Sega saturn power supply upgrade or rebuild...question about 5vdc and ground

So I have one of the late model US Saturns with the 4 pin power supply which seems to be 5vdc 5vdc ground ground. The thing is looking at the board the 5vdc is definitely the same but the two grounds seem to be different circuits slightly. Now if I ohm them they are definitely connected with zero resistance. I'm just wondering if I can wire up a straight 5vdc external power supply and just run it through the switch to the Saturn board pins and call it a day.

I also have the option of ordering the capacitors and replacing them and hoping it resolves my weird horizontal saturn bar issue.

 

can you please provide pcitures of this psu, top and bottom please ?

well...do you know the amps of the 5vdc lines?
if so, then you can lok for an external psu.

replacing caps is recommend on those old psus.

 

It should work - the split supplies are for the CD drive motors and the rest of the unit. Depending on the model and territory, there may be extra filtering in the gnd lines, but they are commoned together on the board (normally at 5 pin connector to the CD drive).

Notionally, the pinout is like this:

1: GND for system
2: GND for CD-ROM drive
3: +5V for CD-ROM drive
4: +5V for system

If you find you get interference on the screen when the drive motors operate, then try connecting an inductor in the system +5V line (4.7-10uH, connect across pins 3 and 4, with power fed to pin 3).

 

So oddly enough I read this post. http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/flicky-horizontal-white-distorted-lines-on-saturn.55964/ it seems to have worked on my problem also. During gameplay I get zero issues now.

 

It could have just been a bad connection on the PSU connector - sometimes removing and reinstalling the power supply just moves the contact point enough to fix it.

 

yes, you can. I did this before and it works fine (as long as your model is a model 2 that has only +5v from the PSU. Some older models need other voltages). I believe it requires 3amps

-Segasonicfan

 

Well it seems like it was the ribbon that was causing the issues. I had removed and reinstalled the power supply quite a few times. The problem wasnt resolved until I removed the ribbon cable and reinstalled it.