Dreamcast Issues

[Jay See Double You]

Hey Guys!

 

A couple years ago I lent out my Dreamcast AV cable to a friend, and never got around to taking it back from him. Well, I decided to just order another one and let him keep it. This means my dreamcast hadn't been played in that time, plus a period of about a year or so sedentary time before that. The cable came yesterday, I tested it out, using first, Trickstyle, then Ecco, then Ready 2 Rumble Boxing.

 

Trickstyle: I had already turned the system on before I put the game in. I put the game in, close the lid, it gives the "checking disc" message, makes the happy bling, screen goes white, the produced by or under licence screen comes up, and then it goes right back to the system menu. Now, if I choose to listen to the CD music on the game, I can do that. But try as I might, I cannot get the game itself to run. I moved the laser assembly to the center from the edge, I cleaned the lens with a q-tip, and still, same results.

 

Ecco: Seeing how Trickstyle wasn't working, I thought I'd try a different game. I go for Ecco. It initially works, I can play through the whole first segment of the game, and then when it was loading the second segment (with the splash screen of Ecco being chased by a shark) it goes back to the main system menu. I didn't try Ecco again.

 

Ready 2 Rumble: I played this game for an hour or better, making it almost all the way through with Afro Thunder, and then making it all the way through with Tank Thrasher. Never once did I have a single problem. The thing worked like a champ!

 

So I'm confused. Years and years ago, I couldn't get the system to play any game. I did a little googling and found that it had to do with the open/close switch being dirty, and the system not thinking the lid was closed. I was able to fix that at the time, and get the system up and running. I would like to hope that the solution to today's problem is that simple, but why would Ready 2 Rumble work perfectly, or even Ecco work intermittently? Even with trickstyle, it will give the checking disc message if I boot the system without the game, and then put the game in. A part of me worries that the laser is either failing, needs adjusting, or needs a better cleaning, but then why did R2R work fine? There are some scratches on Trickstyle, even one or two circular scratches near the center of the disc, but I don't know that R2R looked better. Plus, Trickstyle does work flawlessly as a music disc on the DC system menu. Do the games simply go bad on these discs?

 

So I'm totally confused. I was very excited to get the cable, because it meant I could use the Dreamcast again! I was feeling pretty nostalgic for it, and wanted to spend some good time with it. I hope there's nothing wrong with it that I can't fix. I'd hate to have to either buy a replacement of a system I hardly use, or worse, say screw it and not have a dreamcast, when that system is an important part of my gaming past.

 

Anybody have any ideas or suggestions?

 

Thanks!

[+Gemintronic]

Sounds like a disc seeking issue. There may be third party Dreamcast CD replacement parts but you may need to just buy yet another Dreamcast. A sideways solution would be to buy a Dreamcast SD Card Adapter and put your CD images on it.

[jferio]

Before figuring out what to do, see if you can arrange to play the games on a second Dreamcast, so that you can determine if it's the system or the games.

[Austin]

I was having this problem the other night with Pen Pen Tri-Icelon. Every time I would select the main game option, during the load sequence it would revert back to the Dreamcast dashboard. It was the first time I tried the game since I've had it, so I wasn't sure if it is my system or my game. I do know my Dreamcast has issues (during FMV primarily, it has a couple of columns of dots going down the screen, which isn't supposed to happen), but this was the first time that I've had a game reset on me like that.

[Hakogame 箱亀]

I remember people having issues with a power/pin connector inside the console that they said caused this issue.

 

I had a similar issue with my dreamcast, and it turned out to be a flaky lid switch.