Sega Saturn screen flashing after boot

I have a Japanese Sega Saturn (HST-3200) - the grey one, one of the earlier models.

When I boot it up, after the sega saturn logo the screen flashes black and white as the cd drive appears to struggle to read the disc.

The console was working a few days ago. Back then the system would play the games normally. The problem would only manifest itself when I switched games after a long playing session. After playing for a while, when I turned the system off and on again, the problem would appear.

Few days before this problem appeared, the system was having trouble reading some CDR discs (the system is modded). I adjusted the orange laser trimpot and it got better for a while up until this issue came up.

Fearing that I might have fried the laser and that it was the cause of the problem, I bought a new laser assembly and replaced it the for suspect one. Nada. The issue is still there.

Any thoughts?

I have filmed the screen. You can see the video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUPC_khi2E0

 

Sounds like an overheating issue, do any parts of the console get unusually warm when it's running?

 

Ruling out any laser assembly problems, is it possibly a problem with your mod? I used to have my old white saturn modded back in the day that used to exhibit a similar issue. After desoldering the mod connections and removing the mod board I've since had zero problems.

 

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That was it

I uninstalled the modchip and it still would not work. Then I replaced the power board: now it works like a charm WITH the modchip installed!

Thank you, guys.

 

Power supply has bad capacitors. Have them replaced and you will have a good spare power supply board.

 

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