Looking for Help with VGA output - No video/audio

[Moonmarooned]

Hi, I have a dreamcast I picked up secondhand recently. The person I got it from installed a gdemu in 2018 but said they didn't use it much. It came with the RCA connectors. I used it like this for a couple of weeks before trying to find out how to make the image look better on my HDTV. Found out you can do 480p over VGA from the same port that composite is doing 240p. Cool.

So I looked into some adapters, and i've now bought 3 kaico (same model, but 3 different units) and a hyperkin adapter which is supposed to pull the VGA signal and convert to HDMI. None of these worked. No lights on the adapters or anything.

So I did some research and found out about the 5v fuses on the motherboard that allow for the VGA signal to work. I assume this must be faulty in my console. I don't have any solder experience so I need to find a solution that doesn't require that. No replacing the fuse or running a wire from 5v to ground.

Next I go to a retro game shop near me and they have 2 dreamcasts on the shelf. I tell them hey try these 3 kaico adapters on those two dreamcasts, if either of them work i'll buy the unit - which would also help confirm my unit is broken - so the guy gets both dreamcasts out and neither one of them work with the kaico adapters, he tried multiple on both. They sell a hyperkin cable that does the same thing as the kaico, so he grabs one out of the box and plugs in the first dreamcast - nothing on screen. He plugs in the second - and the second is actually working with the hyperkin adapter and gives an HDMI output.

I say cool, buy the adapter, its a 50/50 that it'll work for me. Get home and.. nothing. Doesnt work for me same as the first console they had in the shop that didn't work with either adapter.

So now I don't know what I should do. Should I go to more game shops and keep trying more adapters on more consoles until I find the magical unit that just works? Is there an explanation for why this hyperkin adapter worked on only 1 of 3 dreamcasts? the kaico worked on 0 of 3. I just want a clean 480p image and feel like im going crazy trying to make sense of this.