Sega Saturn faint video flickering on LCD TV

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THIS! That is exactly what I've encountered and what I've been getting.

 

You're right, I was curious and just disassembled mine, PSU manufacturer is FD, and I have K461 j AVAIL on transformer. Anyway that additional capacitor between R34 and PI2 solved my PSU problem. I recall at that time I was talking to some hardware engineer, what can cause that problem, and how exactly that capacitor can solve it, and I was told that most likely other capacitors were dried out. Also my psu board wasn't that hot, and I can't imagine how transformer can become faulty over the time.

 

Hey CD ageS are you using a mod chip in the system that pulses / flickers?

I'm just wondering bc I added a mod chip to mine and it draws power off the system. I haven't tried bypassing the chip yet.

 

I have been having a similar av problem with my Saturn. I own a model 2 Skeleton JP Saturn which is connected to a modern HD-TV via S-video. On occasions the screen will go dark and colour will distort or even flicker wildly, a quick toggle at the back and reinserting the video cable seems to fix it for a while but the problem persists. Does this sound like a cable problem rather than anything hardware related?

thanks,

 

No. But I am using an Action Replay 4MB cart if it makes any difference.

 

I tried capturing some video of this on my Android, but it won't even show up bc the built-in cam sucks so bad.

 

I'm going to bypass the standard AV port and directly wire s-video to the motherboard.. does anyone know.. ?

A) are the AV pinouts the same for model 1 / model 2 Saturns?
B) can I make a direct s-video connection to the board and use only the audio RCA R/W from the standard AV cable?

pinout I found.. is this correct for model 2?
http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/saturnavpintopinE.gif

 

That's really your decision, but I doubt that'll help. Can you try RGB?

 

Yea, I don't think it will fix the flickering but should give a noticeably cleaner image over composite. The cost to convert RGB / SCART to NTSC component for my TV seems a bit expensive and I don't have the parts laying around.

It will rule out a problem with the cable too I guess.

 

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It's more like a pulse or dimming, like when a heavy load of AC is getting used somewhere in the house and you notice it on TV screens and such. Except it keeps happening over and over every second or so.

As for S-Video.. I've been wanting to do this anyway to help sharpen the image quality. It will rule out any problems I may be having with the stock cable or AV port.

 

Does anyone know where I can buy a Saturn S-Video cable for around $10 or so? I see everything from $50 - $100 That's just CRAZY!! SCART doesn't even cost that much!!

I'm willing to do the S-Video mod myself but it seems like a lot of extra work for the amount of quality improvement I'll actually gain.

 

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$17 is better I guess but yikes.. recently bought one of these for $7
http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Component-Cable-Not-Machine-Specific/dp/B003SVVHIW

S/N is 668004439
model MK-80000A

 

May just end up getting RGB SCART cable - same price as S-Video. I need a converter but I can use this for other systems like my SNES. Not sure if any of this will fix the flickering but it should look good

 

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I have one of the current SegaStyle s-video cables, it's a good quality cable, considerably better made than my original SEga branded composite cable.

I experience faint horizontal lines on my Samsung 32" LCD when I first power my Saturn on, but they fade after 10 minutes of play, It's a US Model 1 with a modchip and a 4-in-1, but as my Dreamcast does the exact same thing I'm thinking it's just the TV. That's the price I pay for not giving up 20 cubic feet of my TV room to a 32" Wega I guess.

 

did this problem ever get figured out it happens on mine also on a sony Trinitron crt with svideo cables. I don't know if they are good cables though Should I try segastlyle ones?

 

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