Saturn Power Supply Failing - Repair Ideas?

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He also sells the bios chips he gets from me back on his site for 10 euros each.

Quite the mark up at 4x the price.

 

I think what darius-saturn is getting at is that the average Joe of France has been cutting a hole into the case (or hull as he has been translating it as) and he introduced them to this method. Language barriers are a bitch.

Though I personally disagree that the designations issued as 2.1, 1.3, etc make any sense to me at this moment in time. Perhaps it would if there was something behind it but given the Saturn boards are all numbered with the VAx designations I don't see the need for a new system. Maybe to simplify it for people who have no business opening up their console in the first place.

And darius-saturn I sincerely doubt anyone here wants to keep any information confidential or secret. This is a place of sharing where the only information kept hidden is done in a temporary fashion until it is either ready for release or could be extremely damaging to be released. Even if we wanted to putting a switch in the VCD card area isn't something that would be kept secret for long as soon as someone purchased a Saturn modified with such a switch.

Truth be told whenever someone asks me to install one into their Saturn I charge them the same price you sold them to me for plus a bit for my time and energy. Given I've yet to see anyone else grab a large batch of these Macronix ICs you basically have the market cornered. Not too surprised a language barrier has allowed for a secondary market to form at all especially after my readings on the economics of the Euro Zone. They make it all seem fine and dandy but that doesn't do any good with niche markets and the lack of bilingual individuals to aid trade.

 

His price is for the chip, not installation. But when I do modding work, I do not charge extra for parts. I charge cost price for parts and then charge labour (which is what it sounds like you do too)

If I really cared about how much people charge - I would up my price, people seem amazed how cheap I sell them as it is.

 

That is exactly what I do, seems my thought patterns are a bit disjointed today. If I attempted to profit off parts I'd not only feel guilty about it but I'd imagine that the second someone figured it out they'd be posting about it everywhere. I'd rather take a loss than profit on parts honestly.

After sourcing 100 Dreamcast chips a while back I know first hand how much work it can entail. If it became a bigger hassle compared to other more profitable ventures I could see the price going up and I could see someone purchasing these chips blank from you and writing the BIOS out to them thus entitling them to a small surcharge (such as you already do) but a 4x markup is a bit much.

 

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Speaking of which, I am down to my last 20 or so.

Undecided if I am going to order more.... as it took months to even break even.

And Druid - the point was, he seems to want credit for a switch but has no problem ripping people off by charging 4x what hes paying (and even links to the mmmonkey page, which has a link to me selling them at £2.20). Crazy logics

 

That being the case I should probably buy a batch soon then. If your prices went up I'dstill buy.

 

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Oh I know that. Something is valued at what ever someone will pay for it.

I just find it strange hes complaining hes not getting the credit he deserves, yet profiting off the back of others.

Conflict of integrity imo, but I was mostly talking to myself with the original comment.

Im not really bothered, just noticed it while browsing the link he posted.

 

I can't begin to fault him for that as it is simple economics. Beyond that language barriers are there that would make doing business with an English speaker potentially difficult or impossible. I'd like to think that the English and the French are over their long standing nature as rivals but it wouldn't shock me if the individual would prefer to deal with a fellow Frenchman than a Brit (or the Chinese who probably have a lesser grasp of French than they do English which isn't saying much).

 

That wooden Saturn case mod has the same power DC-DC step down converters I picked up - Kudos to whoever did that mod and posted the pictures Gave me a giant leap in the right direction to mod up my not so functional Model 1 Saturns!

I could cut through the tension in this thread with a chainsaw - it is so chumpy I could carve it! :nightmare:

Will let you guys know once the repair / mod is completed too :smile-new:

 

sorry, I put your text in the google translator and I understand not much!



I understand that you say that I sell the bios of bad ad 4 times as much? this is not accurate:

£ 17.70 / 5bios = £ 3.54 or € 4.33 by piece

and I've never hidden to sell them with profit

if it is not at all what you say I'm sorry

 

Any chances of picture of the fan install as i have a fan but still over heated maybe because i put the fan in the wrong place?

 

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Sorry to bump an old thread - any idea on a fix for this? I have a Saturn in otherwise great condition (very little uptime considering its age so it runs like a charm) that has the same issue - rolling lines after it's been on for a while and struggles to load anything off the CD-ROM mechanism. I realise I could chase down a replacement power supply, but a fix would be handy!

 

I wish I had some good news. All I know is to avoid that particular type of power supply. :sorrow:
If it is in your Saturn, get rid of it or just swap a good PSU in from another Saturn... of course it would be luck of the draw.

Actually, we didn't get the manuals for the later Saturns did we? Just the PAL VA0, right?
Hmmm, I bet there's a tech document out there, just like there was for the 32X shaky picture.

Sorry I don't have any good news! But never give up on the search for knowledge! :smile-new:

 

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Seems strange that the service manuals would not address something as potentially common as power supply failure.
Perhaps they were simply whole board replacements and they were repaired elsewhere - like everything these days.
Send in a computer, they replace a whole board instead of whatever broke on the board.
I'm sure they wouldn't have noticed as I couldn't get it to happen running at 110V.
We need more technical bulletins! :congratulatory: Love those things now!

 

I have 4 Japanese Saturns that have this problem. They are the early gray ones with the top-mounted power supply. When I power them on, it takes longer than usual to go through the screens; they show up slowly. The screens also display some wavy lines. When I get to the main menu and pop in a disc it just keeps spinning and there is no message on-screen indicating the status. I tested them with a known working drive/laser from a working console. The power supplies also hisses.