Dreamcast-Talk.com

Hi everyone,

I'm from Australia and recently picked up an NTSC Dreamcast from the US. Of course there's the issue with power, so I use a stepdown converter to get around this. But, I don't know if that's worked out very well. Whenever I use the dreamcast, after a few minutes I start smelling a kind of electrical burning smell from the fan outlet (of the dreamcast). The console is behaving normally when this happens but I turn it off to be safe. Does anyone know what the problem could be? The fan is working, and the console doesn't feel hot ... Could it be the stepdown converter being poor quality? Or could the Dreamcast's power supply have already been dying before I got it and it's on it's last legs?

Thank you in advance.

Could simply be dust heating up inside.

Open the console -no worries it's easy- and dust it out if necessary.

Check those big capacitors on the PSU for bulging tops.

I checked the PSU, none of the capacitors had bulging tops

Have you sniffed the components for bad odors?... lol

Smell definitely coming from the power supply... fairly mild, and it's been running for over 2 hours

Trying another stepdown converter might not be such a bad idea then...

Wouldnt it be just cheaper to pic up a PAL DC and swap out the PSUs?