ALL SATURN Problems Fixed

[Ziggy]

Congrats on the score!

So what are the plans for the problematic Saturn?

[SpaceBooger]

Congrats on the score!

So what are the plans for the problematic Saturn?

It's in storage now. I want to play on this new one for a while before I do anything. The old one will probably be backup since it does have a new cd drive, a RacketBoy mod chip, and plays with the default pad fine.

[SpaceBooger]

My "new to me" Sega Saturn keeps freezing. Not completely, I can still reset it with the controller by holding down the buttons and pressing start. I can not find a pattern to it freezing other than it has to do with the disc drive when loading music, sprites/etc. Sometimes 1hr into play, sometimes within 5min.

All of the boards seem clean and no visible cap leakage or bulging.
I replaced the CD drive with one I know works. No fix.
Did the same with the power supply. No fix.

I think it may be the power wire to the modchip. It's was not soldered and just pressed into the connector. Since the modchip connects the CD drive to the mainboard I'm thinking that it could be losing connection when the CD drive moves. This makes sense that it would cause the game to stop (stop loading stuff) but not locking the whole system up, instead it just disconnects the CD drive.

Before soldering, it's taped down to test. If I can get some solid time in with no problem (already played a 45 min session with no issues) I will solder it down.

[Limewater]

I am guessing that you have already done this, but I would suggest that you play multiple games and reproduce the issue on more than one to ensure it's not just the game disk.

That said, having a wire just pressed into a connector does sound super sketchy.

I don't know anything about this mod chip setup. Would it be possible to terminate the wire with the right connector and insert it correctly? Or is it an extra wire being run to an already-populated connector and it's just jammed into the back of the connector?

[Ziggy]

The guide for the modchip shows you were to solder the 5v wire to...



Source: https://www.racketboy.com/retro/sega-sa ... stallation

The problem with this is that you really shouldn't solder to that location. That's a connector, which attaches the PSU to the mainboard. It's made to be detached, which might be problematic if you solder to it. Though I cannot recommend an alternative spot to get 5v off the top of my head.

But I agree that the 5v wire SHOULD be soldered and not just jammed in there.

[lwcook]

When I got my racketboy modchip way back when, I did the same "jam the 5v wire" installation method. It held up for many many years, but eventually I had similar problems with games when the voltage would flake out.

Luckily I have soldering skills now - ended up soldering it to the 5v pin on the underside of that board.