Poorly model 1 Saturn in A + E

[rossi46]

..and fading fast!

My mk.1 machine which I've had since new in 1996, has decided to play up.

First, the coloured cubes on the dash are just one colour - cream/fawn. They still look like the cubes should, just with no colour.

The laser moves when the machine is booted (both horizontally and vertically) and once it even spun the CD. But normally, nothing spins and I'm getting the Drive Empty error message.

It will, however, play audio CDs.

I cleaned the lens and blew the dust out of the case, then unplugged and re-seated all the connectors. Still the same.

Any ideas, guys? It's my favourite machine.

cheers

Paul

[TmEE]

Kinda sounds like the issue I had, except mine did not work with any CD... I think its laser issue... you can try adjusting the laser strenght from the small pot on the laser sled... if it won't help, you may want to start looking into getting another Saturn to borrow a drive from...

[rossi46]

I'm going to start chopping drives and lasers tomorrow. That's 3 dead model 1s now that I have lying around. Surely I can get one working machine

[termis]

Definitely sounds like your laser's weakening. You can perhaps squeeze a bit more life out of her (with the potentiometer adjustment that was mentioned above), but it might be longer-lasting to do some mixing & matching.