NAOMI 2 won't boot... Any hope for bringing it back?

[BlueCrab]

Today, for the first time in quite a while, I tried to boot up my NAOMI 2... Attempted booting it with a Net DIMM board that worked the last time it was booted, but got nothing but an ERROR 01. Tried reseating the board several times, cleaning the connectors, but no dice. Showed as an unrecognized game in the test menu (of course). Ran a RAM test while I was in the test menu, which passed just fine.

Then I stepped away for a bit...

When I came back to attempt to boot it again, the system wouldn't boot at all. Nothing but a blank screen (the monitor isn't detecting any input), regardless of whether or not anything is plugged in to the cartridge slot. In addition, the fans now sound like they're revving -- definitely not the normal (loud) whirr that I'm used to with it. In addition, the LEDs on the front of the board are flickery -- suggesting an issue with voltage regulation or something like that. Checked the test points around that area of the board, and they were all over the place -- definitely not the stable(ish) voltages that I'd expect from the voltage test pads... The power supply itself seems fine -- voltages are stable and rock solid at least to the pins on the filter board.

So that brings me to the question in the title of the thread... Is there any hope for bringing this board back to a working state? Anything I can try, or would it do any good sending it away to see if someone more knowledgeable would be able to do anything for it?

 

[Falco Girgis]

Hey, guys, Dreamcast developer and NAOMI enthusiast here. Just signed up! Happy to be here!

Just wanted to let you guys know the severity of the situation. BlueCrab here is the owner and maintainer of the KallistiOS indie SDK for the Sega Dreamcast, and we've been really excited to start adding NAOMI support to it. Unfortunately, BlueCrab is the only one among us Dreamcast guys who has a NAOMI board and is able to test some of these changes, so this is catastrophic for NAOMI support in the library. Just letting you know ANY help would be greatly appreciated here and would be helping to potentially bring more indie releases and developers to the platform in the future.

 

[djsheep]

Best to send it off for repair (Ken @irepairsega) is the go to for these boards in the US I believe.

If it’s as catostophic as you say, perhaps it’s time to grab some more Naomi motherboards to play / dev / test on perhaps?

 

[hatmoose]

Hey, guys, Dreamcast developer and NAOMI enthusiast here. Just signed up! Happy to be here!

Just wanted to let you guys know the severity of the situation. BlueCrab here is the owner and maintainer of the KallistiOS indie SDK for the Sega Dreamcast, and we've been really excited to start adding NAOMI support to it. Unfortunately, BlueCrab is the only one among us Dreamcast guys who has a NAOMI board and is able to test some of these changes, so this is catastrophic for NAOMI support in the library. Just letting you know ANY help would be greatly appreciated here and would be helping to potentially bring more indie releases and developers to the platform in the future.

Welcome @Falco Girgis and @BlueCrab - thank you for your hard work on KOS - it's always fascinating when subject matter expertise crosses over.

Sadly I have absolutely no subject matter expertise to contribute in this area Happily you are in the right place for folks that do.

Also, there is a massive glut of Naomi (1) boards on Aliexpress at the moment. Hard to expect much for fifty bucks, but at that price...
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004279048532.html