Dreamcast PAL VA1 outputs nothing

[CrashMidnick]

Hi there,

I picked up a stock PAL DC rev VA1 recently which was known as faulty (no sound, no picture, dead GD ROM).

I opened it, cleaned everything and changed the PSU (DreamPSU). Now everything is working fine (sound OK, GD ROM OK, controller port OK) except it does not output any video.

Cables are working with my other DC. The motherboard is clean (components are ok, traces too), the AV connector has been cleaned.

Any idea ?

Thanks.

[bahamutfan]

Maybe reflow the video DAC, confirm there's continuity to the AV port?

[CrashMidnick]

Maybe reflow the video DAC, confirm there's continuity to the AV port?

Thanks I will check for continuity. Unfortunately I do not have hot air gun...

[bahamutfan]

You don’t need hot air to reflow the video DAC. You can just use a regular iron. Just add some flux and fresh solder.

[CrashMidnick]

I finally fixed this DC, it was a really "dumb" problem. After checking again and again components, traces and continuity, I found nothing wrong with this motherboard.

I decided to clean again the AV port. When I received the DC, I noticed that the "U" slot made of plastic was broken on both sides of the AV slot but AV traces were OK. It is just cosmetic and my VGA cable stays in place.

But when I cleaned the AV port again at night, I used a flashlight and saw something shining around the "U" slot : a very tiny part of the broken U was stuck in the lower part of the slot preventing the VGA cable to go until the end and it did not make contact. We are talking about a piece of plastic of 2mm thickness. Once removed, the DC came back to life.

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