Problem with display of Sega consoles (Saturn & DC)

[Ivo]

Hi,

Strangely they have similar issues, even though the connection are completely different.

My PAL Saturn is connected to a CRT TV through video output to SCART, whereas my DC is connected through a VGA cable to an LCD screen.

Both of them occasionally flicker into a bluish tinge, this seems to happen without anything touching the cables but I can revert them to normal by softly fidgeting a bit with the cables (often it takes a bit of fidgeting). I presume this is a problem with the connections themselves and not with the consoles, but unfortunately I don't have alternate cables to test (maybe I should order some cheap ones from somewhere - if anyone knows a good place to try, I really should get a non-VGA way to hook up my DC to a regular TV set one of these days).

Is the symptom common? I presume it must happen a bit frequently, otherwise I lucked out getting it in both my consoles!

Ivo.

[Niode]

My DC started doing this and fixed it by using a cotton bud with rubbing alcohol in the AV port. Annoyingly the pins are in the cable and most DC cables are sealed at the connector so it's quite hard to bend the pins back up to make a better contact.

It's essentially the same reason the NES cartridge slot wears down. The pins bend too far back or the contacts become tarnished.

[Ivo]

That's true, the VGA connector box will be hard to do "maintenance" on as it is sealed. And I think the problem is inside the box in that case as usually what temporarily fixes it is carefully fidgeting on the cable that goes from the DC into the box (but it is hard to say, as moving one thing moves everything - but I typically "fix" it faster by working on that side than on the side that goes from the VGA box into the VGA cable of the monitor). I'll try cleaning the DC output and the part that plugs into it.

On the Saturn however I can access both ends of the cable and the Console output as well, so I'll certainly do that.

Thanks.

[Niode]

No problem. I freaked out when my DC started doing it with all my cables. I thought there was something more fundamentally wrong with it, but I accidentally nudged the cable whilst changing discs and the display changed which lead to me realising what the problem was.

Good luck.

[Capcomwarrior]

I also had that problem. Mine was the VGA cable, itself. It happened with the sound, through the headphones jack cable too. I tested by trying my DC with the s-video cable I have for certain occasions, so it was definitely the VGA cable itself in my situation.

[AARST]

My Dreamcast also turns blue and I haven't been able to pinpoint which part of the cable causes the issue. If you say it's the connector on the Dreamcast, I'll be sure to clean that and try again.

[Ivo]

As the problem happens sort of randomly, I don't know 100% if it worked - but it seems to have worked At least for the few minutes I tried after having cleaning the contacts with alcohol.

Next time I actually play a game I'll see if I get afflicted with the same display problem or if it is fixed for now (until the contacts get dirty again).

Ivo.