Region Free & Bios DC Modchip

[Neohound]

I just got outbid on a modded DC on ebay. See here:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Region-Free-S ... 700wt_1135

I wasn't gonna spend £148 when I can get a DC for like £30 !!!! But, now I've seen one, I sure as hell would love to own my own Bios-changed region free Dreamcast - just on a smaller budget lol

So I phoned up my uncle and asked him if he'd be up for modding a Dreamcast and he said he would. Nice man he is

Anyway I found a Modchip for like $10 + p&p from Hong Kong. See here:

http://www.goldenshop.com.hk/AI-trad/Dr ... iremod.htm

Is that the correct one ? Or does someone know of a different/better one ? Any for sale in the UK ? What about the exact chip used in the above ebay modded DC ?

Any help would be appreciated ! Links to chips, videos, pics, guides etc

Thanks.

[elmagicochrisg]

The one in the eBay auction has a second bios chip identical to the original chip on the Dreamcast motherboard. It's piggybacked on top of the original bios chip. It's hard to see in the picture, but that's actually two 29LV160 chips on top of eachother. You have to extend almost all the legs of the second bios chip and solder / connect them to the equivalent pins of the original bios chip on the Dreamcast motherboard. There's more to it, but if you're really interested in this I'm sure you can find the schematics online. I made one like this with a second bios I think one or 2 years ago. Not this bios, but the original US Devkit bios. Found the schematics on the original russian site. Looked at it for hours and used multiple translation programs on it to make sense of it all. Actually managed to pull it off, resulting in me phoning a friend at 3 o'clock in the morning only to yell at him "I fucking did it !!! Woohoo !!! I did it !!! Yes ! Yes ! Yèèèèèès !!!" or something of the like... lol

The chip you found is a simple regionfree modchip. It will do exactly the same thing as the regionfree bios, only without the different boot screen. And maybe you'll have to restart the console if you wanna play a different region game, unlike the one with the second regionfree bios...

[Neohound]

Sorry for not replying earlier. I did read your post yesterday before I went off and spent a few hours trawling the net for guides, parts and whatever else I needed for the project. Anyway, thanks for posting. I'll be like you if I successfully complete the mod, shouting about it from the highest towers. Might even crack open a bottle of something. But I'm not gonna get ahead of myself just yet.........

Still a bit nervous in case I trash my DC, but I'm convincing myself it won't be too difficult and that I must give it a go. My uncle's a dab hand with a soldering iron but I don't think he's tackled anything like this before lol

Should I go ahead with it ? Well I've got over a hundred US and Japanese Dreamcast games, so it's a no-brainer really.

[elmagicochrisg]

Well, if you're sure your uncle is good with a soldering iron, I'd say go ahead.

Be careful with the chips though. If they are like the ones I bought from China you will still have to bend the pins down yourself. And they break off easily. So order a few of them at once. They don't cost that much anyway, and it beats waiting another 2 weeks for a new package from China in case you fuck it up... lol

You will also need Dreamshell to program the second bios...

Maybe contact Alex if you have more questions regarding this mod. IIRC it's on his site I found the mod first. I remember seeing his name pop up regularly on that russian site, with the same 'The Getaway' picture...

[Neohound]

Cheers.

I'll report back when I've finished it (fingers crossed).