Faulty GD-rom PCBs

Technical help for Dreamcast console, accessories and games only. Ask questions and find answers here. For Online help see the Online Forum

Moderator: pcwzrd13

User avatar
Tarnish
Prince of Persia
Posts: 342

Faulty GD-rom PCBs

Post#1 » Fri Jan 19, 2018 4:28 pm

Just something I was curious about after experiencing this a few times: How often do you guys run into a faulty Dreamcast where it turns out the GD-rom drive PCB is the one that is causing the problem?

Everyone keeps saying the laser is the Achilles' heel of the Dreamcast (which I don't doubt), I just found it a bit ironic that out of the 11 Dreamcasts I so far had my hands on, only 1 had a laser issue, while 3 had issues with the GD-rom dirve PCB. 1 had a broken lid sensor switch, while 2 seems to malfunction in weird ways:
- one of them recognises the discs fine, but after getting to the SEGA logo in the boot sequence, it goes back to the main menu, and also when opening the disc lid, it spins the disc in the opposite direction instead of stopping it
- the other is pretty similar that it recognises the discs fine, but after the SEGA logo it just goes back to the main menu. Also, when trying it out with an audio CD, it seems to read and play it fine, except it doesn't output any sound, even tho the boot up and menu button sound effects play, so it's not an issue with AV cables. This one doesn't spin the disc in the opposite direction when opening the lid however, and on rare occasions it does boot up games and plays music properly.

(Just to note, it's definitely the boards that are at fault in these cases, as I did troubleshooting by swapping out the laser pick-ups, motors etc. to known good components to see what is actually causing the problem.)

So it's probably just my luck, but it never really dawned on me that the GD-rom drive board can go bad as well. The laser, motors, ribbon cable, PSU are the usual suspects.

simfan
noob
Posts: 4

Re: Faulty GD-rom PCBs

Post#2 » Tue Jul 07, 2020 8:26 pm

I agree with your point of view. When I receive a fault unit which cannot load disc but spins, I will check the ESR value of the capacitors, and replace those with high ESR value. I cannot prove anything but I trust this build a stable ground for me to install and tune the SPU 3200 laser unit.

simfan
noob
Posts: 4

Re: Faulty GD-rom PCBs

Post#3 » Mon Sep 07, 2020 10:29 am

Recently I repaired two DCs which not reading discs by recapping those capacitors with ESR over 20oms. Now they read discs smoothly and silently.

butoia
rebel
Posts: 21

Re: Faulty GD-rom PCBs

Post#4 » Tue Sep 15, 2020 2:42 pm

simfan wrote:Recently I repaired two DCs which not reading discs by recapping those capacitors with ESR over 20oms. Now they read discs smoothly and silently.


Hi, can you post a scheme with the capacitors to recap? Thanks in advance!

User avatar
fafadou
Gold Lion
Posts: 1653

Re: Faulty GD-rom PCBs

Post#5 » Wed Sep 16, 2020 3:49 am

https://dragoncity17.wordpress.com/2013 ... parations/

You have all informations here and spare components for 3€.

  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “Support”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users