Hardware issue - Corrupted textures in all games.

[familyteam]

Good morning, everyone.
I am sorry if I just joined and didn't even introduce myself to the forum. I heard good things about this place, so I thought I'd come ask around, since at this point, it seems like my only hope.
I have a Sega Saturn that, for nearly 6 years now, has been giving me an intermittent issue in regards to how it displays graphics - more specifically textures and sprites.
Here are two examples I recorded today. Models and FMVs are unaffected, but anything besides that is.
 

Nosing around the internet since 2012 trying to find people who have had similar problems I have has been a rather fruitless endeavour. At most, I have been able to find people who seem to have some of the issues I have, but not all of them. Some have similar ones, but not quite the same. In this case, if it's a texture, it shows up warped and garbled, no exception. Games like Gale Racer (an almost exclusively 2D game) have absolutely nothing showing up right (I don't have a picture to show it right now, sadly). Sonic R has the menus all completely destroyed and a glitched texture blocks all gameplay:


Some games, like Die Hard Arcade and House of the Dead for whatever reason only show up discoloured but otherwise work completely fine, for whatever reason. Most games look like what I showed in the videos.

This seems like a rather extreme example of this particular issue, and I want to know if it can even be fixed. Saturns are rare and expensive where I live and I really want to be able to play the console again.
I wish I could say which model my console was, but sadly, it's a Brazilian Tec Toy Saturn with no model number anywhere. Those consoles are a frankenstein of different Saturn Models and parts are hardly compatible with other apparently similar models. That's yet another thing against the odds...

Any help or comment would greatly appreciated.

[zyrobs]

I'd inspect the VDP2 and the VDP2 VRAM for any problems (broken pins, broken traces, any corruption), clean up that area of the board if it is dirty or dusty. If that doesn't help, reflow the solder of those pins with a heat gun.

[familyteam]

I see. I have never opened a Saturn so deep before, just took off the screws of the shell and did basic cleaning. What should I be looking for exactly?

[zyrobs]

IC14, 15 and 16. Look for damage, anything that could short one of the legs, see if there are any PCB traces damaged, etc.

[familyteam]

When I have the free time, I will open it up and do as told. Thank you.
Maybe this is of interest to somebody: If I try playing Virtua Cop 2, after it boots up, the game throws up an error message before it even attempts to start up. I'd love to read what the error message says... but it's all garbled. I can tell it's supposed to be an error message because it does seem to be mangled text on the screen. Is this something anybody has seen before? Should I take a photo of it just in case?

[captainkael]

Photos are always good!

[familyteam]

Hello, people! I apologise for the very long delay before this reply and this pretty big bump I am doing - I had some life and family related issues - but I finally got pictures of the system's insides!







I still have it open and I do not plan on screwing this all back up anytime soon, so if anything's unclear I can take more photos.


EDIT: I cannot believe I lost my entire edit because ProBoards sometimes just sends me back to the thread without letting me post.
I believe it's not worth fixing this console. First, a little history:
I bought this console in Mid 2005 and it worked well until Mid 2012 where it started having the graphical problems that persist to this day
I bought it with no cables, taped together with masking tape as it had no screws, with one broken controller and a stack of games for a low price. At the time, it was a great deal, since I already had an American Saturn before which I broke I touched the laser and thus I could just compensate for whatever wasn't on there.
However after taking this console apart today, I have reason to believe this Saturn was fixed before from some kind of catastrophic failure before I bought it, because a lot inside the console points to it having gone through some kind of hackjob to try to fix something.
The most glaring sign is the laser. I always wondered why, whenever I opened the console, there was masking tape inside it. I thought it was just some leftover from when it was taped together, but taking it apart, it's actually part of some weird contraption scheme that holds the laser in place, since the piece that links the grounding strap is missing and apparently something else is broken in there, and it's being together by a combination of tape and some copper wire bent to hold it where there would be a more proper way of connecting it.
All of the wires and cables were connected rather strangely, they were twisting way too much, some were very loose, clearly very worn out, while others are extremely tight. Maybe the ones that were tight were always supposed to be tight, but certainly no wires inside the console were meant to be loose.
And finally, on the motherboard, well, not only is it very dirty (especially on the back, which I didn't take pics), it also has blue permanent marker scribbled all over it, with random smears, lines and especially in the back, arrows pointing to different parts of the board, some even really faded. You can think maybe it's from Sega/TecToy, but I'd like to believe they would use permanent marker that after 21 years (since the MB is dated '97) would not smear my finger if I touched it.
Given my circumstances and that weird contraption holding the laser together, I do not even think it's possible to reassemble this. I don't know if it's even worth trying to fix it, but what do you think?
Maybe I should get a new one instead. I have 3 controllers (A Model 2, an off-brand Model 2 and a 3D Controller), a lot of games and cables to spare. Do you think, looking at this situation, maybe this wouldn't be more worth it?

[Moirai]

Holy shit its a VA15

[zyrobs]

Yeah, it's a VA15, and those never came in black coloured consoles IIRC. That machine is definitely a hack job, maybe if you clean up the motherboard then you can salvage that, but it sounds like it has lots of other issues.

[Moirai]

I actually really want a black VA15

VA15’s are just sexy af

[mick_aka]

Looks filthy inside the case, I'd be tempted to just give the board a good scrub either side with a toothbrush and some isopropanol to try and dislodge or dissolve any nasty shit on the board.