dreamcast warning signs?

Post by **agentanaranjado** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 1:56 am

howdy all--

my good ol' front-loading nes has been crapping out as of late, and, having tired of fiddling with old cartridges and whatnot, decided to dig up my dreamcast to use for mass nintendo emulation. after about a week of use, i remembered how bitchin' the dc was as a system in its own right and got out the games. i've been playing sega tennis 2k2 quite a bit, but lately the system seems to freeze mid-game after a period of use (although the discs load fine initially). this concerns me - did the nes emulation overwork the dc and blow the motherboard or something? any thoughts?

Post by **lordofduct** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 2:51 am

the DC can overheat kinda easily at times, depending the model. Make sure you have it in a well ventilated area, and check to make sure the fan is working. It is located towards the front right hand side (when facing the front controller port of the DC).

Post by **Mozgus** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 3:12 am

While my DCs have never done that, I'll throw my vote in for overheating as well. Heat issues do tend to cause hard freezes on other consoles and PC games. The perfect way to test would be to play for a few days without the top half of the shell on, and see if it still happens. If it does, check to make sure the cpu and gpu on the board are making contact with the aluminum heatsink plate through the rubber pads.

Post by **d123456** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 4:47 am

Mozgus wrote:While my DCs have never done that, I'll throw my vote in for overheating as well. Heat issues do tend to cause hard freezes on other consoles and PC games. The perfect way to test would be to play for a few days without the top half of the shell on, and see if it still happens. If it does, check to make sure the cpu and gpu on the board are making contact with the aluminum heatsink plate through the rubber pads.

If you do that you have to put something on a contact somewhere to fool the dc into thinking the lid is closed.
Fairly obvious for most, less obvious for others. Just follow the top lid's closing system down to where it hits a switch on the console.
Erm, somebody could better explain it.

Post by **Mozgus** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 6:34 am

d123456 wrote:If you do that you have to put something on a contact somewhere to fool the dc into thinking the lid is closed.
Fairly obvious for most, less obvious for others. Just follow the top lid's closing system down to where it hits a switch on the console.
Erm, somebody could better explain it.

Yes, just use a rubber band to rig the lid lever.

Post by **marurun** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 1:21 pm

Sometimes running something with the case off can actually make things worse. Most cooling systems are meant to direct air through a specific path, with a fan present to keep air moving. In some cases removing the housing can cause the air to not move as designed and actually cause the internals to get hotter sooner because the air isn't being strategically directed.

I don't know if this is a problem with the Dreamcast, but keep it in mind.

Post by **Mozgus** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 1:30 pm

marurun wrote:I don't know if this is a problem with the Dreamcast, but keep it in mind.

It's not.

Post by **marurun** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 5:20 pm

I have a dud controller on my system that only works in controller ports 1 or 3. Any memory cards put in the controller aren't recognized. And sometimes it will cause games to freeze. I wonder what's so "special" about this controller...

Post by **agentanaranjado** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 5:32 pm

thanks for all the tips! i moved the dreamcast to a less cluttered area, so we'll see how that works out.