Mine has just started having problems reading game discs and would only read music cds. Then last week it stopped coming on at all. When I press the power button, the power led will blink on briefly and the disc will spin for a moment, then it will cut off completely and no amount of button pushing will make any lights blink ect. and I have to unplug it for roughly ten minutes before it will even do that much again.
i've broken it open to clean the lens and blow dust off of the fans and to look for obvious "on/off" switches and stuff. or maybe a fuse or a loose or corroded connection and I can't find jack shit.

anyone savvy in the arts of the dreamcast that can advise me? i'm aching for some nfl 2k

12/11/2008 1:46:35 AM

sounds like a self-resetting fuse

the question is WHY is it tripping

find the fuse, follow the path backwards until you find something that's broken

12/11/2008 2:02:32 PM

well, the reset problem appears to be do to an overheating problem

but the fan in it was broken, and it turns out that its a fan that relays it's RPMs back to the main board. it uses a nifty stupid black wire to do that. so not just any old fan will work.

i ended up yanking a three wire fan off of an old CPU cooler and crammed all the wires where they need to go and just set the fan outside the case.

then it would stay on for a few seconds longer before clocking out. i figure the rpms just aren't high enough because the fan is so much bigger than the original so I cut all the blades off of it and voila! cranks up like a charm now till it overheats , unless I leave the cover off, then it can go a little longer.

but now the CD won't spin up

working on that now.

looks like dr frankenstein's lab in my living room right now

12/12/2008 3:40:36 PM

I have one that works perfect hooked up to the tv in my guest room... /nerd.brag

12/12/2008 8:10:45 PM

WTF are the cd roms in these things from like jupiter or something

12/13/2008 10:34:56 AM

Maybe from SATURN.... lollers amirite????!

12/13/2008 11:23:24 AM

ourite

12/13/2008 11:59:47 AM

have i ever mentioned how much i hate electricity

[Edited on December 14, 2008 at 2:59 PM. Reason : as well as magnetism and, well, time itself for that matter]

12/14/2008 2:59:05 PM