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I recently bought a second hand DC as as backup. I modded my original 1999 unit with a clone GDEMU and packed the GDROM drive away, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to have another console on hand, as I still have several physical games.

My question is - what should I do to ensure the longevity of the unit? My tinkering really only goes as far as disassembling controllers and cleaning them, and the plug-and-play type mods like the GDEMU and Noctua fan. I've cleaned the outside of the unit, taken off the top and used compressed air inside. It seems to be in pretty good shape, and the laser appears to be fine as well. But I'm curious if there are other bits of cleaning/tinkering that will help keep this in the best shape possible and playing games for a long time to come. I know the price of retro stuff will keep increasing, so I'd like to ensure the best possible health for the stuff that I own.

On a separate note, can I swap the disc drive with my old one if it fails? They are both V1, if that makes a difference.

Thanks!

Nothing really you can do to make a gdrom drive last other then not using it.. got to the fact now there 21 years old and way past there life span.. There very robust consoles mine was trash picked was full of water still works and is my dev console it's only is used to boot cdrs and stays on up to 8 hours day every day and it's still fine.. I have had to adjust the laser 4 times in 3 years..

In time all gdrom will be die and not read any disks..

ShreddieMercury wrote:On a separate note, can I swap the disc drive with my old one if it fails? They are both V1, if that makes a difference.

Yes, GD-Rom drives can be swapped between consoles.

As for the DC itself, there's not much you need to do, it's not like a modern console with heatsinks & big fans you need to clean. Maybe one day you may have to recap it, but I wouldn't worry about that until you have to do it. Sega consoles are well built & generally last a long time.

The only thing you might like to do is upgrade the fan with a Noctua as the original fans are quite noisy.

Hmm never found the fan that loud it's no where near as load as ps2 for example.. I do have my dreamcast next to my pc in dev way so i cant hear the dc fan..

I hope someone in the future makes replacement GD rom drives or lens. I'm probably not posting it right.

Neo-dreamer wrote:I hope someone in the future makes replacement GD rom drives or lens. I'm probably not posting it right.

They're called GDemu(or the USB equivalent), and they're prevalent(along with clones of acceptable quality). The problem with optical media is that even if the drive continues to be manufactured, optical discs will fail eventually. Such was/is the fate of laserdisc and zip, etc. Solid state isn't a permanent solution either, but it's way more resilient by way of not having moving parts involved in the read/write process. Enjoy it while it works, I say. In the end the means by which the games are read is novelty anyway. If you are in it for the game it shouldn't matter how the system reads the data, right?

It is cool to have a collection of plastic, though

Yeah.

Neo-dreamer wrote:I hope someone in the future makes replacement GD rom drives or lens. I'm probably not posting it right.

You can still get new-old-stock replacement lenses on AliExpress.

So many willingly junk their GDrom drives to drop in a GDEmu. Faulty GD drives can quite often be revived by greasing up the drive gears and sled, cleaning the lens and attempting to play an audio CD for a few hours to get them running again. Drives with lid switch issues are a bit of a pain; no idea on how to repair these without resorting to transplanting from another dead drive.

very true and just adjusting the laser will get you a few more years 5 so far for me

Capacitors are worth talking about. Generally, good capacitors have been lasting longer than most thought they would, but after 20-30 years it's worth considering a replacement. It's also not a given that drop in replacements will be available forever. I have motherboards with bad caps that I can't find replacements for because manufacturers have shifted away from electrolytic caps for some applications.

You can't make something last forever, but now may be a good time to extend that out for another 20 years.