Randomnly resetting Dreamcast

[Myname]

Had a search and can't find anything related so thought I may as well ask.. The last few days my DC has kept resetting back to the title screen every now and again. Happens with every game I've tried it with, so I'm just curious to know if anyone's had a similar problem or has any idea how to fix it. Tried cleaning the lens already with no luck. The DC was bought unopened only a few months ago so I doubt it could be down to wear (could be down to badly produced later models from what I hear though).

Thanks in advance for any help

 

[segasonic]

This is quite common, I've repaired several of my workmates DC's with this fault. It's a design problem - if you take the top off you will notice that the power supply connector is right in the airflow of the cooling fan. Remove the power supply board and clean the 5 pins (I used a sink scourer, but smooth emery cloth would do the trick) and clean the holes they go into. Reassemble and that should fix it. Good luck!

 

[Myname]

OK thanks, hopefully my DC won't die on me

. I'll give it a go tomorrow.. Erm, today. I should go to bed..

 

[Arakon]

even better:

stick half toothpicks between the metal 'spring' and the plastic on that connector, to force the spring against the pins. it's partially a heat issue, so this will ensure good contact all the time.

 

[Myname]

All done! Thanks for the help guys.

For some reason I've never really looked at my DC too closely, let alone open it up, so I'd never noticed it had an expansion port. Kind of makes you wonder what could've been..

 

[ExCyber]

For some reason I've never really looked at my DC too closely, let alone open it up, so I'd never noticed it had an expansion port. Kind of makes you wonder what could've been..

... Makes me wonder what could still be. That bus can be bridged to ISA/PC Card/ATA/CompactFlash without a whole lot of trouble, and it's possible to bridge it to PCI (Sega did so to create the BBA, which used an off-the-shelf PCI Ethernet chip).