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I red this post today for the first time...

3-4 months ago i swapped my GD rom Unit (Samsung 3.3 V on plate) with a Japanese Yamaha Unit (nothing on plate about voltage).

It is working flawlessy

I have a PAL v1 DC.

I would like to add that they are not perctly mechanically interchangeable though (you need to make an extra hole on the plate to fit better on V1 dreamcasts)

Just had a problem with frying a working Dreamcast's laser board - read this and DON'T swap (unknown) VA0 lasers with VA1's!!
(At least with NTSC units)
Someone swapped the laser assembly only (not the board) from a VA0 (or maybe a VA2) to a VA1 in a non-working Dreamcast that I got at a yard sale. The stamped cover said 3.3V, of course, because they only swapped the laser assembly.
When I got it home, and all it did was flash the power LED once fast, then nothing, and other retries didn't light the LED at all.
I removed the entire assembly and swapped it to a working unit with a flaky laser.
That console now had the same symptoms. Figuring the laser board was faulty, I swapped it with it's original board and it worked for about 15 minutes. The system overheated, and it killed the laser board.
Now both boards do the same thing - flash the LED on the 1st powerup, then nothing.
I'm not sure how, but you have to make damn sure that laser assembly isn't the 5V model!

The cursed 5V laser assembly has these numbers on the side -
A4C0345585 C
YDA0315 2363
I can't confirm if this is from a VA0, or VA 2 as it was swapped before I got it, but I am sure it killed my laser board!

Hopefully this helps someone NOT fry their laser board like I did...

kind of late to the party, but if anyone would like to see two PAL VA1's side by side with different drives and some other different make parts, here you go. Both drives are 3.3V though.
Note the metal fan frame vs the plastic fan frame.

One of the drives didn't work, thankfully i did not swap them, instead i gave it a good clean, disconnected everything and reconnected, tweaked the potentiometer ever so slight and that go it working again.

I got the second faulty one to swap out the bottom shell to my main dreamcast (which came with a xilink chip region mod).
But i didn't swap any electronics.
It's something important though, replacing broken components, always check, always verify, you never know.
The broken video issue on it (which i made a help request-thread for) taught me to be careful when connecting faulty electronics to screens, there might just be a fault that can damage whatever you connect it to. It never crossed my mind, until i saw that damaged diode on the board.
And thanks to this forum i read this thing actually plays a role in (well, external) surge protection.

check it before you wreck it

Hello.

I'm looking for a little bit of help/advice.

I have just got a Dreamcast from ebay. I was planning on doing the gdemu mod. I am cleaning the Console (inside & out) while waiting for gdemu to come in post. The back of the DC shows the 1, inside it shows a 2 but the drive shows the 3.3v.

I'm guessing this means I am unable to actual due the gdemu mod on this DC because of that 2. Is that correct?

Thanks, if anyone can let me know.