Dreamcast has stopped reading discs

[quakeaddict]

Hey everyone!

Last weekend I got a second Dreamcast, but unfortunately, it's stopped being able to read discs.

The issues started a few days ago, when the system went back to the main Dreamcast menu during gameplay. It happened a couple times, but not enough to be a real problem. Occasionally, the Dreamcast wouldn't be able to read the disc on startup and I'd have to turn it off and on again, or take the disc out and put it back in, but for the most part it was fine. For a day or two, the problem seemed to have stopped, and the Dreamcast was doing fine reading discs again. I went to start up the same game again tonight, though, and the Dreamcast seems completely unable to read the disc. Whenever I try to play the game, a message pops up asking me to insert a game disc. I know it's not the disc, as I've tried it with multiple games, and they all work fine on my first Dreamcast.

My first thought was to clean the lens, but that unfortunately didn't help. I did some experimenting and found that I can in fact make it work. To do so, however, I need to manually hold down the lid of the Dreamcast, but not far enough for the lid to actually latch closed. If I do this, the game runs perfectly, but once the lid is latched, I get kicked back to the Dreamcast menu.

I'm wondering if the alignment of something, either the lid or the lens, is off? My guess is that when the lid is latched, the disc is being pushed too close to the laser, causing the laser to be unable to read the disc.

Has anyone run into anything like this before? Thanks in advance for any help!

[s8n]

hi quake , it seems theres a Lid Switch problem where it is failing or possibly the Disc Spindle has been pushed down on its thread causing errors

[quakeaddict]

Thanks s8n! I'm planning to open up the Dreamcast in the next couple of days (once I acquire a screwdriver that will fit into the small screw holes on the bottom of the dreamcast), I'll take a look at the disc spindle and see if that's causing the issue.