Dreamcast still not fixed, complete tear-down

I really hoped that in this post, I would be telling you that I have fixed my Dreamcast. Nope.
I did a complete tear down of the main components and could not find any medical reason for the symptoms presented. It was like exploratory surgery. I will get a new AV lead from Ebay as a final try, but if that doesn't work then this Dreamcast shall become officially decommissioned and retired to a display cabinet.

Second attempt at fixing Dreamcast

Ok, the next thing to try was re-seating the power supply. This involves removing the PSU board, cleaning it and putting it back.

It was in pretty good condition in there, so that wasn't the problem. This repair is used for Dreamcasts that reset themselves, which is not the problem for me, so I was doubtful this would fix it.
Next thing to try is stripping the whole thing down and making sure there are no dry solder joints around the video out area. I hope there are, because that would mean the problem was there the whole time!

As soon as I can fix this thing, or at least exhaust all my ideas, I will start working on repairing N64 control sticks.

First attempt at fixing the Dreamcast

A fail. That's a good way to put it. I thought that the RF adapter may be the faulty component, so I soldered some AV leads onto the RF out inside the little tuner box.
This didn't work.


Well, at least I have eliminated the cables being the problem. I will probably get some new ones soon, just to be sure, but the next thing to do is check out the power supply contacts and give them a clean. I've read that the PSU board can cause various problems.

As soon as I fix this bad boy, you better believe that the solution will be up on the main site in a how-to form. I'm so keen to get this beast working...

SEGA Dreamcast: YAY! Aww... fail

About 3 nights ago, my partner found on Ebay, a Hello Kitty Japanese SEGA Dreamcast limited edition for $100 or something. Noticing that the seller was in a city near us, my partner asked him if he had any other Dreamcast products for sale. She knows what consoles I need for my collection. He said he had a broken (but possibly fixable) dreamcast for $15 and a 3rd party controller for $5. We took him up on the offer.

So after tee-ing up with him to meet at his place of work on Saturday to exchange the cash and the console. He emailed us this morning saying that he was off work sick and had arranged with another staff member to make the exchange.

So, off we went, 50km to the city and went straight to this workplace only to be informed that the stand-in had gone home sick aswell! Bummer! We were going to find an internet cafe to contact the guy again but just came home instead. But before we did, we stopped in at Cash Converters and I was pleased to find a Dreamcast controller, a couple of GameGear games, a N64 rumble pack and Gameboy adaptor. So it wasn't a total failure...

So, when we got back we emailed him again and advised him to perhaps post the items as we were pissed off that we drove up there for nothing.