Isoloader issues (HDD mod + Bios mod)

[nicolas1400]

Hi comunity!

Im Nicolas, from Argentina.
Thanks to SWAT for all the effort on making Dreamshell posible.

I'd made the Bios Mod + HDD mod to my 3 dreamcast motherboards.

Bios mod is working great.
Currently I am able to boot all 3 dreamcast from the second bios (with the RC4 retail bootloader) and I reach the dreamshell desktop (loaded from a 3.5'' 80GB Hitachi Deskstar HDD)

But the problem is that when I get into Isoloader, only ONE of my dreamcast boots games correctly. The other two dreamcasts frezzes (black screen) when I try to run ANY game inside Isoloader.

The HDD I am using is always the same, and the game settings in isoloader are correct.

I assume all my HDD mods are OK, because I am able to use all the dreamshell applications (including GDRom ripping) but the only problem is when I launch a game inside Isoloader.

Any advice on how to find the problem? I'm getting mad trying to solve this..

Thanks in advance.

Nicolas.

[SWAT]

Hi. It's hard to find problem like this. I don't know what to advise you...
On all DC's motherboards is identical? VA1?
Uncheck Fast Boot in settings and look on screen at game launch, DC freezes on Loading executable, or going to black screen after Executing?

[nicolas1400]

Hi SWAT, thanks for your quick reply.

One of the boards with isoloader problems is a VA0.
Bios mod worked OK (I used 3.3v sources accordingly)
But Isoloader refuses to play games. I am able to choose the game, adjust settings, but black screen occurs at the moment I actually run the game.
Is the hdd mod supposed to work on VA0 and VA1 boards? Or just VA1? I think there's no difference in the gd-rom pinout.

Here I attach a few pics of the problematic board:

http://i.imgur.com/HGGvOpq.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GeJCQR8.jpg

[SWAT]

In theory there is no difference what kind of motherboard used. I asked simply for information.

Do it plz:
Uncheck Fast Boot in settings of ISO Loader and look on screen at game launch, DC freezes on Loading executable, or going to black screen after Executing?

And try RC3 version of DS.

[rafa_apm]

Hi, if it freezes on loading executable I had this problem on one of my mods.. I opened a topic on this forum too, I will see if I can find the link..
I solved my problem reducing the size of the wires, special the ground ones.. After that my games would boot but after a time playing they would freeze.. I reduced again the lenght of the wires and it worked.. See if the wires lenght is the same on your 3mods.

[nicolas1400]

@SWAT : I did uncheck the "fast boot", and dreamcast freezes at "Loading executable". It keeps there forever, never gets into black screen. (Only tested on RC4, will try on RC3 later today)

@rafa_apm : I think what you said makes a lot of sense. My working hdd mod is the one with the shortest cable extension (about 25 cm). The other 2 mods have slightly longer cables, (28 cm and 30 cm). I don't know if a few cm can make a real difference, but I will definitely try to cut them down a bit and make sure grounds are the same length too.

Thanks to both for your help!

I will keep this thread updated with news in short time.

[rafa_apm]

I would begin trying to reduce the lenght of the grounds, make them the shortest possible, after that try reducing all the others, worked for me. Just trying to help

Good luck

[nicolas1400]

Well, big news here:

I shortened the IDE cable for just about 5 cm and tried to keep all 40 cables about the same long... and BOOM! got my VA0 board 100% working with ISO Loader!

I'm not exactly sure if the problem was the long extension, because I saw lot of mods with very long IDE cables working fine, so I conclude that the problem is that all 40 IDE lines must have a similar distance from edge to edge. Having some lines longer than others may induce in sync problems I think...

Here a picture of the re-wired version of my mod:
http://imgur.com/tBJEw55

Big thanks to SWAT and specially to rafa_apm (I spent literally weeks trying to find out this, and your answer was extremely helpful)

Nicolas.

[megavolt85]

Perhaps the problem was in soldering