Plugged in my Dreamcast for the first time in almost a decade and the RF cable output is surprisingly decent…or is it just me?
I don’t have any other video cables so I can’t test it on CRT, but this is how it looks on a mid-2000s IPS panel Bravia TV:
It could be sharper, but from a regular viewing distance it’s not the awful I was expecting.
For an RF output that is pretty nice.
Not bad. Definitely, it will be better via S-Video if you can swing it on your CRT though.
I got my cap kit and recapped the PSU tonight. There were a couple others that leaked too, so my hopes were high.
Upon completing the recap tho, it doesn’t boot. All three voltage rails are good, but I get no video.
I swapped in an old PAL motherboard I have to check it, and it boots up, but then blanks out to a black screen, just like it was doing before.
So, I now have a dead NTSC motherboard (maybe the PSU killed it last time I tried it out), and a PSU that’s still doing the same thing it was before I recapped it…
I’m giving up on this thing. I don’t have the expertise to troubleshoot the thing any more, and with a supposedly dead NTSC board anyway, I’m just going to buy another one.
The only time I’ve seen a boot to black was after I fitted my gdemu and booted out without disconnecting my old mod chip.
Not sure that helps but thought I’d mention it.
Unfortunately not the case here, I have no modchip installed.
Okay, I have news on this. I replaced my Dreamcast last night. And started swapping over all the mods one by one.
Recapped PSU = ✓ works great
USB-GDROM = ✓ works great
Noctua Fan = ✘ didn’t work, even in the new controller pcb!
What?? That’s odd… It’s just a fan, makes no sense that it would cause the system to boot, then drop to a black screen a few seconds later.
Okay… so I remove the Noctua, install the old fan, and bam, it starts working again!
So, looking at the fan specs, the Noctua and the stock fan are both 5V, but the Noctua draws less wattage and less amperage. Maybe the system needs that additional power draw?
So, I put a 10k ohm resistor between the 5v and signal line of the fan wires, and it works perfectly now.
(Unfortunately, the old controller pcb seems to be fried, so my old Dreamcast won’t work again with the mod, but at least now I know what the problem was.) That also means that the old motherboard is probably fine, and I can sell it to recoup some costs. Will have to do more testing.
So, now that I’ve worked through my own issues here, I now know that your 10k resistor was to add power draw to the Noctua Fan, not to decrease it’s speed.
If you remove that resistor, your system won’t boot.
Wait! Did you say controller board? It’s probably not fried… you just “blew a fuse”!
I’ve had this on every Dreamcast. There is a fuse labeled F1 on there…
To test if you blew that out, just twist the metal legs together and if controllers work again, then bingo, it’s good!
I had a controller with a loose wire that caused this to fail. I found the original hacky fix of bypassing it with a twist and I’ve never looked back. Give it a try!
This is super common, btw.
Good point, I’ll test out the fuse with the multimeter tonight
Fuse is fine, but I found another problem, which is the reason why the other controller board wasn’t working.
From messing with the fan so much, the solder joints on the fan header were broken, and it started not booting again.
Fixed that up and it’s solid now.
The original one I was having issues with is a no-go. It’s got no video at all, so it’s officially going to be stored as a parts system.
anyone try the castlevania resurrection demo/thing that dropped recently? big CV week coming up next week with the final season of the show & LRG’s opening up the collection preorders, might be a good time for it!
I never thought it would see release. I was very wrong. Happy to be wrong though!
Wow, real gdemu’s going back up for sale on Saturday:
I finished setting up a 64gb SD card tonight with GDMenu and a simple custom theme. Got a nice little set of ~50 games, though I might move to a 128gb card down the road since there’s some really great titles that didn’t make the cut.
I also picked up a Brook Wingman SD the other day so I had fun making use of few controllers I have lying around. Typing of the Dead with a wireless Logitech keyboard, fighting games on an 8bitdo M30, Quake III / UT / Outrigger on a DS4. Really cool stuff and with 240 blocks of VMU memory built in this thing is pretty damn spiffy!
It’s great. I use a DS3 with it as I can’t stand the DC controller. I initially bought it to use my arcade stick with, it was a nice surprise when I found out I can use wireless controllers too!
It’s so useful!
I can be a purist occasionally but wireless controllers are a godsend. I wish there were an adapter of similar quality for the N64 so I could use my obsolete DS4s with that as well.
Random observations
Space Channel 5 is hilarious. WTF is this game
Draconus: Cult of the Wyrm, right at the beginning I was like IS THIS GEORGE TAKEI? And apparently yes, it is.
These FPS games like QIIIA look crisp and play great. Someday down the line I need to get this thing online again.
I just installed the Noctua fan mod with Laserbear’s kit and it’s working beautifully. The stock fan was already quiet enough but now it’s practically silent. Good to know I’ve got some better cooling in there.
This is the first time I’ve opened it up since the previous owner said he 'd installed the GDEMU and battery mod, but I was surprised because he specifically said he added a resistor to reduce heat, only now I see apparently the 12v rail was removed entirely? Weird. I assume he didn’t want to admit he’d bought the whole thing premodded on Ebay or something. 
The coin battery appears to be just a normal one, not rechargable. Since I have no idea how this thing was modded before I got it, can you guys tell if it was altered to take non-rechargables, or did the modder just cheap out on the battery?
Good to go!
