HELP! I think my DC has died.

Scottie318 · Post by **Scottie318** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 8:53 am

I've had my Dreamcast since launch day back in September of 99. Lately, I've been using the DC to play NesterDC. I've done this on and off for a year or so without trouble. The last few days, the DC no longer spins the disc and neither CD-R discs or the original GD-Rom games work. It appears as though it boots up then throws itself right to the DC menu. I can still access all the menu settings so I'm confident that the problem is within the GD-Rom. I guess the motor has failed. Can anyone point me in the right direction to attempt to fix this?

Smurph · Post by **Smurph** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 8:59 am

If you have a multimeter, check the voltage of the motor, and replace it. If you don't have a multimeter, get one. Also make sure you get the right kind of motor. Be careful when handling the GD-ROM unit.

doragasu · Post by **doragasu** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 4:01 pm

Same thing happened to me and I couldn't find a suitable motor replacement. I had to buy another DC...

LyingWake · Post by **LyingWake** » Mon Jul 18, 2005 4:24 pm

Perhaps you need to calibrate your laser severely. I had the same problem that was just like your and had found a fix. You may want to try this tutorial:

http://consolevision.com/members/fackue ... alib.shtml

crc73 · Post by **crc73** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 7:57 am

LyingWake wrote:Perhaps you need to calibrate your laser severely. I had the same problem that was just like your and had found a fix. You may want to try this tutorial:

http://consolevision.com/members/fackue ... alib.shtml

Personally, I wouldn't advise this as a first attempt at trying to fix your unit.

First thing I would do is check the voltages on the power board, but you'll have to have a little electronics know-how to do this properly and not electrocute yourself. As far as I remember, the voltages are printed on the power board - you would need to check them at the 6 pins that the power board is connected to. There are online faqs showing where this is.

The easiest way to check the power board to is have a good DC unit, and swap power boards between the 2, but you mightn't have access to a working DC unit.

The reason I say to check the power board is because I had a similar sounding problem, and it turned out to be the power board that was at fault. Try to isolate which board is at fault before potentially ruining a perfectly good GD-ROM unit. Is the fan blowing as hard as it should be?

http://www.dcemulation.org/phpBB/viewto ... highlight=

Travis of the Cosmos · Wed Jan 04, 2006 3:57 pm

LyingWake wrote:Perhaps you need to calibrate your laser severely. I had the same problem that was just like your and had found a fix. You may want to try this tutorial:

http://consolevision.com/members/fackue ... alib.shtml

How do you know which way to turn the screw? If its spining too fast or slow?

I have a dreamcast that is only reading music cd-r's.
It's a spare that's been sitting in my dresser for about a year.

When I put a game in it spins and tries to load but it doesn't make the loud loading grunts that a working dreamcast makes.

pnpbios · Post by **pnpbios** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 10:28 pm

This is something dumb I tried, but it works, probably the CD equivalant to blowing a cartridge out.

slide the laser back. It worked for me, havent had problems since it forced the laser back to neutral and things worked again.

Another thing, if it won't read at all, try pressing on the back of the lid. It might not be registering that the lid is closed properly. That's happened to mine too.

HomerCIDAL · Post by **HomerCIDAL** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 8:43 am

I've heard of GD-ROM drives failing after extensive use with burned CD media. I think the problem extends from the laser needing to read parts of the CD-R that the GD-ROM was never designed to read (the innermost and outermost parts of the disc). The only likely solution would be to replace the GD-ROM. I definitely wouldn't go tinkering around with the drive or the laser unless you really know what you are doing.

navi · Post by **navi** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 2:05 pm

I had that same problem with my old dreamcast it turns out the ribbon that connects the MB to the GD was loose, I just reconnected it and bada-boom!

Evil_Ernie · Post by **Evil_Ernie** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 5:35 pm

my bro's dc stopped spinning gd-roms over more then a year back and i just cleaned it out with some "tutorial" i found online, it started working again... didn't even have to open the shell or anything...

Travis of the Cosmos · Fri Jan 06, 2006 1:43 pm

I opened it up yesterday but I didn't have a screw driver small enough to adjust it.
It looks like it spins to slowly.

Travis of the Cosmos · Thu Jan 12, 2006 7:21 pm

Sucess!!!!

I went to radio shack today and bought a screw driver set for $5 dollars.

Only had to turn it about a quarter turn and it worked on the first try.