Had this Sega Dreamcast sent in for all the popular DC services as well as a custom BIOS chip install! When it arrived, the two-tone shell immediately caught my attention. I assumed it was some aftermarket top shell but after talking to the customer I became aware that Sega had actually made official transparent shells in 3 colors (GMS-002) you learn something new every day! System wasnt too dirty but they selected cleaning services so fully disassembled shell, soaked and washed to dry overnight and since I noticed a very slight tinge of yellowing I tossed the underside, buttons, front panel and modem cover in an overnight session to restore!
Once all the internal components were separated and I had the mainboard in hand, used my hot air station at 250C to gently warm both of the heatsinks so they would remove safely. Discarded the old thermal pads and brought out the hot tweezers to carefully remove every electrolytic capacitor on the board. I then apply a small amount of flux and run over the exposed pads to remove any leftover solder and wipe down/clean to prepare for new capacitors!
Not as many caps on the VA0 board so it went pretty quickly! I then brought in my low-melt solder and introduced it to the original BIOS chip, taped off around it with Kapton and brought in my hot air nozzle at 300C which made quick work of the chip, it popped right off safely! Cleaned the pads, soldered on the new BIOS chip and ran the 2 necessary wires so that if the customer wishes to ever re-flash the BIOS thats an option!
Since I had my tweezers and hot air station already warmed up I moved on to recapping the other 3 components. Used my Hakko gun for desoldering all the TH caps on the PSU and controller board, then my tweezers for the GDROM board. Cleaned all 3 boards and finished the recap service with all remaining caps in the Console5 kit! Credit to anyone that services the GDROM board on a Dreamcast because I will say out of any optical drive based system I work on, I think getting the GDROM taken apart fully to recap board and clean/grease is such a PITA! The new grease really goes a long way to keeping the arguably pretty noisy drive running relatively quiet so IMO it is a must on these! Once these boards were done I carefully reassembled the GDROM and re-attached its 3 connectors.
Helping the Dreamcast stay cool is very important so the next few items were all cooling related. I cut brand new 1mm thermal pads (I use Arctic brand) for the CPU, GPU and the 2 underside contact points. I use these very handy 3D printed sizing templates from “GamerGhosts” that make clean cuts pretty easy – https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7170219 . After wiping down all 4 surfaces and applying the new pads (leaving top plastic on until ready to place metal shielding back on, you want to avoid dust and hairs getting into the thermal pad) I moved my focus to the large heatsink assembly and fan. I used my airgun to blast out and then wiped down the assembly, then unscrwed the fan, carefully cleaned all the fins and components with ISO and put 2 drops of fresh lubricant on the rear access hole to hopefully keep the fan nice and quite for years to come!
Once those last few parts were done, it was really all about re-assembling the console so in went the mainboard, removed top plastic on the thermal pads then installed the heatsink and pipes (not forgetting to connect to mainboard plug!), then the top shield and started screwing everything back together. The Dreamcast is actually a very modular and easy system to work on, I genuinely find it one of the most enjoyable to service. Got everything back together but before I closed it up, I placed my JRG sticker under the PSU, and quickly fired it up to ensure it was working so I could sign off on it! It was booting up and running fine so put final few pieces back together in the top shell and screwed it all back together
Got it up on the bench and applied a nice thick coat of the UV Protectant Spray (303 Aerospace) which helps restore some shine and protect the plastic, really makes them look nice and new! Got it hooked up to my testing PVM on the bench and ensured it booted fine, accepted new date/time and booted to dashboard ok. Since the BIOS defaults to Japanese I changed to English and changed audio to Stereo. Lastly, fired up my copy of Soul Calibur and let it run for a few hours and played some matches. The system didnt hesitate to boot or read the disc at all and compared to many other DC I work on, was not that loud. I think the customer will be quite happy with these end results, order complete!