Sega Saturn repair... weird issues.

Hi there!

I'm sort of new here, but have lurked for a long time. It seems like you guys may be the guys to help me though, so, here we go...

Last year, a friend of mine brought back a Sega Saturn for me from Japan. It's in great condition, and seemed to work fine. It's a Japanese white Saturn (Sega-make), with a bios of 1.01 I believe. I'd been looking to jump-in to a Saturn for a long time, and I finally did! I was excited, but didn't have a chance to get many games until now.

At the time I had two games; Suchie Pai II and El Hazard. Both worked fine. Of the two, I only ever played Suchie Pai II for any degree of time. Which is, maybe twice for 3 hours each time.

A while later, I picked up Vampire Hunter: Darkstalkers Revenge for really cheap. When I booted it, I noticed that when it booted, it would freeze up after the Capcom logo video and go black. If I restarted it enough, however, it would eventually load. I figured it was just something wrong with the game since it would eventually play.

Feeling the Saturn itch, and getting some time off, I just recently I picked up Burning Rangers (and have Silhouette Mirage coming!) When I tried to boot BR, it would freeze after the License screen and go to black. Eventually, it would boot, but more on that later.

Having this problem, at first I thought maybe I accidentally got a modded console which something went awry on. So I found a US copy of both Christmas NiGHTS and Daytona. Oddly enough, Christmas NiGHTS would run.. on a Japanese system. Daytona, however, gives me the region error like it should. I guess Christmas NiGHTS has no region protection?

Anyway, so NiGHTS booted when I tried it, and then it booted Burning Rangers after that. I actually just ran Burning Rangers for 2 or 3 hours with no issues. When I turned off BR, however, and tried to put in another game (and re-run BR) and they would both hang the system.

So, things I've observed and tested:

1.) The system will always bring up the bios menu. I can do anything on the BIOS, no problems. Memory manage, what have you. If I put in a disk, it will always check the disk and confirm it's a Saturn disk with no issues. It will also play the CD-warning track.

2.) It will always make it to the License screen, and usually the game keeps spinning. Burning Rangers and NiGHTS will crash right after the license screen, while Vampire Hunter will crash after the Capcom title video (which is right after the License screen.)

3.) Once I manage to make it past this issue, the games seem to work perfectly fine. Intially I thought the system just had to 'warm up' or something stupid like that, however, after I ran BR for 3 hours and tried to swap... the issue came back. I did notice that when the stars align and it wants to boot up games finally, that it'll usually let me take out and swap the game for another and it'll work during that period of time.

4.) Vampire Hunter will sometimes hang at the Now Loading screen right after the Capcom logo. When it does this, the NOW LOADING comes up at the lefthand side of the screen in B&W, it'll wiggle, and suddenly show up in the middle of the screen with the right colors. One time I had BR glitch out like this where it had something flickering in B&W.

5.) Suchie Pai II will always boot, as far as I can tell. It is a low-processor Mahjong game with all 2D. I think it runs the system in the Hi-Res mode.

6.) I was running this on an LCD HDTV, and thought maybe it might be an issue with my TV accepting the low-res signal. So I tried it on an older CRT and it still did the same thing. I also tried with my S-Video Cable and the old composite cable it came with. Still, same issues.

7.) When it hangs, if I press the reset button or open the disk tray, nothing happens. I have to turn it on and off manually.

8.) The 3D zooming Saturn logo always runs fine. To be honest, I don't know if this is the system running 3D or a video though.

9.) I have set the date back to the 90s and reset the memory to test if it is a y2k thing or the memory was corrupted somehow, nothing. In fact, I haven't used the unit in close to 5 or 6 months, and it knew what the date was flawlessly, so I don't think that is an issue at all!

10.) Since on Vampire Hunter and Suchie Pai II it can make it past the License screen, my guess is it's not the CD-ROM having trouble reading the copy-protection stuff. And since things load fine when it decides to get past this point, I don't think it's the drive itself.

In conclusion:

Since Suchie Pai II always works, and the BIOS always works, my guess is that the system is having some kind of issue switching out of the hi-res mode to the low-res mode most games run in? I do not know if the Saturn bios runs in hi-res mode, however, but this is my only guess. It could also be the 3D hardware in some manner? But then, wouldn't the Saturn logo make it hang up? Also could be the high amount of memory that these games allocate, and the memory could be bad?

Anyway, has anyone seen this problem before? And if so, do you know what the fix is? I'm guessing it's probably hardware, which means, does someone here know how to fix it? I am not a hardware fixing guy, unfortunately.

I appreciate any help anyone can, well, help me with.

 

Try to leave the console in the bios for a longer period and see if it will eventually freeze.

Thus we could rule out the games as the possible source of the error.

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edit:

Or try to reproduce the error with an audio cd.

 

The Saturn boot logo is real time, not video.

Anyway, sounds like you have a reading error to me if games crash at loading screens or just after the main license screen. Or it could be a motor problem since playing CDs in the bios only runs the disc as x1 speed however games need the drive to spin faster.

Yakumo

 

check capacitors

 

Running this now, will let you know the results.

Thanks for the clarification on the Saturn logo. I figured so, but wanted to be sure.

When they boot, it seems to have no trouble reading things. BR ran until I turned it off last night... I haven't been able to get it to boot anything but Suchie Pai II since then, though. SPII, again, still boots and plays flawlessly. Would it be possible that SPII runs 1x the entire way through or something?

SPII uses no or very little 3D, so I thought that might be part of the problem.

This one is unfortunately way above my knowledge.

 

Are the games you're trying flawless? No scratches, no nicks where you can see through the disc? Does it make any unusual noises whilst loading?

Do you know what board revision you have?

And it always makes it through the Saturn splash screen? No freezing or stuttering there?

 

I've been running the CD player since my last post, though I stopped it to check a game I just received.

The only one that has a very minute abraision is Christmas NiGHTS, mostly because I bought that out of a bin at Blockbuster while I was still in highschool and played the music endlessly as a youngling. The others are pretty close to flawless.

Now here's the hilarity: I just got a copy of Silhouette Mirage today in the mail which is terrible; It's all scratched to hell and the inner ring looks like someone was swapping with it. The seller put up false pictures/lied about it, and I'm going to deal with that.

However... the game boots fine and I just played it for about 20 minutes with no issues. I just booted it twice, trying BR in between, which wouldn't boot.

No weird noises; However, I'm no Saturn expert.

And yeah, the splash never messes up. It always detects the disk correctly, and it will always boot to the License screen. Once it fades past the license screen, that's where the issues start.

How do I check the board revision?

 

Board revision can be checked by the VA number printed on it, or some other rather nerdy methods of identifying different parts lol. Can't think offhand what the white Saturns were.

I would suspect faulty RAM, personally.... although it's difficult to say without running a diagnostic on it.

 

Open it up and look for any caps that are bulging if the tops aint flat and look bulging /domed they need replacing. if you cant replace them someone on the forum will more than likely do it for free so long as you pay the postage.

 

I guess I have to take it apart to do that, huh?

Is there a guide showing the proper way to take it apart? I guess I could do that and take pictures.. I couldn't replace the caps myself though, I have no idea how to do that. My brother might, but it depends if I can reach him. If I couldn't reach him, I would be willing to send it out if someone can fix it; I don't mind footing postage (who would?) and I'd give them something a little extra for the trouble.

I appreciate you guys taking the time to help me out! Thank you very much.

Also, the CD ran 4 hours straight with no issues!

 

Electrolytic capacitors may fry without bulging. They "dry out" leaving a much lower capacitance than specified values. Random freezes may occur due to power supply failure. So have that checked throughly.

 

Undo the screws on the bottom and on the back, remove the top :thumbsup: Taking the rest out is pretty much common sense.

Where are you located? I assume in the US, so I wouldn't be much help to you.

 

IIRC there arent many caps hidden most on show so just unscrew the case., Its a while since i had a saturn apart and ive never seen inside a Jap saturn!

 

Hi guys!

Okay, I'll look into taking it apart and taking pictures sometime this week if work is slow.

I live in the US, yeah. In Maryland.

Thanks again for the help.

 

interesting and catchy post there………………….. interesting read should be a sticky lol

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I'm so sorry I took so long to reply to this. I've had so many problems in my life lately... getting diagnosed with Diabetes one of them. I'm just now catching up on life.

I took pictures of the inside of the unit quite a while ago, so I'll dig those up if you fine folks are still willing to help.

I also got a US unit to sac for parts if I need it... and I tested all of the games on it using a PAR and they all work flawlessly. I'd still like to fix this unit though, since it's way way cooler.

After posting the pictures and getting people's thoughts (if they still care to help...), I'm willing to send it and my US unit off for sacing to any respected forum member people suggest could try to fix it. If someone lives within Maryland, even better.

Yes, I am. However, my friend has a launch Saturn that has run flawlessly since launch doing this, and I read that this shouldn't be an issue.

 

I had similar issues. i swapped a power supply from one broken Saturn into another broken Saturn and created working Saturn. You might want to try that. but i wouldnt. i would just stick with the one you said you bought recently that works. jus sayin.

 

The +20v can well be an issue. Get a step up/down (i forget which) converter. You could however also yank the psu out of the us saturn and replace that JPN saturn psu which should work.

 

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