Dreamcast console strange problem

[pipporamone]

Hi there !

I recently acquired a third Dreamcast Which was extremely cheap and sold as not working.

The console boots up but it behaves really strange: the booting picture and the dashboard is splitted sometimes in 2 or even 4 parts (like 4 small screens!)

The cable has been tested in other DCs and works fine. Cleaned up also ports but still the same

I disassembled the Dreamcast and the only strange thing I found are broken thermal pads.

Possible overheating ?

Anyone experience this problem?

Thanks in advance

[Bob Dobbs]

Sorry, I know nothing of this issue. It is the first time I've heard of this issue.

[Raen]

I have one DC that I also bought for cheap as non working, and by swapping parts with another working DC, I traced the issues back to the PSU and the GPU on the main board. It appears that it was subjected to a voltage peak. The main board itself worked but the image was all over the place. So I guess that you too have in your hands a DC with a partially working GPU.

[No1Dopechampion]

Now that is interesting, because i have experienced the exact same thing but i have a fully functioning DC.
Let me explain, as I have a DCHDMI its possible to connect a HDMI cable and a scart cable at same time. So if i select 'cable select' in options I get 480i output to both screens without problem. But if i select 'force vga' I get a perfect picture from HDMI source, but the scart source end up getting a picture that can be split onto 2 or 4 distorted screens.
Sounds freakishly similar, maybe if you had some sort of VGA cable/box to experiment with. As i would be interested to know results.