Saturn: Universal Chip Issues

Hey guys
I've just begun my journey into the modding world, I'm a big Sega collector and clearly a chipped Saturn was required!

I have a model 2, and I successfully installed a Universal chip, it worked fine for a few months. However, recently it wasn't reading disks.

It would read them as CDs, but not games, so I re-bridged the A and B bridge and it works almost perfectly again.

The problem i'm currently addressing, aside from an "ify" disk read, is the video output, for some reason when the console loads from the disk, the screen becomes distorted and has some colored "fizz" is you will

This ONLY happens when it's loading, and happens to both NTSC and NTSJ games (I thought it may have been an issue with imports, but no dice!)

I'm assuming it's a problem with the ribbon cables... but before I do anything I'd really appreciate a more experienced opinion, and maybe a little pointing in the right direction?

Thanks so much in advance! --Mike

 

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Oh! Thanks for the info! It's quite bad though, I should probably take a video of it to show it. I'm actually playing it on a CRT
Is there anything that could have possibly made it worse?

 

Have you taken the chip out and hooked it up normally to make sure it's not the chip? Usually with Saturns from my experience it's the damn ribbon cable though.

 

I have, but I'll check again, thanks

And yeah... the connection is so tight that it's too damn easy to bend the cables a bit too much!

EDIT: Checked again, it doesn't do it with the original ribbon only, so it could be either the chip or second ribbon...

Here's a video if it helps... thanks! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iX_05f8oCU

 

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Thanks I'll try that later tonight, but I was under the impression it wouldn't read the disk if that was the case... Is the bridge really only for video output?

Just to make sure, for my model Saturn I'm supposed to bridge points A and B correct?


Just making sure, considering i'll be doing it again anyway

 

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Very interesting, thanks!

So, I decided to move it to my room to have a more casual workplace to put more time into this, ends up, the issue only appears on CRTs...

I tried 2 CRT Tvs, both had the issue, however I just tried it on my widescreen HD TV.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the Saturn have 2 separate outputs for widescreen and standard?
Could this possibly pinpoint the issue?

 

No. There weren't enough widescreen games or TVs in 1994 for that.
The output choices are composite, s-video, or RGB. (Saturn uses external RF boxes)

 

Ahh I see, duh!

Well that's quite strange then... Why would the TV make the difference?

 

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Oh nice

Well, at least I know it's not a major issue, thanks guys! Really loving it here, good to know there's some great forums for this kind of stuff

 

Ugh, so the chip is pretty unreliable now, it worked for several hours then randomly stopped.

It reads the disks, but as a CD, and even retail games do this.

It shouldn't be the bridge since it just worked... :/

 

So I left it sitting, it wasn't working, came back about an hour later and turned it on without touching it and it worked.

Then it stopped after one disk swap...

So what could this possibly be? I need to order whatever I may need before Christmas shipping madness :/

EDIT: it just did the same thing again... Honestly what is happening? I'm not even touching it

 

This is why I'm already having difficulties selling modchips to users.

 

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Well I mean barely even touching the thing can make it work and or not work. What could be causing that?

 

Well could just be a dodgy mod chip.
if it works ok with out are you useing a rgb or rf unit.

 

Well it's just strange because it worked perfectly for months...
im using RGB