Salutations. I’ve recently been gifted with an arcade stick for the Dreamcast. It’s an official one, with the green buttons, VMU slot and so on. This is great, since I’ve been looking for one for quite a while, but there’s a problem: it doesn’t work. The system just doesn’t recognize it.
Doing some basic research shows that it’s actually a European stick: apparently the US version had a black Dreamcast swirl on it, whereas this one has a white one. Could this be the reason I’m having trouble? I used to have a Japanese VMU which worked fine, so I can’t see that being the reason, but you never know…
If that’s the case, is there a way I can mod it to play on my US Dreamcast? If it’s just a technical problem, in what part of the stick should I begin to look in order to fix it? To be clear, the system simply doesn’t acknowledge the stick at all. No error message, doesn’t detect the VMU, nothing.
Joysticks aren’t region locked. Sounds like the PCB is dead.
Shit. I was hoping that wasn’t the problem… Thanks very much!
I would buy a PSX pcb and a dreamcast adapter.
i imagine the stick was given to you used. before you consider it dead, take a few minutes to open the bottom cover and check the cable for continuity. there could be a broken connection in the cable or (like one of my cables had) corrosion on the contacts that plug into the dreamcast.
use this as a reference.
I’ve had the same issue before. Turned out to be something stupid: corrosion on the copper contacts of the plug. A little swab with alcohol and all was well.
Yeah, my DC stick had the same issue a while after I had gotten it, but it was just the cord. If cleaning the contacts on it doesn’t work, try just swapping it with another controller cord and seeing if that does the trick. It did for me.
OK… Upon opening the bad boy up and checking out the wiring, board, etc., I’m positive the PCB is dead. All the connections are perfectly clean, the soldering is in good shape… But there’s a bit of burn on the board itself. R.I.P. I’m going to replace the cord and hope for the best, but I think we’re dealing with a dead soldier.
So: if I wire in a PSX PCB and go through an adapter, will I be dealing with lag, or is the signal still pretty clean? Is it possible to just buy a DC controller, yank out the PCB from that, and wire that up somehow?
Thanks for all your help: I appreciate it.
Do not know about lag on the converter but very easy to swap out the PCB for a controller PCB.
Get another agetec PCB from the trading outlet if yours is actually dead. Best PCB for dreamcast. Or just ps1 DS and adapter.