broken saturn?

[darkman]

hello, im new to this forum , though ive had a saturn for a while , I thought someone might be able to help with my saturn here.

its a model 1 saturn and I think the laser might be dying. The problem is that whenever it plays an FMV, it skips , it will run the FMV for a bout 15 seconds like normal , then begin to skip, it also nearly froze a few times during game play in a few games. It also wouldnt recognise my copy of Sega Rally which worked fine before, though it worked after I polished it.

its not the discs, as not only have I polished them , but ive tested some on another saturn (not mine) and they work fine. ive tried cleaning the lens as well as the insides of the system in general , as well as readusting that orange screw near the lens, still makes no difference.

so is it the laser lens dying? the system has a region switch and a 50/60hz switch so it will be quite costly to replace.

thanks for your help.

[termis]

Try the laser calibration.

segasaturngroup.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=hardware&action=display&thread=3169

[darkman]

tried it already , and I tried it again now, still nothing.

[termis]

Yeah, might be time to replace the laser assembly. It's a relatively a straightforward swap -- you'll have to find a donor saturn, or there may be folks here with spare units. This way you can keep the mods that are on the current saturn.

One ribbon cable and a few other smaller wires are all you need to pop off the laser assembly, and possibly one screw that holds it down, and the whole unit lifts straight off the board.

There are two different types of laser assemblies, 20 pin and 21 pin models. If you have the round power/reset button saturns, it's a 21 pin unit, and you can transplant any other round button saturn's laser assembly onto yours. (If I recall correctly, anyway).

If you have the older saturn with oval power/reset buttons, it's most likely a 20-pin laser assembly, though there is a small chance (about 10~15% or so from personal experience) that it could be a 21-pin model. Only way to make sure is to count the number of silver contact pins on the ribbon cable that connects the laser assembly to your motherboard.

[darkman]

my Saturn is a model 1 . the oval button model (model no MK-80200-50 , a PAL saturn, if that matters), but ill check the ribbon to make sure at any rate.

[darkman]

ok , I took my brother's Saturn (a model 2 saturn) , and compared the laser assembly there, to my Model 1 Saturn.

they actually have different cables (mine has 2 cables and a ribbon going to the motherboard, his has 1 cable and one ribbon).

so I would think ive got the normal model 1 laser part.

if anyone here has a spare model 1 laser part for sale, ill gladly buy it, either that or ill get a model 1 saturn and use that (probably more likely)

[darkman]

ok, I won a model 1 Saturn from Ebay, hopefully it will have the right laser part (like you said, the chances of it being like the model 2 are very slim)

[darkman]

well, I got the spare saturn, and sure enough the laser is interchangable.

however, the game still skips, and the weird thing is, that when I tried the spare saturn with my old laser, everything worked fine.

its not the ribbon , as if tried them both, and for some reason both of them have different connections on the motherboards
.

any ideas?

[darkman]

also the wires are connected differently, they have the same ribbon, but the other connections are plug in to other places on the motherboard (one of the cables in the spare saturn is solderd to the cover of the Saturn for some reason.

were there more revisions of the model 1?, because the motherboard is different to mine, despite being a model 1 and working with my laser.

[termis]

Yeah, in this case, I guess it's something screwy on the motherboard (perhaps on the video chip itself) -- diagnosis beyond this point is beyond my knowledge.

As for various versions, yeah, I know of at least three different type of motherboard setups for the mk1 saturn, but lasers are interchangeable between most of them out there.

[darkman]

I eventually got the thing to work, for some reason the new laser was actually misadjusted, im not sure why, but it works now .

thanks

[fisher007]

get a qtip and some cleaning alcohol. Clean the lens with this!!!

Youtube help

(ok it`s a ps2..but a lens is a lens )

www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8A8xblvMCw