Freezing problem with my Sega Saturn

[emurozii]

Hi guys.

I bought a Sega Saturn only a month ago. It'd been working perfectly until a few days ago. At first I started suspecting there might be a problem coming up because for some reason the Saturn was pretty loud, where as before I couldn't even hear it with my headphones on.

The Saturn works perfectly with my Virtua Fighter 2, Sega Rally, Sonic Jam and Fighting Vipers games despite having become quite a bit louder recently. But for my Shining the Holy Ark and Shining Force 3 it won't work! On Shining the Holy Ark it'll always freeze on a certain FMV, or it'll get past it and freeze not long after. And on Shining Force 3 it'll always freeze on the first battle, sometimes instantly and sometimes after a few minutes. Both of the discs for them are in very good condition. In fact, Shining Force 3 is in mint/perfect/10/10 condition (and no it hasn't been resurfaced). Which is funny since my Virtua Fighter 2 and Sonic Jam still work despite having some heavy scratches and marks.

I've tried cleaning the lens but with no luck, so I don't know what else to do. I'm not sure if the Saturn becoming louder recently has anything to do with it, but it must do, I guess; it can't be a coincidence. Oh, and it's done this twice now out of the fifty or so times I've turnt it on to play it: it froze on the start up screen instantly - and the boot up screen sound would keep playing over and over. That's only started occuring recently too.

Does anyone know what the problem is or how I can fix this? I guess it looks like I'm gonna have to open it up

[emurozii]

I was thinking, it could be that Shining the Holy ark and Shining Force 3 do have a defect on the disc or something.

Because I don't understand why all of my other Saturn games wouldn't work. And a friend just brought round two of his Saturn games - the first two Panzer Dragoons. I played them for about an hour each and they worked perfectly...I don't understand why though because Shining Force 3 is in MINT condition. I payed quite a bit for it as well, such a shame if it's a defected disc It can't be though because it plays absolutley fine and just suddenly crashes every time on the first battle...So it's the Saturn...Or it's down to both...Oh, I don't know anymore

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Can you describe the noise? You might need to re-lube the cd drive mech. Sounds like it may just be plain failing on top of that.

[emurozii]

It's hard to describe...It's basically a loud clicking noise it makes when loading. For example in Shining the Holy Ark, when I get into a battle it'll start making a loud clicking noise. Or in Virtua Fighter 2 at the end of a fight as it's on the loading screen to load the next fight it'll start making the very loud clicking noise. It's definately from the disc drive, it sounds horribble. When I first heard it I thought to my self "It sounds like the Saturn's trying to kill it self"

It's just weird that it never did this before (and doesn't make the noise at all on my friend's Saturn either). The Saturn hasn't been moved about or anything, it's been in the same place as always (with a good amount of space for air ventilation).