How to put a DC back together??? Got a VA0 in pieces for almost nothing

A quick trip to the store yielded me something unexpected. Garage sale open before 8 AM on a cold day. But I did find a few things all for $5:
Intellivision 3- very dirty like it was stored in a barn for years. Will have to clean before I test
About 20 overlays. No games though, the person there things the game were sold last year.
And a boxed Dreamcast system. Not a retail box, they were boxed because they were in pieces. Every little pieces was removed like someone planned on a case mod but never finished it.




Even the gears that makes the lid pop up slowly have been taken apart. Would anyone know of a guide to put it back together so I can test it. It looks like everything are there except for maybe few screws.






VA0 motherboard with original fan and heat pipes.

 

Wow! That is quite disassembled! Here's my pics of one of my VA0 units that might give you some information.
Hope they help and hope it works! :encouragement:
Good haul by the way!

 

Pro tip - 3 short screws are for the GDROM. otherwise you will end up with a hole in the main pcb.

 

Who wants to bet that GD-ROM drive doesn't work?

 

I hope that's not experience talking!

Ahhh don't say that! Otherwise the pizza shop will take his cash and deliver no pizza! :livid:

 

Well, here are a couple of things off the top of my head - the first is that there should be a pair of silicone pads that go underneath the main logic board in the middle of the chips with the heat spreaders on them - if they are missing, it screws up the cooling.

If you sort out the screws, there should be 2 longer black ones (for the modem) and 6 shorter black ones (for the right side and back of the main logic board shield). The two screws on the left of the main logic board are the shorter clear plated ones - these are the same screws that hold the power switch, PSU and GD-ROM drive. The 4 longer clear plated screws hold the joystick PCB in place. These are the ones you don't want to install the GD-ROM with

The very short clear plated dome head screws are used to put the upper cover together. Since you have a VA0, there should be 5 of these - 2 for the lens, 2 for the hinge on one side and one for the hinge on the other side (the VA1 has 2 more of these that hold the fan in position).

Here are some photos of the lid assembly:

 

Here's another tip, since it stumped me for a long time when I was reassembling my DC: don't try to put the mainboard and RF shields back in at the same time. Put them in one after the other (bottom shield, mainboard then top shield) or you will have a hellva time getting the ports to poke though the holes in the case.

 

Lots of good tips and pictures, I was able to put it back together. It seems all the screws are present and conveniently sorted. The silver bag with the modem gut has 2 black screws. The other bag with most of the pieces, the screws were sealed inside duct tape and marked "mainboard", "drive", etc so I had no trouble getting the right ones.

Still there under the heat pipe plates.

Missing are:
serial number and product label on bottom
power LED

I have a grey triangle plastic piece that goes on the lid, just behind power LED but there's nothing to hold it down. Was glue used?

The DC does boot to DC logo and I can access settings as normal but when I put a DC disc there, it takes a long time (almost 2 minutes) before it decides there's no disc in it. So the drive needs to be checked. If I pop the lid while it's running, I can see the disc is spinning rather fast so the spindle speed seems OK, just that laser isn't working right.

I blame you for jinxing my DC.

 

Update: the old but tried-and-true last resort method of hitting device seemed to make it work. It booted my DC disc at normal speed. Maybe the laser was stuck until I slapped it and jarred it loose.

 

LOL when did that become standard! I'd never strike a DC... OK maybe I would.
But I'd definitely never strike a cartridge based console! :wink-new:
Glad to hear there is some progress!

That triangle piece is definitely a superglue-able part. They really took EVERYTHING apart didn't they!

 

Grease the rails, sounds like they are dry..

 

There should be two sets - the large ones between the heat spreaders and the chips, and another smaller set that go between the lower shield and the underside of the PCB.

(Rips VA0 DC apart :smile-new



They are those two grey squares with the depressions on them - if they are missing, then the machine still works, but you can suffer from overheating problems under heavy use.

 

A kind of double-sided adhesive sticker was used, some 3M adhesive should do the trick.

 

I managed to get an almost brand new looking DC from ebay for £5 boxed, even the pad and leads looked like they where never used, sold as not working/spare parts, basically a bit of grease was all that was needed! :tongue: