Hi Assembler, I have recently picked up a Sega Saturn from an eBay auction. It is in pretty good condition, but there seems to be a fault. Here are the symptoms: Games do not always load. They tend to get stuck between the company FMV sequences (e.g. psygnosis) after the Saturn boot screen. The CD drive is just spinning the disk at this point, it is clear that it is not seeking. Some games seem more likely to load than others. Command and conquer works most times, whereas I have yet to see Wipeout load. Sometimes the boot screen freezes. When the flying shards are jingling, sometimes the video freezes and the jingling sound loops over and over. Hunches/other info: I don't *think* there is anything wrong with the CD drive. I have played C+C for an hour or two with no issue. The CR2032 battery is currently absent, but I don't think that should matter (correct me if I am wrong). This just means I can't save. I have opened the unit up and looked around for busted caps. Nothing is (obviously) wrong with the board there. There was some green corrosion on the shielding above the rear expansion port (where the battery is). I don't believe this to be leakage from a battery (unless the unit was stored upside-down at some point). Either way, whatever liquid caused that, it has not gotten as far as the main board. I have searched around a bit on teh Internetz, but I can't see anyone having the same issue. I'm really hoping this is not bad RAM/ROM. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks
Well, there isn't much to see. When the system "crashes" in between FMV sequences, the screen is just black. When the boot screen crashes, the video just freezes, which is the saem as what you would see if I were to take a photo anyway. Or do you mean a pic of the main board?
Oddly enough cleaning the laser, fitting a 3v cell and general cleanup inside seems to have fixed this unit for now. I wasn't expecting that... Thanks guys.
Lucky you, I've got a Saturn here with similar symptoms that developed after I fitted it with a region free BIOS (not likely a causative event). Seems fitting it with a modchip helped with getting games to boot but with some very strange graphical problems suggesting a VDP2 issue.
