SOLVED: Modding a 64 Pin Saturn

[MentalMan]

i tried every which way with several 64 pin IC's, be it the A+B method, or soldering to the IC. I could never get it to work. I found a 32 pin board, and it was done and working in 10 minutes. Still, it's worth the shot by all means.

Just out of curiousity, do you happen to remember if you also changed the jumper pads on the modchip?

You know, 0014/0019 saturn motherboard compatibility. In my case, it was the saving grace. I wonder if people happen to overlook the jumper pads, leaving the poor 64IC chipless. Although, in my case it was probably just the thing, because the whole set-up is in a model 1 case with the seperate pcb for controller and whatnot. (On default the chip, shipped with 0019 active, so I swapped it to 0014 and voilá.)

[christoph]

you can try, but the success rate on 64pin ic boards isn't the best

also, this is your friend;
http://www.angelfire.com/pa/Raluminat/saturnmod.html

So my best bet is to try this first?

[skate323k137]

i tried every which way with several 64 pin IC's, be it the A+B method, or soldering to the IC. I could never get it to work. I found a 32 pin board, and it was done and working in 10 minutes. Still, it's worth the shot by all means.

Just out of curiousity, do you happen to remember if you also changed the jumper pads on the modchip?

You know, 0014/0019 saturn motherboard compatibility. In my case, it was the saving grace. I wonder if people happen to overlook the jumper pads, leaving the poor 64IC chipless. Although, in my case it was probably just the thing, because the whole set-up is in a model 1 case with the seperate pcb for controller and whatnot. (On default the chip, shipped with 0019 active, so I swapped it to 0014 and voilá.)

you have to be kidding me, i can't believe I've never seen this elsewhere. I tried to find a good picture, if im looking at it correctly, theres a center point that gets bridged to either of the outer points? I'll have to get another chip if i can find one and try to give my one of my 64 pin's another go.

[MentalMan]

i tried every which way with several 64 pin IC's, be it the A+B method, or soldering to the IC. I could never get it to work. I found a 32 pin board, and it was done and working in 10 minutes. Still, it's worth the shot by all means.

Just out of curiousity, do you happen to remember if you also changed the jumper pads on the modchip?

You know, 0014/0019 saturn motherboard compatibility. In my case, it was the saving grace. I wonder if people happen to overlook the jumper pads, leaving the poor 64IC chipless. Although, in my case it was probably just the thing, because the whole set-up is in a model 1 case with the seperate pcb for controller and whatnot. (On default the chip, shipped with 0019 active, so I swapped it to 0014 and voilá.)

you have to be kidding me, i can't believe I've never seen this elsewhere. I tried to find a good picture, if im looking at it correctly, theres a center point that gets bridged to either of the outer points? I'll have to get another chip if i can find one and try to give my one of my 64 pin's another go.

Haha yes, thats what I mean! I almost overlooked them myself. Especially since it was hard to find any info about it at all.

For more clarification, heres a random picture that display's them nicely. It show's the jumper setting on the top, right corner of the picture. (Ignore the cuts and whatnot, its the guide for 20pin installation.)

Click

If you can find another chip and have a spare saturn with 64pin IC, sure i'd say go for it. Even if only for being able to say you modded one of those

edit:

Oh yeah I forgot, what made me discover the whole thing was This Guide. For the different modchip, but both chips happen to have the pads avaible.

[christoph]

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[MentalMan]

In regards to this picture:



How can I change the jumpers you are referring to? I soldered a wire from each circle you have pictured but it didn't change anything..

Do you see the big blob of solder, going from the middle to 0014? If you turn the chip around, you should be able to see that there are 3 pads. The middle one, connects to one of the pads next to it. You have to try to heat this blob of solder up, and get it off there. There is several different ways of desoldering something, I am assuming you dont have any tools for this at hand.

What you can do is, try to see if your iron takes on the solder. What I did, was hold a crafting knife in the middle of the blob, and carefully heat up each side with a clean tip. The solder will then only heat up on one of each pads, and start to part ways. Make sure they are not connected anymore. And be careful when heating up each side multiple times, let it cool once in a while or you fry the pads.

After you are sure the solder bridge is removed, connect the middle pad with the solder control pad you would like to connect. I hope it is not too confusing for you, its in fact really easy! Thats why they are called jumpers. A connection gets created to "bridge" to another pad, which in return will perform a certain function. In this case, some kind of backwards compatibility.

Good luck!!

edit: one question though, what is the current mod chip setting?

Is the big blob of solder going over to 0019, or is it going towards 0014?

My chip shipped with 0019 connected. I had to change it to 0014 for the chip to work.

edit#2: Also I just noticed you said originals work fine, but you have to open and close the lid AFTER booting with original?!

Please try to load the backup several times. Also, please try to put in a original disc with the saturn turned OFF. Close the lid, turn the system on. If it goes to the menu, telling you the original is an audio cd, you should then open and close the lid again to have the CD picked up. No matter if backup or original. If this does not happen at this point, move on trying the jumper setting

So far it sounds very similiar to what I went through with my unit.

[christoph]

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[MentalMan]

Check out the attachment.

Each of the Green circles signal one of the pads. 3 in total. The middle on is the control center if you will. And the pads to the left and right of the control center are a different action it chooses to perform. (God knows what that is lol, really dont know except that it has something to do with saturn motherboard revisions?)

None of these jumper pads are connected? That is really strange. It is nothing like in the attachment picture?

The red line is signaling the empty space in between the two spots, and where the solder bridge needs to be destroyed/cut. That is, if it would be like in the picture.

If you dont have such a bridge, create a blob, or solder a wire from the control center to 0014 or 0019. I would suggest trying 0014 first, because you have the same insides in the saturn as my has.

And I agree on updating/creating a proper guide for this. Info is sparse and confusing, only robweb really mentions the 0014/0019 points at all. I really hope you get yours working as well. It seem's to be exactly like mine, just the difference being the plastic case.

It might give people more confidence in 64pin saturns. I also hope skate323k137 gives it another shot, this time successfully, proving that it's very well possible

Edit: argh crap, hang on gotta edit my attachment picture. Im tired and made a mistake

Edit#2: alright, example image fixed.

It is an example of where exactly you need to work on. But since you mentioned, none of these points is connected, DO try to connect 0014 with the middle. Geesh, damn tiredness

Edit#3: I addet two more simple illustrations for you, just to be 100% sure we clarified this.

[christoph]

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[christoph]

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