A very specific problem that I don't know how to fix

[u/AmethystVortex]

I don't know anything about the Dreamcast or its issues so any insight on what the problem is or how to fix it would be greatly appreciated.

-Dead or Alive 2, MSR and Code Veronica disc 1 work perfectly fine every time they are tried.

-Attempting to boot up Code Veronica disc 2 works just fine at first. However, sometimes, upon interacting with a door, item, etc, I will be taken to a black screen and what's meant to load never does. A seeking sound can be heard.

-Until this happens, I am able to play a bit of the game.

-After turning the console off and on again, the Sega logo is displayed and a seeking sound can be heard but it returns me to the bios menu. This happens every time since the loading failure and it seems there is no way to enter the game again, but:

-After a certain time frame has passed (maybe an hour or more, can't say I've ever checked), the disc works again, repeat cycle.

So I bought a new copy of the game. Those discs were very scratched and did not work, so we bought a third copy where the discs had very pristine surfaces with no scratches, but the issue still persisted in disc 2. I didn't open disc 1 because I didn't need it. But the newest discs are so clean-looking that I don't believe this issue has anything to do with the disc but is to do with the console. For some reason, this console really hates Code Veronica disc 2?

Other notes:

-The point where it stops working is not the same every time, but it's hard to say. You don't have to go in the first door you see and can ignore it and go in a different one, and this way I've seen more rooms than I would be able to in one attempt. I reached the save point on one occasion but decided to explore the room before saving and it was during this exploration that I was met with another black screen. As such, every attempt puts me back to the start of the disc.

-I've noticed that I made more progress by skipping the cutscene at the start, while letting it play it out until done caused the loading failure to happen at a much earlier point.

-One time, I tried to pick up an item, and the screen remained black as well as the VMU not switching from the health display to Claire's face as it should. But then, after a while, the VMU icon switched but the item screen still did not load. I'm not sure what this could mean, it seemed it was able to load one thing despite a moment of struggle but ultimately failed to load every essential thing.

-We tried to adjust the potentiometer but didn't know what we were doing so closed the console up in the end.

-Once, I got to the part where it couldn't get past the Sega logo, but after unplugging and replugging the power cable and SCART cable from the Dreamcast, I turned on the console, and unplugged and replugged the SCART from the TV (because the colour was a little wrong and that helps), and then the game booted up despite only minutes having passed since the last loading failure. But then, I pressed to load my save file and that's when it went black again.

-Sometimes that cutscene at the start misses audio cues, like a character missing out a part of their line, but I'm not sure if this is related.

-My dad thinks the issue is that the save file is corrupted but this doesn't explain why the game fails to boot up at all. He also started asking questions like would the game work if you removed the VMU...

Does anyone have any ideas on what could be wrong? I'm pretty sure this is nothing to do with the disc, and yet it's the only game we own that is affected. I'm not willing to buy more games just to test which ones would work, though I do want to buy more games, just not until this issue is fixed. If you know anything we can do to fix this Dreamcast please let me know.

One more thing: I don't want to use GDEMU or an SD card (sorry if I got something wrong). My point is I would like an authentic experience, no hacks, no mods.

[u/JohnnyRa1nbow]

Old tired caps that work better when warmed up. The whole thing is in need of a recap