Broken Dreamcast...

Unidentified Assilant · Sat Jan 29, 2005 5:07 am

My Dreamcast Is Broken

Whenever I insert a CD, the drive doesn't read it properly, but sometimes it runs and stops working half-way through, does anybody know why?

JackFrost22 · Post by **JackFrost22** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 7:51 am

Clean the disc? or Laser?

Unidentified Assilant · Sat Jan 29, 2005 10:09 am

How do you clean a laser?

JackFrost22 · Post by **JackFrost22** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 2:08 pm

I use a laser cleaner for a cd player

goodie · Post by **goodie** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 5:11 pm

The Dreamcast's laser assembly thing is known to go bad after awhile, especially if you use undummied cd-r's a lot.

paulpsomiadis · Post by **paulpsomiadis** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 8:53 pm

There is a little BIAS pot on the laser head...

Default Value (US/UK) = 1.00 Meg Ohms

Adjusted Value (US) = 1.06 Meg Ohms

Adjusted Value (UK) = 1.60 Meg Ohms

The adjusted values for the pot should help when reading discs!

Be careful to use the CORRECT one for your machine region, as the UK machine works on 240V (and therefore has more leeway when giving 'extra' power to the laser!)

jaytee · Post by **jaytee** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 10:47 am

goodie wrote:The Dreamcast's laser assembly thing is known to go bad after awhile, especially if you use undummied cd-r's a lot.

what is an "undummied" cd-r?

HK-47 · Post by **HK-47** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 12:54 pm

If you burn a dc disc you add a dmmy file on there to push all the info to the outside of the disc (I think). By doing this you put less wear and tear on the laser. An "undummied" disc means that all the info is at the center (again I think) and this wears down the laser faster. Something like that.

Unidentified Assilant · Mon Jan 31, 2005 2:01 pm

Most of my cd-r did not have dummy files on, oh well, if I fix it, at least I know what broke it, I don't like dreamcast too much anyway.

jaytee · Post by **jaytee** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 2:24 pm

Unidentified Assilant wrote:I don't like dreamcast too much anyway.

Blasphemer!

Unidentified Assilant · Tue Feb 01, 2005 10:29 am

YES! I don't like the dreamcast much

Unidentified Assilant · Fri Feb 04, 2005 9:53 am

I'm starting to get back into dreamcast now... because i fixed my old one!!!!!!!!!!! What a glorious day!!!!! Fablous Even!!!!!!!!!

satan165 · Post by **satan165** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 4:35 pm

how did you end up fixing it? mine did the same thing, trouble reading the discs. i tried the lens cleaners to no avail....then the prob kind of went away

i never heard about the dummying of discs....i can see that it would 'tireout ' the mechanism that makes the lens have to move more/less depending on where the data was located...but i dont see how this would make it unable to read the disc over time, unless that mechanism could no longer move at all

Niku-Sama · Post by **Niku-Sama** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 12:53 am

i;ve got 2 dreamcasts i fished out of the dumpster, has RF units and 1 controller ea.

only some one poked the lens out of one but the other works...

Unidentified Assilant, is you got a new lens please link me....

i wanna get one disected and see what i can do with it

Alchemist · Post by **Alchemist** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 11:38 am

HK-47 wrote:If you burn a dc disc you add a dmmy file on there to push all the info to the outside of the disc (I think). By doing this you put less wear and tear on the laser. An "undummied" disc means that all the info is at the center (again I think) and this wears down the laser faster. Something like that.

Pretty much right. It doesn't matter so much if you're playing ROM-based emulators, however, because the ROMs get loaded to memory before playback (and the disc gets stopped shortly afterwards since it's not needed).