Looking for Dreamcast Maintenance help!

[Ziggy]

How much does a capacitor cost roughly...? I've never had to buy so I really have no clue.

A capacitor should cost less than a dollar. I don't know if they'll ship to your country, but DigiKey.com is a great place to order from.

[elmagicochrisg]

Find yourself a nice Hong Kong seller on eBay. Most of them offer free shipping and chances are they will still be cheaper than your local store...

[Siris555]

Well I was talking about the Rambo link, but whatever.

OK so I opened it up today.... and I saw nothing. I didn't see any scorch marks on the capacitors, or on anything else without removing parts.

There was this dirty brown stain on the roof of the dreamcast though not sure what to make of that.

My brother says it might be the video card because while it is running there's no signal to the TV. What now? Should I risk popping the rest open or wait till I show it to my repair guy?

[elmagicochrisg]

You won't always see the caps have blown and I never said anything about scorch marks.

Pretty sure the brown spot on the inside of your cover is just above where the caps have blown...

My brother says it might be the video card because while it is running there's no signal to the TV. What now? Should I risk popping the rest open or wait till I show it to my repair guy?

It's remarks like these that make me wonder if I just wasted my time with you...

[Ziggy]

You won't always see the caps have blown and I never said anything about scorch marks.

I said something about scorch marks, that's what he's talking about. He said he saw smoke, so some kind of visual clue was probably left behind. Although, I didn't say look for marks on caps, I said to look for marks on the board.

There was this dirty brown stain on the roof of the dreamcast though not sure what to make of that.

I'd call that a scorch mark.

Pretty sure the brown spot on the inside of your cover is just above where the caps have blown...

Yep. I'd wager that the brown spot is right above something on the power supply.

What now? Should I risk popping the rest open or wait till I show it to my repair guy?

If you're not handy with this kind of thing, then I don't suggest you do anything else to it. There's a lot of sensitive components inside there. If you're unfamiliar with what you're working on, you can easily damage it further. Wait to show it to your repair guy if you're not confident with your own repair skills.

[elmagicochrisg]

There was this dirty brown stain on the roof of the dreamcast though not sure what to make of that.

I'd call that a scorch mark.

Not really a scorch mark. More like the chemical fluid in the capacitors that sprayed the case when they popped...

[Ziggy]

That's assuming the cap(s) blew up. 240 volts was being fed into something that was expecting 120 volts, so any component could have heated up to the point where it started smoking, like capacitors that boiled and blew up. It's splitting hairs, really. There was smoke, so there was probably a mark inside the console. Whether it be from heat or not doesn't really matter. The important thing is that it's there.

[elmagicochrisg]

I am not assuming anything. I am telling you what the problem is...

Check this picture to see what a bad capacitor may look like :

[Ziggy]

Well OK. I've never fed 240v into a Dreamcast before, so I'm not gonna assume anything. You seem to be confident that it's the capacitors. I'm not saying it isn't. I'm just giving basic tips to Siris555 to diagnose the problem.

Also, this thread title should be changed to "Looking for Dreamcast repair help!" and moved to the tech help forum.

[Siris555]

Well OK. I've never fed 240v into a Dreamcast before, so I'm not gonna assume anything. You seem to be confident that it's the capacitors. I'm not saying it isn't. I'm just giving basic tips to Siris555 to diagnose the problem.

Also, this thread title should be changed to "Looking for Dreamcast repair help!" and moved to the tech help forum.

Sorry about that, I'm horrible about fixing things and even worse when asking for help. I get really nervous about asking random people for these things. Especially about something I know so little about. Is there a Moderator that will handle it or am I supposed to do it some how?

Ugh, Its times like this I wish I had a Sonic Screwdriver. I'm sure even Doctor Who doesn't deal with this kind of crap, I'd take a Dalek over this any day. -_-;;