[Eric Wright]

I had a spare Saturn that I recently gave to a friend to square-up a small debt, he's a big Saturn fan and he felt it was a fair trade.

Unfortunately, it has developed some odd problems in his possession... Back around 2000 or so, I used the machine without issue for a period of about 3 or 4 years. I had also installed a region switch so I could also play Japanese and European games.

The machine sat in storage for a number of years, but I made sure to test it prior to giving it to him. Worked fine with local and import games, memory card, gameshark, multitap... I taped the lid-switch closed and tested CDRs without issue...

In the time he has had the machine, it has begun randomly rebooting to the CD-Player screen saying the CD lid is open. This occurs arbitrarily during gameplay even if the door is closed (meaning, even if the tape came loose, the door would still push the switch closed, so I don't think it is problem with the switch itself). Twice I have disassembled the machine and given it a thorough visual inspection, only to find no visible problems. I've cleaned the connectors on the ribbon cables and reseated them, then reassembled the entire unit.

It worked for about a month the first time, then the door-lid problem started again. THis weekend was the second time I looked at the machine... upon reassembly, we managed to play a CDR of Pocket Fighter for about half an hour straight, then some 4-player Blast Chamber for a bit, and assumed everything was fine. I get a message from him today saying now the "Z" button on his controller doesn't work; he's tried his two other pads (1 western, 1 japanese, 1 3D), and they all had the same issue. He blew into the controller port and the plug itself and it didn't seem to alleviate anything.

Is there some kind of quirky-ass issue with Saturns that I'm unaware of?? The one I gave him is one of the 21-pin cable, 64-pin IC, oval-button models... my personal primary machine is a 21-pin, 32-pin IC, round-button model, and has never given me any issues; nor has my other, old-as-shit, very-original-first-gen-model-1 machine had a single problem (20-pin cable, door-switch on top-half of case).



While talking to my friend this afternoon, I randomly remembered the old 32x Repair article that Phugolz made on the CulT:
http://sonic-cult.org/articles/32x/
And wondered if maybe those godforsaken white ribbon cables in the Saturn are prone to the same loose-connection issue... I'm at the point where I'm willing to solder individual wires to replace the ribbon-cables; I gave this to a friend not only to pay-off a debt, but because I know he really loves the Saturn, so now I feel like some kind of asshole since the machine is giving him all kinds of BS problems. He also eventually wants to buy a mod-chip for it, so I don't want to hard-wire the connections just yet...

Does anyone know if there's anything else I should try first?

[Meat Miracle]

Clean the motherboards with isopropyl alcohol. There's a chance that it gathered so much dust that it's shorting out something inside.

Beyond that, recapping is the only thing you can do for weird issues like this.

[Eric Wright]

Look, I've got archaic Mac S3/30s and Classic IIs that I still need to "recap," don't start throwing that word around lol

[Vangar]

I have the exact same issue with my Saturn. I wonder if it is the caps?

[Eric Wright]

What model do you have with the same issue? is it a 21/64/oval one as well?

[Meat Miracle]

Eric Wright, on 08 October 2013 - 01:23 PM, said:

What model do you have with the same issue? is it a 21/64/oval one as well?

21/64 can cover 4 different motherboards (sort of) and 21/32 can cover eight.
In fact just saying 'Model 1' can mean 3-4 different boards too.
Not including regional variants.

It would be nice if people would start using the official VA # designations... I guess I need to write more guides.

[Eric Wright]

yeah I know there are mad board revisions, but I'm long past the point of really caring quite -that- much... I think it was around the time I realized that people were discussing the difference between brown and blue (or black and blue) caps on the M2 Genesis' motherboards that I realized I just couldn't be that invested in all of it.

I think I'm just gonna put a shim under the ribbon cables, then hardwire them, then recap as an absolute last resort... hopefully I can find solid-state caps of the same ratings.

[Vangar]

Not sure what my Saturn is exactly, but it is a Model 2 / Circular Buttons / PAL / Australian. Here's the stuff on the back:

This post has been edited by Vangar: 10 October 2013 - 07:08 AM

[Meat Miracle]

Eric Wright, on 09 October 2013 - 10:09 PM, said:

yeah I know there are mad board revisions, but I'm long past the point of really caring quite -that- much... I think it was around the time I realized that people were discussing the difference between brown and blue (or black and blue) caps on the M2 Genesis' motherboards that I realized I just couldn't be that invested in all of it.

I think I'm just gonna put a shim under the ribbon cables, then hardwire them, then recap as an absolute last resort... hopefully I can find solid-state caps of the same ratings.

Yeah, but for the Megadrive you have people going to ridiculous heights over improving the YM2612 lowpass by 1 more Hz.

The Saturn is all-digital however, so almost no such bullshit like that exists, plus the model revisions are all clearly marked and documented. The serial above is a VA5 unit made in 1996 for example. It uses SD Ram, has separate controller ports, and a ENR-011A drive (the 64pin one). Probably the best quality Model 2 PAL unit in fact. And you can tell all of that from the serial without opening it up.

[Eric Wright]

okay, well my point/question was whether or not the symptoms my friend was experiencing with his particular model were indicative of any common problems.

I wound up inserting small shims in the slots with the white ribbon cables and things seem to be fine now, so I'm gonna assume it was just a loose connection. Once he gets a modchip for CDRs, I'm just grab my soldering iron and hardwire everything together.