I just threw out my Dreamcast after finding it in my parent's garage. The internal battery was completely drained and was soldered to the controller board. So that wasn't going to be an easy fix. The fan was much louder than I remembered. I can't remember if it was always that way. The 2 games I really wanted to play, Soul Caliber and Virtual On, were missing from their jewel case.
My son and I did have a great time playing Sonic Adventures. One of the things I noticed is the games held up really well and they went on for hours! None of this 2 hour single player and then online that is the norm now.
Sadly, it died 4 months after rediscovery. Something about spending almost a decade in a humid, Florida garage probably didn't help. I did keep the VMUs for the day when I'll find another in a thriftshop in middle america somewhere.
If you had sold it or given it away on ebay or craigslist, there's a good chance that someone could have fixed it or at least used it for spare parts (like transplanting a working console with a damaged case into it). We've got a bad enough e-waste problem as it is with all of the obsolete DVD players, mobile phones, etc. in our landfills, don't add things that people actually want to keep for decades and run cottage industries around the maintenance of to that mix.
I gave a lot of things away or recycled the rest. Unfortunately, the number of people with the technical skills that monitor those websites at the same moment I post is quite small. And since I was moving to a smaller apartment I couldn't afford to keep it until it was convenient. My move out date was fixed and no one responded in that time. I did get a few queries after the fact but it was already too late.
My son and I did have a great time playing Sonic Adventures. One of the things I noticed is the games held up really well and they went on for hours! None of this 2 hour single player and then online that is the norm now.
Sadly, it died 4 months after rediscovery. Something about spending almost a decade in a humid, Florida garage probably didn't help. I did keep the VMUs for the day when I'll find another in a thriftshop in middle america somewhere.