Dreamcast Hangs on Swirl

[brendan1496]

Hi all,

I recently soldered in a new bios (JC) when booting the Dreamcast the logo comes on with no animation then in about 3 mins goes clock set, I then set the clock and it goes into the menu instantly says "Please wait while disc is being read" and never moves on. Initially I desoldered burnt a new one and soldered it on "Same Result". In the end I thought stuff it and soldered back on the original sega bios, guess what it did exactly the same. I have got no idea what wrong, its as if the dreamcast does not see the GDROM, although I can see the disc spinning. All the traces on the bios chip are fine, the power supply and GDrom work fine in another dreamcast I also checked continuity on all the gdrom socket pins. I have run out of things to try, could anyone give me any other options I can try, I really dont want to consign it to the skip.

Thanks in advance

Brendan

[Jako]

Hi all,

I recently soldered in a new bios (JC) when booting the Dreamcast the logo comes on with no animation then in about 3 mins goes clock set, I then set the clock and it goes into the menu instantly says "Please wait while disc is being read" and never moves on. Initially I desoldered burnt a new one and soldered it on "Same Result". In the end I thought stuff it and soldered back on the original sega bios, guess what it did exactly the same. I have got no idea what wrong, its as if the dreamcast does not see the GDROM, although I can see the disc spinning. All the traces on the bios chip are fine, the power supply and GDrom work fine in another dreamcast I also checked continuity on all the gdrom socket pins. I have run out of things to try, could anyone give me any other options I can try, I really dont want to consign it to the skip.

Thanks in advance

Brendan

HI!!! Yes, sounds like Gdrom fail. If is well calibrated, maybe what fails is the "flex" cable. Maybe some side is damaged between the lens and the gdboard. That cable is a bit weak and many years ago I had the same problem. Hope that your problem is only that!
Each DC in the world have to be alive and running

[brendan1496]

its not but thanks, the GDROM works fine in another Dreamcast also I tried my GDEMU in its place and thats the same.

Thanks anyway

[pcwzrd13]

Check around the BIOS chip and make sure you didn't accidently damage anything around it. I've accidently knocked a surface mount cap out of place while removing a BIOS chip before.

[brendan1496]

Will do thanks

[brendan1496]

Nothing seems to be missing or charred on the board.

[Tagilso]

have you tried sanding a bit the psu pins on the mobo?

[aldair]

Hi all,

I recently soldered in a new bios (JC) when booting the Dreamcast the logo comes on with no animation then in about 3 mins goes clock set, I then set the clock and it goes into the menu instantly says "Please wait while disc is being read" and never moves on. Initially I desoldered burnt a new one and soldered it on "Same Result". In the end I thought stuff it and soldered back on the original sega bios, guess what it did exactly the same. I have got no idea what wrong, its as if the dreamcast does not see the GDROM, although I can see the disc spinning. All the traces on the bios chip are fine, the power supply and GDrom work fine in another dreamcast I also checked continuity on all the gdrom socket pins. I have run out of things to try, could anyone give me any other options I can try, I really dont want to consign it to the skip.

Thanks in advance

Brendan

Re-solder the resistor block that passes pins 38 and 39 of the ide.
See if you have the 12 volts in your PSU correctly.

[bingobongo]

Sorry to bump an old thread but I'm 'still' having issues with my clone GDEmu... Man, this thing is nothing but trouble so far - is anyone sharing the pain here? Surely I'm not alone!?

I bumped this thread because all the problems above were the same as I'm experiencing here... When I saw the 'old 4 wire modchip' comment just above I remembered that my DC also had the same modchip so... 15 minutes unscrewing, etc... I realise that I changed the motherboard on this DC and it doesn't have the 4-wire modchip at all. But, the problems still persist.

At first I thought it was leaving the VMU in the controller - because, once I removed it, it seemed to work okay.

What I find is that I can get it working eventually, but if I leave my DC off and unplugged for a week or two - then the GDEmu just stops working. I'm thinking now that it's been over a month that it's been unplugged (possibly) - Is the problem maybe related to the clock battery? It's the only thing i haven't changed (as I type this I'm installing the DreamPSU... and the GDEmu is just not booting up anymore - all I get is a black screen then the blue swirl appears and just hangs there, frozen.

I can't rule out that removing the modchip maybe a solution for some people - but it isn't connected to the problems (and continuous headaches) I'm having with my GDEmu.

Any thoughts? I've opened it up, dusted everything... but I think the problem is either the mainboard or the GDEmu... Or the SDCard Maker software?

----------------

Possible fix discovered! If you're having the same problem, check my reply at the end of this post:

https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/vi ... 70#p145270

(basically, check the GDEmu PCB for bad soldering - i had a blob on of the chips I scraped with a screwdriver and it 'seems' to be working. I suspect I'm not alone with this - maybe this dude who can't solder properly has made other cards that are out there...)

This is the one mod where I just feel defeated.