Breakfast with Girls

At first, it would read discs (any discs) about 50% of the time. Fair enough, I just pop open the cover a couple times until it reads it fine. That percentage has gradually eroded to 0%. That's right, my Dreamcast has stopped reading discs completely. It turns on, it boots, whatever, but I think something is wrong with the lens.

So I went out and bought a lens cleaning disc. Since it wouldn't read the disc (as an audio disc, which it is) I had to keep opening and closing the cover so that it would spin fast enough to "clean the lens."

Still doesn't work. Any suggestions? I really don't want to find another Dreamcast.

Outlaw

Yeah mine started having trouble a few months ago, but i remember lots of people having disc reading problems. I think playing emulators on cdrs does effect it, when the disc spins it sounds a lot olouder than a normal game and other people on this forum had the same problem. But playing normal games gave the same result too over an extended time for some. So far the only game it won't play is my SKies of Arcadia disc 1. But I figured out a trick, if you turn your DC upside down and then play it upside down it might solve the problem, its the only way I can play my SoA disc1 for some reason. I hope this works for you its the only thing I can think of.

sniper308

http://www.lik-sang.com/catalog/prod...ducts_id=1567&

unfortunately the site says temporarily not available ... you might want to check some other sites for these

"Product Features



Full replacement lens unit
Easy to install
Limited stock


Description

Your Dreamcast GD rom drive got damaged? We have the replacement one. Full laser units available in limited quantities. "

Breakfast with Girls

I've never played any games that weren't official releases on my Dreamcast.

tor_greg

This is a widespread problem, mine did it too.

kar10

I had my dreamcast since the official release of the console and it has never done anything weird and it plays both the originals and backups(burned) games and the dreamcast is still running nicely and if it one days breaks, I have another one brand new....................Life is GOOD!!!!!!!

the aftermath

Mine too, I hardly play it anymore though.

Breakfast with Girls

And you replaced the laser? How did everyone fix it?

KnightLerxst

You can still send the DC out to Sega to get fixed. I read somewhere that they had plenty of parts and were going to be able to service DC's for years.

My DC had the same problem 2 months after I got it, first it wouldn't read Jedi Power Battles and Royal Rumble, then it wouldn't read anything. It has to be a lens issue.

Shuki

add shuki to that list of "some games won't read others it will". Mine had off and on trouble with SoA (a year or so ago so I don't know about now) with Jedi Power Battles, THPS 2 but other games run great on it (Sonic, Crazy Taxi). For mine I sometimes have to give it a "jump start" with a no problem disc (usually Sonic) and once it begins to load I just pop it out and then put in the hard to read disk (aka Jedi PB) This method is working so far but I don't know how long it will last. I tried the upside down/sideways/any other position trick with mine but it didn't help. But like Kar10 I also have a new unopened one if push comes to shove