Arcade & Retro Repairs & Mods, all new recipe, with no added MSG...

MrVestek

The instructions around Game Gear screen replacements are so vague as there's a few different revisions of the Game Gear that are wildly different.

Some are dual ASIC, some are one. Other revisions have components missing / in different places.

When I was doing my mod the first step for me was figuring out which board revision that I had then funding out which mod my clone was based on.

Once I had that info I just looked up the instructions for the legit board on RetroSix.

Maybe give that a go?

MrVestek

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121836992#Comment_121836992

I sold my broadband adapter years ago.

You're much better off with a DreamPi setup these days.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121864481#Comment_121864481

Hmmm, I didn't realise DreamPi actually allowed a lot more functionality. I was originally avoiding it as it's a lot of 'stuff' hanging out the back of a Dreamcast console, rather than just having a nice little neat LAN adapter.

If it's adding more functionality though I might take another look at it.

MrVestek

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121865091#Comment_121865091

Yeah pretty much the only games you can play nowadays with the BBA are Quake 3 and Phantasy Star Online.

LOTS of work has been done to reverse engineer the netcode for a bunch of dial up games so a DreamPi setup is definitely worth it. There are kits out there that you can get that are preconfigured or you could try creating one yourself, it's handy enough. All you need is a Pi, a winmodem (most if not all USB 56k modems will be these) and a voltage line inducer.

I had a cable made up a few years ago that injects line voltage via a usb port. 5v comes in from USB VCC into a buck converter to bring it up to 18vDC so that the modem in the Dreamcast will pick up the line properly and see it as active.

Handy enough to do for a few bucks.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121864476#Comment_121864476

Oh that's all the fundamentals for sure. My problem was I was shipped a V2 board late last year, which has now been replaced by the V3 cleanscreen. Because I bought it so recently (I started this repair in February) I assumed it was a v3 and proceeded to install it that way. Naturally it didn't work, and there's a complete absence of V2 instructions on the site.

There's a V2 instruction video, but it doesn't apply to ALL v2's naturally, so that was of no help. In the end, discord provided the answer which was quite vague and unintuitive related to hsync and vsync. That was all grand, finished off the mod, buttoned up the new case, aaaanmnnd, screen was cracked. Zero info on the replacement shell product page stating I needed to cut a screw post if using a modern screen.

Screw it, ordered a new screen and a v3 board this time. Naturally, the v3 board isn't working and after more hours troubleshooting, looks like it might be faulty. Seriously seriously annoying as the game gear points have been soldered and resoldered now so many times with troubleshooting etc that I'm having issues with a few tiny smd resistors coming away from the board.

I'm going to strip the clean screen out and repair the loose components next. Seriously pissing me off at this stage.

KeRbDoG

Added DB9 joystick ports to the Philips Videopac G7000 which I already completed a composite mod on, as the hardwired late 70s joystick bricks are somehow even worse than the Atari 2600 sticks! The few games I have are actually good craic now that the system responds to the joystick input :)

The breakout type clone is still impossible, no idea how get beyond 4 or so bats of the ball.

MrVestek

I killed my poxy Dreamcast for the second time in the space of a year.

Wanted to try out the Tekken 3 Bleem disc that I got the last time that I was in the states but the Japanese Cake bios that I was using doesn't support it for... whatever reason.

So what do I do? Boot up Dreamshell and go to re-write the bios chip... *with the wrong bloody firmware filetype*.

I should have used the .bios files on the drive and not the .bin files. I did think it flashed rather quickly but it passed the verification check so I powercycle and... Nothing. Blank screen. Machine totally dead.

So that's ANOTHER replacement bios chip ordered from Ebay. Funnnnn.

*why am I like this?!*

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121879622#Comment_121879622

I seem to go through phases like that, where it seems everything goes wrong. I cannot wait to work on something other than a Game Gear at the moment! I've @Quigs Snr's Virtual Boy here to do, with the Virtual Ribbon kit....so that's something to look forward to. Won't get to it for another two weeks or so though.

Quigs Snr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121872290#Comment_121872290

I have one of these in the attic but I dont think it's working. It's really hard to tell considering it gives you no sign that it is even powered on. Nonetheless, it fails to tune in on either my old CRT or modern tv so it must be dead. Are they easy to work on ? I do have a fair few games for it. It is on my list to have another go on.

Quigs Snr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121879972#Comment_121879972

... I can keep you busy indefinitely with game gears since I buy every one I see. I dont know why.

Can't wait for the Virtual Boy (assuming it is repairable). Actually that's a lie, I have waited about 30 years to see if it really will make me throw up playing it, another few weeks is nothing.

KeRbDoG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121881010#Comment_121881010

Luckily the unit I picked up from a fellow A&R Boards member was working - worth taking it down to see its health and maybe tackle the composite mod. There seems to be a bit of a community around these old machines, so help is out there.

MrVestek

https://youtu.be/SDZ1G72evjQ

Finally got this one figured out. Been wrecking my head the past week as the wiring scheme for this wasn't very well documented so had to try to figure it out from the Arduino scratch code but finally got it all wired up correctly!

I'll make note of where everything goes then probably just hard solder everything as I won't be using this Arduino for another other than this... Plus it'll mean that all of the wiring will fit inside the case nicely.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121865356#Comment_121865356

Thread in a while, I need to organise the images, remember the drama, and somehow find the will to post it...

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121945035#Comment_121945035

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058343850/handheld-hijinx-vol-8-the-saga-game-gear

^^ It's a long one...

Inviere

I had some fun with my PS4 Pro today... obviously not by switching it on, but by disassembling it to replace the CR2032 battery inside.

It's a pro on firmware 9.00 so I keep it offline. There's an issue whereby the batteries in PS4's now are dying, the system time will lose sync and cause issues with games & trophies I gather. You can set the time and date manually, but if the battery does, seemingly you've to then do this every time the system boots from cold which would be a bit annoying.

The only way to sync the time after a battery swap is by connecting to PSN so that's not an option for me. Instead, you can soft power the mainboard with the PSU during the process. So I opened the console and measured the battery voltage, and it was just a shade over 3v, perilously close to dropping under 3v.

So with it disassembled, I popped the power supply back onto the bare mainboard (to soft power the system while I swapped the battery out), and popped a new battery in.

A couple of thermal pads ripped during disassembly, so I replaced those, redid the thermal paste application on the APU, popped it all back together, and was happy to see it retained the system date and time. Great success.

Now, to pack it away for the next 5 years and do it all again then.

Doge

This info may be of use for anyone repairing a GameCube.