Dreamcast Not working...for the 3rd time!!!

And on its birthday too!!! Okay, this is the 3rd time this has happened. Once to my own DC, and now, the second time to my poor unfortunate friends DC now. I boot it up, with a game, and the controller doesnt function, at all, in any port. Now, the first time this happened, I was traveling back from florida in the van, and had it hooked up through a AC-DC converter, and it happened. I think It was a Nester DC cd. Then, my poor bud came over for New Years eve, brought his DC, and then it crapped up using the UTOPIA boot disk. Now, for his system, I bought a broken DC, and replaced my buds conroller PCB in his DC from the broken one, and wal-lah! it worked. So he brought it back to his house and it played great for a week, all real games. He then just brought it to my house, we popped in Daytona USA, and the controller PCB crapped out again. I have a few things i think that might cause this...
1.) im using a 120v plug on the DC, which wants a 125v plug.

2.) Low voltage in my basement, and in my car, where the DC's crapped out

Anyway, some help is appreciated. Thanks guys.

bump. Help me?

Oh f#$%
I was using a Nester DC disk earlier and the controller stopped working for a second. I hope this is nothing to worry about.

My friend had this problem with 3 DC's in a row. He gave them to me to take a look at, it turns out that his son "Rat-boy" chewed on one the controller cables, the same controller was plugged into the 3 DC's.

The controller was tossed, and now there is no problem......

except when I lent him a couple games and that fucking kid chewed a hole in one of the disks

I just noticed a controller problem myself last week. The controller I mainly use would suddenly stop working. If I wiggled it, it would start up again. The joystick I bought recently has no problem whatsoever... this leads me to believe that the problem lies with the connections in the joystick plug itself... ?

Also, never plug or unplug your controllers while the DC is on. It will fry your controller ports(so I heard).

I have only had the controller problem.

This was pointed out to me by Steve, and depending on time zone, it could be late, but...

Happy Birthday DC!

I guess the B-Day boy wants to act up...those four year olds... oh_no

No!

all the above answers are pseudo-wrong, or at most right in different circumstances. i've had 2-3 dreamcasts do the same thing and i fixed them all (and "modded" one) after i figured out what was wrong with them. there's a certain (one) resistor that goes out (i've checked the dead resistors with a multimeter/ohm-meter) and causes the controller ports to not work. i think the leading theory is that when the VMU batteries get low they cause a short (sega should've forseen this problem) or some bishop/bullshit with the controller board (you seem to know what this is so i won't explain). altough some of the stuff about weird power could be true because the only place i've had my DCs fuck up was at a friend's apartment, and he had/has really bad/old power.

this problem can be resolved by:
*soldering out the old resistor.
*going to a nicer/more professional electronic parts store (radio shack didn't have the exact resistor i wanted, when my DC broke) and finding then buying a matching one.
*throw out the old one (and while you're at the electronic store buy a couple more replacements just in case it happens again).
*solder that new boy back in and you'll be set (if you get a different resistance rating you'll get weird things happening with button input).


there's a website around that has a "complete"/complete faq of how and what to do (with pictures and shit/stuff) to solve this problem. all you'll need is solder, soldering iron & 1/2-2/3 of a brain.

hope you can find the site, if you can't PM me and i'll search around for it tomorrow ... but right now i need to read and then sleep because i've got school tomorrow morning.

sleep sleep,
xFPx

<small>[ September 10, 2003, 01:45 AM: Message edited by: xFinnPetersx ]</small>

Moose:
1.) im using a 120v plug on the DC, which wants a 125v plug.

2.) Low voltage in my basement, and in my car, where the DC's crapped out

Anyway, some help is appreciated. Thanks guys.

Click to expand...

i'd bother to get the correct ... wait why is the plug different... do you mean outlet? isn't it just a cord on the DC, isn't the transformer internal on DCs. what do you mean by 125v plug... ?

um yeah i think low voltage/current/whatever (i'm not an electrical guru, i just play one on television) could be a problem. the resistor errors could be a result of that problem so... maybe you need new power or a new cord if you don't want it to happen again.

but right now you need to fix the resistor issue, it's what is keeping you from playing DC.

if you don't mind soldering in new resistors every now and then go buy a handful and an iron and be ready to replace them when your bad power fucks them up. but if you do mind i'd suggest bothering with getting the correct cord (EB sells them).

*edit: just read your sig. you're a "proud owner of a 32x"? that may be the most oxymoronic thing ever said.

yeah...,
xFPx

<small>[ September 10, 2003, 01:46 AM: Message edited by: xFinnPetersx ]</small>

xFinnPetersx:
No!

all the above answers are pseudo-wrong, or at most right in different circumstances. i've had 2-3 dreamcasts do the same thing and i fixed them all (and "modded" one) after i figured out what was wrong with them. there's a certain (one) resistor that goes out (i've checked the dead resistors with a multimeter/ohm-meter) and causes the controller ports to not work. i think the leading theory is that when the VMU batteries get low they cause a short (sega should've forseen this problem) or some bishop/bullshit with the controller board (you seem to know what this is so i won't explain). altough some of the stuff about weird power could be true because the only place i've had my DCs fuck up was at a friend's apartment, and he had/has really bad/old power.

this problem can be resolved by:
*saudering (sp?) out the old resistor.
*going to a nicer/more professional electronic parts store (radio shack didn't have the exact resistor i wanted, when my DC broke) and finding then buying a matching one.
*throw out the old one (and while you're at the electronic store buy a couple more replacements just in case it happens again).
*sauder that new boy back in and you'll be set (if you get a different resistance rating you'll get weird things happening with button input).


there's a website around that has a "complete"/complete faq of how and what to do (with pictures and shit/stuff) to solve this problem. all you'll need is sauder, saudering iron & 1/2-2/3 of a brain.

hope you can find the site, if you can't PM me and i'll search around for it tomorrow ... but right now i need to read and then sleep because i've got school tomorrow morning.

sleep sleep,
xFPx

Click to expand...

Hey,hey..Awesome..
I know exactly what you talking about..you are so correct..I was waiting for someone to write this,this well.
I've been running into a lot of broken controller port DC's lately..I'm know about this resister problem but I can't locate the resistor.

I was wondeing if it was the round Battery looking objects that are located in the center of the controller ports board.
I've seen these in two different sizes.

Where is this resister located.?

I'd post some pics of it if I could find out where it is.

Is it on the bottom or top of the controller port board?
If you want I can take some pictures of a broken DC's controller board and post them here..

If that will help anyone...

<small>[ September 10, 2003, 01:44 AM: Message edited by: chris1 ]</small>

here you go pseudo-homies:
<a href="http://devcast.dcemulation.com/repair/controller/controller.html" target="_blank">http://devcast.dcemulation.com/repair/controller/controller.html</a>

now it is truely time for SLEEP,
xFPx

xFinnPetersx:
here you go pseudo-homies:
<a href="http://devcast.dcemulation.com/repair/controller/controller.html" target="_blank">http://devcast.dcemulation.com/repair/controller/controller.html</a>

now it is truely time for SLEEP,
xFPx

Click to expand...

Thank you so much..

Try cleaning the controller plug inside and out by spraying it with PCB track cleaner (You can spray the controller ports too! But make sure its un-plugged, and dont go mad with the spray, and make sure its a good quality one that doesnt leave any trace).
Ambertron or that cheap-but-good one Maplins sells should do it.
If not then try a different controller.
If someone else has already suggested this then sooory! (I didnt read the whole thread)

Metal Slug:
Try cleaning the controller plug inside and out by spraying it with PCB track cleaner (You can spray the controller ports too! But make sure its un-plugged, and dont go mad with the spray, and make sure its a good quality one that doesnt leave any trace).
Ambertron or that cheap-but-good one Maplins sells should do it.
If not then try a different controller.
If someone else has already suggested this then sooory! (I didnt read the whole thread)

Click to expand...

Do you know the first time I had a problem with on of my DCs controller ports not working it aws because the connectors in the ports were dirty and the controller too.

I cleaned all rhe ports connectors and the controllers and that did the job..

Whenever I get DCs that the controllers are not working on I do the cleaning first..

I'm so glad the cleaning method worked on my launch day DC....whew.