Sega Saturn Region Free BIOS

Hot air plus soldering iron all digitally controlled on the cheap:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-2in1-SM...792?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35d62f9b08

 

I use a similar model by Atten. Cheap, but gets the job done.

 

I'm considering getting it myself as an extra to use in upstairs ( my main station and tools all in basement) so I don't have to be up and down all the time.

 

hi,i need some help. i burned 2 different chips with my gq-4x with a rom from mmonkeys site and a rom from isozone. both didn't work only giving me black screen so now im beginning to suspect its the previous region switch mod that was done to it before. mine is a white saturn that worked perfectly but had an octopus of wires coming from under it. i no longer wanted a toggle switch so i decided to try the region free bios.

i think my problem is the saturn wont boot because the original jumpers are not in place or something. i tried various configurations with nothing. as you can see here it has 2 of its original jumpers in a way ive never sen before:



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/jetbue7/IMG_20141015_190319_zpsdd3d7e38.jpg

ive worked on over a hundred japanese saturns as a fellow repairman and never seen this combination before making me suspect this may be a saturn from a different area like the philipines or someplace. of course i could be wrong and it is a basic japanese saturn i hadnt come across with the jumpers. its impossible to determine where the 2 other original jumpers were placed because all these points had wires on them.

could this be my problem that i need something there or my chip burning has failed? i really dont want to cut out the chip again. the soldering was perfect with continuity:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/jetbue7/IMG_20141015_190453_zpsd8cdfac7.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/jetbue7/IMG_20141015_190458_zpsef5c2c53.jpg

also need to know with no bios chip does something display on screen or is it black?

thank you for any info.

 

x

 

i did not,i thought that was only for the 40 pin uv eprom that needs that.

 

You have to byteswap if the target system is using a BIG ENDIAN. What Saturn happens to be.

 

Posting my latest region free bios install and phantom chip while i am at it.

I removed the stock bios with a x tronics hot air rework station. Just apply alot of flux on the point's and heat up at 400C with low volume air flow(setting 3)


Installed the region free bios with a T-0.8D - Chisel Tip on my soldering iron.




Pic's of the bios install








This is before I cleaned the flux off.

Next up phantom chip install.









Thanks to Bad_Ad84,
Zer0-2k11, and APE.

 

i tried again with the byteswap and now i get a quick orange flash when i hit power. at least its some response than nothing before. so im still concerned with my picture up there with the jumpers. does anything have to be there for it to activate?
i put wire first for japan then removed them and put usa and then nothing and still the same orange flash.

 

Sounds like trace is damaged under the chip

 

its possible,it has 4 traces bypassed. whats left on there is so brittle from a least 6 removals the traces are like paper now. im sending it to a guy with a reflow device so he can pop off the chips easy and place them with no more stress to the traces. but i also need to know if the other burned chips i placed on there didnt completly mess up the saturn shorting something so all this may be for nothing. what i dont understand is why all these places that have these downloads for saturn region free dont have them byteswapped already or at least give warning that they need such. if they had this never would have happened.

 

Do you need to remove the region jumpers for this to operate as desired? I have no non Japanese titles to test or spare CD-R available I'm afraid!

 

Nope. Just remove the original and replace it with the region free one and you're good to go.

 

Alright, thanks for the confirmation.

 

I spent this morning changing the BIOS chip in my Japanese Saturn to a region free version. I had some trouble de-soldering the chip from the motherboard because I couldn't quite get all the solder out from every pin. Anyway after an hour or so I finally managed to get it free. After removal I soldered a DIP socket in its place which means I can easily change out the BIOS chip in the future if I want. I patched a version 1.0 bios, programmed it to a 27C400, created a custom label (lol) and popped it in. I was sweating for a while after the de-soldering debacle but it powered up perfectly first time! So now I can rid my Saturn of the action replay and play any region games without issue. Anyway, I'm pretty happy that it turned out so well, here's a photo (you can also see the Phantom Universal mod chip which I installed previously).

 

i got a sega saturn modchip all i know you just region patch the file and write it to cd

Also what I wanted to say about region and modchip:
the modchip just bypasses the check for an original CD and it allows boot of the cdr backup


unlike playstation or most consoles, saturn region coding is not bypassed by modchip,
it is a setting on a motherboard with jumpers and solders.
I left that untouched because most of saturn hits were released only in japan,
so to get region free you either need to install a switch with jumpers and solders (complicated),
get an action replay cartridge


OR you can just burn your iso for example PAL or NTSC american, and just before burning
change the header with SatHeader, a free utility that will add the japanese region coding to
the iso of your choice, whether it's pal or US.


Let's say chaos control pal, download it with emu paradise for example,
extract the iso, patch it for it to get the japanese header (will not change the language in game),
and it becomes bootable even with no special cartridge or other stuff to buy.

 

Region free BIOS is unrelated to the system's region jumpers. Games that detect them for effects other than lockout, will keep the same behavior.

I believe the jumpers determine whether early copies of Soukyugurentai play in Japanese or its unfinished English.
Though I haven't tested that on real hardware.

 

i love when people do this little extra things like the sticker, even though itll never be seen its really nice

 

I got a weird problem with my multi bios install on a VA PAL SD unit. Followed the mmmonkey tutorial and it seemed to be a very simple mod so unfortunately I followed his recommendation to cut the legs. So of course the installation failed. I get power to both main pcb and cd unit and power led is green, but there's no reaction from the drive at all, it's completely dead.

I've tried the same cd drive on another unit and it worked. Checked both reset button and the lid mechanism, both are working. Removed the new bios and double checked pads and traces, all of which were fine. Installed it a second time and still nothing. I really don't know how to proceed at this point. I do have an extra unit (USA NTSC though), is it possible to transplant the sega bios from that unit to the non-working to see if it returns to life?

 

Did you byte swap and mirror the bios before burning the chip?