omp: Thank you for your help. I am pretty sure my soldering is good. I have checked them all and they are good. (Maybe i have to check it again) I am almost in the same boat as beharius. 1 works the other one doesnt. Broken Working The reason Leg 44 of the chip is not wired to leg 7 of IC502 is because i use this: http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/sega-dreamcast-region-free-bios/#ic502 Side note this was much easier than that nightmare saturn bios.
The only incompatibility I've come across after modding 50+ DCs is a DC where the GD-ROM won't properly read discs anymore and I'm pretty sure it's a GD-ROM problem and not a BIOS issue.
Oh no, please don't let me be the unlucky "winner" if I ever have to replace my DC. Already bad enough that similar happened when modding GC.
I doubt it, I think the GD-ROM on this thing isn't seated 100% but I've been too lazy to bother trying to reseat it.
Pad 18 lifted off my mother board while removing the original bios , there's no trace . Can anyone tell me where pad 18 connects to alternatively ?
Pin 18 isn't used. For users of the future, pins 16,18,20,22,25,27 and 29 aren't used, as the chip is used in 8 bit mode, not 16 bit.
Ah ok thanks so much . I went ahead and installed the new bios chip but I only get the original saga swirl logo screen but with out animation :/ it just pops on screen and does nothing else I'll post a pic when I figure out how to actually post a pic on here .
This is before installation . I'll take a pic of the installed chip when I get off work and post it .
The gdrom is installed , spins up and reads . But the screen just pops to the orange swirl and stays there . And the vmu beeps but no display ever appears .
Ok so it stays on this screen for about 3 minutes and then goes to the the menu screen where it says please wait while checking disc but then does nothing . Just stays at that screen . Wtf is going on !
Likely you broke a trace which goes to the GD ROM connector and now the console cannot communicate with the GD ROM unit. The traces come from the Holly chip (GPU) pass through the flash rom (memory with settings) then through the BIOS and finally end on the GD-ROM drive connector. It's possible that you tore the trace in a way it's severed between the rom and the GD connection, so it still can read the rom but fails to communicate with the GD properly.
Fuck the directions on http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/sega-dreamcast-region-free-bios/ are totally wrong for a VA0 board, the correct way is http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/va0-dreamcast-link83-bios-replacement-help.41619/ Damn it man . I'm up and running fine now after all the lifting legs and re soldering legs and crap .
Na the direction of mmmonkey's are totally wrong in every way . pin 23 "not lifted" and pin 44 "lifted" are wired together and pin 1 "lifted" is wired to pin 7 of the IC502 chip. As directed by bad_ad84 to another person in that other thread . I guess he just forgot to mention it .
