If you experienced problems with installing the region mod, please read this. Your Saturn may NOT be broken: Symptoms your Saturn is experiencing: No video No audio Power light blinks Disc spins and access light blinks (when the toggle for the door open switch is held closed) (Let me start by saying all of this was done on a Model 1 North American Saturn with a Navi/HiSaturn board.) I recently tried to install a region switch for a few imports I've been wanting to try out. I found a guide for a Japanese / N. American mod that would use a switch to switch between the regions. I also found one that converted between N. American mode, PAL, and Japan plus the additional 50 / 60 HZ mod to control the refresh rate. I followed all of the guides completely, turned on my console, and much to my disappointment, the disc would spin up but there was no audio or video on the screen. Thinking I may have done something wrong with the jumpers, I removed the harness I created for the multi-region part and put jumpers on terminals 6 and 11 for Japan mode. I also left the refresh switch intact, but soldered the wire I connected to pin 79 on IC14 to the +5V on the powersupply as suggested by mmmonkey's guide (Which is supposed to be 60HZ. Ground is 50HZ according to the guide.). Still, I got no response from the console. Disappointed by having spent a lot of time meticulously prepping / making the connections and the prospect of having lost a Saturn which was happily playing the Sega Xtreme release days before, my only thought now was that there was a problem with the way I hooked up the refresh switch and that the +5V was overloading IC14. After carefully repositioning the leg on the chip I was able to get it back into place. I tested the console and it worked! DO NOT FOLLOW THIS GUIDE (saturn model 1): refresh switch. I found another guide that showed a resistor between +5V and pin 79 so that may have been the problem, but even at ground (50HZ) there was no sound or video. I recommend not trying the PAL mod. There was a happy ending, though. Not only do I now have my Saturn working again, but it loads Japanese games AND North American games without a switch. I have no idea what I did. Everything was returned to its original state except I replaced the North American jumper configuration (7 / 10) with the Japanese settings 6 / 11. There was also what appeared to be very thin traces running between the two points on jumper 13 and between the first points on 12 and 13. I cut through them because the guide said "remove permanent links" which I thought they may have been. Anyone else have any additional input? Here are the guides I followed: http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/console/sega/saturn5060.htm http://www.gamesx.com/importmod/saturncon2.htm http://www.gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=imports:sega_saturn http://web.archive.org/web/20030212162038/http://www.trsoft.demon.co.uk/satmod.htm Side note: If you try to remove the switch from the case you'll notice the screws are hidden under the button cap. When I tried to pull it off, it damaged something internally so the button would not stay down. To fix it, I turned the spring so it twisted off. The mechanism inside has enough resistance to the weight of the blue plastic toggle that you can pull it up / press it down and it will stay in place. If you want to put the case back on, get a pair of pliers or something to pull it up when in the on position to turn it off.
Yeah. I'll post a guide so anyone else who wants to try it out can give it a go. Also, if anyone happens to accidentally remove one of the pads on th jumpers, here is a really good pinout of the board that will show you that the traces lead back to IC9, so you can make your connections there: link
I edited it to specifically apply the warning to the model 1 until we figure out which models it works with. Mine is an MK-80000. Here is a drawing showing exactly what I did. The copper traces I cut are very thin and you have to look closely to see them, especially the vertical one. Whether or not these modifications specifically make the Saturn boot multiple regions without a switch, I'm not sure. It's possible something shorted when I hooked up the refresh switch mod that caused something else to change. It's worth a try, though. I don't have any PAL games, so I'm not sure if it also boots that region. Right now North American and Japanese games are confirmed.
Interesting. I went through part of my collection to be sure and all of the imports worked (games like Gunbird, Panzer Dragoon, etc), but of the North American ones I tested (still have a few more to try), NiGHTS, Hang On GP, and Baku Baku worked while Duke Nukem 3D, World Series Baseball, A.M.O.K., Mech Warrior, Virtua Fighter 2, and Panzer Dragoon did not. I originally only was using Baku Baku as the test game. So I need to rephrase it now: It's confirmed that it can play both North American and Japanese games, however only select North American titles work for some reason.
Aw, darn. The game I tested with just had to be one of them, didn't it. Do you have a link to the list? A Google search failed me. They're all original games and not patched backups if that makes any difference.
Your Saturn is only on the JPN mode. The US games you tried have also the J country code in the header. Use my database dammit!:lol: http://madroms.free.fr/db/db.php You could also check my answer to a previous post here: http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=211630
Well, MK-80020-50 is a model 1 unit as well. In fact, whatever 50/60Hz mod you do on any Saturn, it will result in ground (50Hz) or +5V (60Hz) being applied to pin 79 of the VDP-1 chip.
