then you must be able to write it! Also, there's a Flash ROM bin titled ... "All Regions" ... will this make the Dreamcast region free since the region settings are stored in the Flash ROM or does that mean it just contains all the available region settings but is still locked into one or the other? Any help would be much appreciated ... I'm new at working on Dreamcast so I'd really like to get this console working again. First time I've encountered a Dreamcast that works ... yet doesn't want to work :witless:
Flash can be written, but you need to solder the wire to unprotect the chip (make sure to disconnect afterwards however - same process as region changing). Installing the region free bios might allow you to boot a disc even with corrupt region info and then change/flash it correctly. (on a side note, your chips will ship tomorrow - sorry about the delay) However, I do not know for certain if the symptoms you describe reflect a bad region change/corruption - as I have never had it happen. Also, yes with a suitable programmer and soldering skills you could reprogram it externally.
Cool ... I've already removed the flash rom from the motherboard (gotta love ChipQuik SMD Removal ... slides right off) and I definitely have the solder skills :highly_amused: I'm going to try re-programming it externally when my programmer and TSOP & SOP adapters show up ... should be an interesting little project assuming the flash rom wasn't damaged by the +12V region change. Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't +5Vdc be enough to enable a region change instead of using +12Vdc. It's my understand that the WE# only needs +0.8V more than Vcc. ... and if that doesn't work ... I'll try the region-free BIOS chips your sending me. Hopefully one of the two methods works or I'm out $20 ... lol. I'm sure it's a region change gone bad ... tried the GD-ROM in another unit and it worked perfectly so that rules that out. The Black swirl logo tipped me off as to a corrupt flash rom ... seen quite a few people on other forums complaining about how they bricked their Dreamcast with SWAT's Region Changer ... especially v1.7!
Another quick question ... let's say my flash rom is damaged. It's a MBM29LV002TC (Fujitsu) .... and I were to replace it with a AM29V002BC (AMD) ... does that top and bottom boot loading sector difference between the two chips make any real difference? They seem like an identical match except for that one thing.
You didnt mention the black swirl in the first post. So yes, that does sound like a bad region change. And its not the write enable thats unprotecting the chip. The 12v is put to the reset pin to unprotect. Check the datasheet for MBM29LV002TC for more info. Top and bottom boot thing shouldnt make any difference at all and the AMD replacement should work (and the region change should work with no wire anymore!). l_oliveira mentioned the flash chip is only half used and suggest you could possible tie the last address line to use the second half of the chip - which is unprotected (blocks 0-6 are the only protected ones) to also avoid needing the wire.
Oh and worst case - I can send you a replacement chip. I have some dead dreamcast boards knocking around.
Yeah ... I mentioned the "Black Swirl"... it's not a big deal though. Thanks for the Flash ROM offer ... might take you up on that if all else fails :encouragement: Can't wait to get my new programmer ... had one ages ago for EPROM's ... arcade motherboard repair ... oh what fun that was ... lol.
There was no need to remove, just solder a 5v wire to BIOS chip and reflash the correct BIOS. Every time I try for the Black one it does the same thing. Why they leave it as an option I will never know. DC-Swat needs to remove that from their app as it does more damage then good.
Shouldn't we just make a region hacked bios that changes the swirl's palette to black? I can't think of a safer way to see the effect.
Apparently I cant read =/ Out of interest, what programmer did you go for? You are mixing up several things in this sentence. You do not reflash the bios, you reflash the flash chip that holds region information. The bios is stored on a different chip and isnt writeable (unless you replace it). You also do not provide 5v, its 12v as per the flash chips datasheet. By "we" I assume you mean "someone else"?
True-USB PRO GQ-4X Willem Programmer ... seems like a good programmer to get started with ... tons of adapters ... easy to use software. Only downside is that the zif socket max's out at 42 pin with an adapter ... would've liked to had a 48 ... but those are quite expensive and seem to be geared more towards the professionals. Like you said earlier ... I was combing through the datasheet and seen were the high for the RE# pin was as high as +13Vdc so I guess there's no danger in harming the flash rom since it's built to handle that kind of voltage. As to Lum's suggestion ... me personally ... I like the colored swirl animation ... lets you know with region setting your dealing with unlike the black version. As to atreyu187 ... from what I was later informed by the seller of this console after I assured him I was ok with the console and was just inquiring about what happened to it, he spilled the beans so to speak. He was removing the "Black Swirl" option only ... the settings were still USA, NTSC, and English when it went south on him. Basically, he removed one "X" and it locked up his Dreamcast! I know one thing ... after searching numerous forums and seeing how many people have bricked their Dreamcast because of this mod makes me wonder why anyone would bother with it seeing how you have to use a CD ... so why not use Utopia and play it safe or buy another Dreamcast that comes stock with the region settings you need? Hopefully, I'm successfully at restoring the original flash rom code so this Dreamcast will play games again!
Holy crap ... $990 ... and I thought the $600 - $800 were high ... super nice programmer though :excitement:
good grief! 20% VAT :grief: ... and I thought are 6% sale tax was high ... lol. Of course internet sales are tax free for us so that's $270+ more than we pay for the same product. Did you also have to pay a duty fee? I know when I ship items to Canada ... my Canadian buyer's always complain about this hence the reason they hate having to buy anything that's out of country.
The black swirl issue was fixed in version 1.8 of region changer. From this version onward, the "black" option should works without a problem. This is an on and off thing, sometime they ask for duty, but most of the time they don't! I personally hate buying from Canada because then you got to pay the federal tax (5% I think). If you buy from your province, you should then add the provincial tax over the federal tax+original cost. Yes, the federal tax is taxed by the provincial one... Taxception?
I assume you are talking about when I bought my GQ-4X from MCUmall? No, they valued it low and I didnt pay anything (even though there was $400 worth of stuff in the box - I bought most adapters all with the programmer).
Yes. For myself it'd a waste of effort (other than knowledge I'd gain through learning how). My Dreamcast already has region free from a modchip. I still recommend that when one's goal is simply all region on retail imports. Boot logo color is a bonus feature.
I got video of a Dreamcast being bricked by v1.8 by removing the "Black Swirl" option ... lol ... guess that issue is still an issue.
