How To Clean Your Dreamcast

First off find one of those CD player cleaner discs and run that in the Dreamcast...no don't play the first track over and over to clean it or whatever just open the Dreamcast lid put the disc in close the lid let the disc get detected and repeat so the bristles hit the lens repeatedly.

Then get a Q-Tip....those ear cleaner thingies....and run that over the lens lightly and then roughly...not TOO roughly...your doing it too rough when the lens goes all the way down into the Dreamcast

now take a paper towel...more than one actually, and some Windex (or some other glass cleaner) and put Windex on the paper towels and clean every possible nook and cranny of the Dreamcast with the paper towel, where the disc goes AND the outside...now take some dry paper towels and dry it off...your Dreamcast should now look shiny new

make sure to take out the modem and clean in there too!! although it doesn't usually get dirty in there but it cant hurt it to be clean

no for the controllers (yep you can clean the controllers while you wait for the Dreamcast to dry entirely)

do the same thing with the Windex and paper towels and make sure to get all parts of the joystick and buttons you can movie the joystick in all directions to reveal more of the ball-shaped part the stick is on

now get some toothpicks to clean out the letters in the buttons and the cracks on the side of the controllers where the top and bottom half of the plastic meet and you should be able to get any dirt out of the controller this way.

now get some Windex and cotton balls and clean the inside of the controller plugs using the cotton ball and clean the outside too...you will be surprised how much crap comes out of these if you want you can do this on the plugs on the Dreamcast where you plug these in but these usually stay pretty clean

if you want to clean the crevices in your controller (you know, the big round circle one) or in the DC, Pipe cleaners work very very well as they bend to the shape and you just move it back and forth and it gets pretty much everything They also work well in other places

Now for the VMUs/Other controller accessories

get more Windex and paper towels (god I love Windex) and use that to clean the screens on the VMUs and all other areas...dry it off with the dry paper towels...

for the contacts I take more Q-Tips and pick some of the cottony stuff off to make the ends smaller to they will fit and then I spray Windex on then and then dry it with another Q-Tip

do the same with Rumble Packs/etc. except there's no screen but use your Windex and paper towels damnit!!!

Now for light guns!

go over it with your paper towels and Windex again (this sounds like a big Windex ad buy now I know but its very useful!!!) and then use the same for the glass lens at the end!! and then get the toothpicks out again and clean all the nooks and crannies like you did with the controllers and use the same method you used for the controller plugs to clean the light gun plugs

use the same methods to clean all your cables and such too that I mentioned above...those usually don't get too dirty but they can

VGA boxes

pretty much just go over it with more Windex and towels....you should be pretty good at it by now so I wont go into detail

now DO NOT play your Dreamcast for a couple hours (its really hard to survive without it I know) and then it should be working and looking good as new.

BTW, if you want to clean the crevices in your controller (you know, the big round circle one) or in the DC, Pipe cleaners work very very well as they bend to the shape and you just move it back and forth and it gets pretty much everything. They also work well in other places