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The install of the replacement BIOS doesn’t differ much from the photos above. As soon as you open the console up you’ll see that the GD-ROM drive looks different to most photos you’ll see online of the inside of a DC console. The orange wire is going from B14 of the GD-ROM connector to Leg 44 of the chip, this is explained below – I’m using it instead of soldering to the small hole (VIA) coming from IC502.įinally we have the last revision Dreamcast released. Not very clear from this photo but I have soldered a purple wire between Legs 1 and 23 of the new BIOS chip. Once again I thought I would test the alternative connection point. Leg 44 is soldered to Leg 9 of IC502 ( or a point that it’s connected to). This is the BIOS fitted to a VA1 (more common) motherboard. Apologies if this caused any confusion – although the BIOS did still boot the dreamcast, but if you followed this guide for a VA0 in the past, you may want to check which point you’ve soldered the wire onto. In the following old photo which has been on this page for years, the blue wire from Leg 44 is actually soldered to the wrong point on the board, I’ve attached it to Leg 9 of IC502 instead of Leg 7! The text at the time was correct. Then link Legs 1 and 23 of the chip to a suitable power source – Leg 1 of nearby IC302. If you already have the 3.3v 29LV160TMC chip and want to try fitting it, then you DO need to have Leg 23 lifted from the board. There are some other points you can solder to instead of that tiny dot!įor this install, I decided to try one of the alternative points to solder onto, I’m using B14 of the GD ROM connector.Īnd here’s the chip soldered in place, with the orange wire going to Leg 1 of the BIOS.Īnd now I’ve linked Legs 23 and 44 (purple wire). On the VA0 you need to identify leg 7 of IC502, we need to solder a wire from this to Leg 1 of the new BIOS chip. Bad_Ad84 recently advised me that some people have problems when doing this, and he supplies a programmed 29F1610 chip instead, which is the correct 5V.īad_Ad84 pointed out that I had wired up my first MX29F1610 incorrectly, it would still boot, but wouldn’t be programmable if you wanted to use DreamShell to write a new BIOS later on, I’ve updated the info now and added a download for DreamShell that will work with this chip.
I had previously used the common 29LV160TMC chip and simply wired the power differently. The VA0 motherboard is immediately recognisable because of the heat-pipes and massive cooling block by the metal fan that it uses for cooling, it uses a different BIOS chip to later model Dreamcast console – the chip is runs at 5V. I previously mentioned that if doing a complete replacement then you still had to lift legs 1 and 44 – I have since found it that this isn’t true, the pads for these legs aren’t connected to anything so you may as well just solder the legs to the pads anyway to keep them secure. You can remove the existing BIOS chip, and replace it with a pre-programmed chip (looking for a cheap reliable source for this chip, I’ve bought some from Bad_Ad84, he even offers a flashing service) Once you have the programmed chip, then you can simply remove the old BIOS and fit the new one.
#Dreamcast bios reddit how to
There are a couple of different ways to fit this BIOS, originally this page was showing you how to do the piggyback install, then I added some photos showing how the BIOS installed after removing the existing BIOS chip.
#Dreamcast bios reddit plus
Why perform this mod? Well you’ll end up with a Dreamcast which is different to most others, plus it will be truly region free, the current 4 wire modchips need you to switch the console off and back on again if swapping between different region discs.
#Dreamcast bios reddit update
Here’s the developers site, the BIOS is still being developed too! UPDATE – this is the site now being updated. Thank you to the people over at RetroMods, I saw this new regionfree DC BIOS, which removes the VGA check along with some other features. Have a look at the startup animation which has been hacked into the BIOS, it’s from a DC Development Kit. Not only did he make it regionfree, he also inserted the 3D bootup animation from the Dreamcast Development Unit BIOS.
A while back, link83 hacked up the Dreamcast BIOS.
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