Old Sega Saturn - Random Freezes

Hi all

- on a bit of a downer here and wondered if anyone could help.

Really wanted to show my GF my sega saturn and some of the games that inspired me into wanting to become a game dev. The saturn hadn't been touched in many a year. It had been working perfectly before, there was a bit of dust on it - but nothing major.

I used a can of compressed air to clean it up and a soft cloth. It booted up fine but during setting the date and time it froze. I thought 'maybe it was just a glitch of not being on in so long?'. So reset and tried again. Played an audio CD for a while with no issues. I then put a game disc in the drive. Another freeze.

It just freezes at random while using it - could be the boot up sequence... could be the menu of the game. Although I rarely get to the game menu, booting off the disc seems to be particularly stressful for it.

If it's in game and freezes the screen goes black, in the bios and the image will actually stay on the screen. In the bios the audio may loop (past second or so), although not noticed this while a game loads.

It's a model 2 PAL UK saturn. Nothing exciting, no mods - was used a lot in the past but hasn't been touched in years. I had used an emulator in the past, but since going to win 7 64 bit with a new graphics card, no matter what I do I can't get one to work (but that's a bit off-topic).

So is my saturn dead? Any suggestions? Would it be cheaper to just get a new one? (has anyone noticed that Saturns seem to have increased in value recently?). Would really prefer the cheapest possible solution as just moved and we're struggling for food - so paying for a saturn can't be a top priority.

Thanks for any suggestions, advice etc!

 

x

 

i had 2 saturns in a cardboard box stored in a shed in my parents backyard for years. the roof broke and water pored in year after year. eventually i god all my old damaged destroyed crap out. the snes, nes, and gen were dead, but somehow both saturns survived. one wouldn't load a disk but the other did. it was weird. Filled with rust and bugs and gunk, one of the saturns still played games.

tl;dr = saturns are bullet-proof.

 

I have not taken it apart yet, I'm willing to do so - but not the most comfortable with hardware. I'll have a look over, but if I take some pictures are you up for giving your opinion too? If a capacitor has leaked or similar, how easy is it to replace?

I just find it strange that while it's working - it works perfect and these freezes are so random. I'm not sure it would be my PSU as I'd expect the problems to become more and more frequent until I turned it off and left it for a while. Instead it just happens anytime within the first minute or so.

I think they are pretty robust. I've had very few issues with mine and when younger mine gave me hours of entertainement. I was quite proud to own one, when my mates were all playing their playstations, I'd be engrossed in Panzer Dragoon, Burning Rangers, Gun Griffon, Virtual On, Virtual Fighter, Wipeout 2097, sega rally (wow I could add a lot to this list) - and would be thourghly contented. I think the Saturn derserves a lot more credit than it got.

Hoping that once finances level out I might go search for a saturn capable of 60Hz (or I believe there is a way to add a switch to an existing???), it concerns me that even Radient Silvergun I've only ever played in 50Hz. Fond memories of that game

Anyway....