Saturn modchip trouble

Hey guys! I ran into a problem the other day, was going to play some burning rangers but my saturn wouldn't read the disc anymore. I have the phantom universal and it's worked great for months. Console still plays my original discs just fine, but will not play my backups whatsoever. I've checked to see if maybe something came in contact, or if my power wire came loose, but everything is fine. Any thoughts what might be causing this? The console still plays originals with the disc drive hooked straight to mainboard and through the phantom. I'm at a loss.. Thanks in advance!

 

Sounds like either 5v power wire isn't connected good enough or most likely your laser needs a slight tweak to get it to read backups or the modchip is faulty.
Things to try:

Resolder the 5v and use a thicker wire and try it

Mark the orange knob on the back of the laser assembly with a marker at its starting point. Then try increasing or decreasing it a little and test your backups.

buy a new laser or laser assembly

make some new backups to try

install a new phantom.

 

x

 

thanks for the ideas guys, i'll try a few things and get back with you!

 

Well, out of curiosity I tried something different. I put in a backup i burnt using a cheap verbatim disc, instead of using my my normal taiyo yudens and it works, same game, both burnt the same way, it just wont read the taiyo media anymore, is this indicative of my laser needing tweaked? I also tried every other game I had backed up on the cheap media and they all work, too, but none of my backups using the taiyo's will play.

 

also.. I can now get it to play some of my taiyo juden backups if I put a cheap media copy first let it start up, shut the console down put the tayio backup in, then power the console back on and it'll work.

 

Weird. I always recommend taiyo yudens disc for burning. If its reading the cheap media I would be inclined to leave the laser as is. Tweaking lasers (incorrectly) can lead to other issues. Are you positive that you have authentic disc?

They make programs for reading Disc manufacturer data. I don't recall the name.

 

yeah, my burning software identifies them as taiyo. I also agree that it's weird that it reads the cheap media easy, just not the taiyos

 

Fakes can still id correctly

 

Is there a way to properly identify for certain if they're taiyo yuden?