Just watch...and listen to my dreamcast attempt to boot Jet Grind Radio and off camera before I started filming it just kept going to the boot menu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM5LQcs4kI0
Oh I know that noise. My Dreamcast did the same around 2003/2004, didn't matter which game I tried, sometimes it worked and most of the times I got that noise. Left it in the closet then and played GameCube instead, when I took it out some years later all the problems were gone and it still works today...
My Dreamcast hates me still here's another video of it hating me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DZwZxDnCEo
Yeah, Dreamcasts can be finicky sometimes. I'd say that one is probably on the way out. The first Dreamcast I had did this thing where it would start to load the game and then go straight to the boot menu. I took it back to EB Games and then gave me another one that came in the original box! That was pretty cool. I have 2 DCs now, so if one of them craps out on me (which it probably will, sooner or later) I have one as a backup.
Yeah, you could try swapping the drive unit, assuming you have one working one and they're the same model. That's what I did with my dying Japanese Saturn and it works perfectly now.
Since we're talking about gd-drives, I've opened plenty of dreamcast in my time and all of em look the same but one! I got one that connects to the motherboard with individual cables tied together instead of a ribbon cable, note also that for some odd reason some one decided to cut em.... I got it in a lot of defective units (most only had dead controller ports )
Dis you check in the back? Is sounds to me like the dot matrix printer in back may be printing something... Maybe a cryptic message about the impending launch of DC2...
If you mean the BIOS menu, your lid switch might be messed up. It'll randomly think you opened the CD lid. I think this is caused by setting something ontop of the DreamCast or stacking the systems ontop of eachother. I used to leave a CD book with games ontop of mine. I was able to fix it later but now I know it's a bad idea to leave something ontop of your DreamCast.
Well you can try the following fix if it reboots for no reason http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rizeLEQyzs&feature=related Also dreamcast + moisture = very bad. I had my dreamcast beside my tv and for unknown reason stopped working. I stored it in my closet, got it out after a year and was working fine. I guess dreamcast has low tolerance on moisture levels for you might try cleaning it and see what happens. You can always store it in a closet but i don't think that is acceptable for you
The Random resetting issue is the problem with my other dreamcast which just flat out doesn't work now.
My poor dreamcast died like this. Wouldn't read games anymore. I didn't know what to do or how to fix it back in the day. So I had to get rid of it I am still sad about the matter.
If that's the case, you could put those silica gel packs that absorb moisture in the system. That would be kind of funny opening the system every now and then to replace them. But I doubt that's really the problem.
My room is climate controlled so it's not mosture. I go out of my way to make sure it doesn't get humid in here
LOL, talk about moisture? I once had to check a friend's DC which was stored in the basement. Heavy rain had it flooded, so every print plate was covered in a nice, thick lime layer and the shielding plates' rust coat needed to be ground down with a toothbrush. I was a bit worried about the DC catching on fire because of possible remaining lime, but everything worked after that.
