Broken Saturn with strange sound effects

[termis]

This happens when the motherboard doesn't recognize the laser assembly.

Here's the simple version of what I'm going to say below. Open up the saturn, look for the laser assembly, disconnect and reconnect all cables & wires connecting the laser assembly to the motherboard.

And now for the longer version:
Usually, a white ribbon cable that connects the motherboard to the laser assembly gets jostled lose a bit, many times when one drops the saturn, or during shipping from one location to another.

The first thing you should try doing is to take the top cover off, and take out the white ribbon cable that connects the laser assembly to the motherboard and reconnect it. Most saturn versions have just one white cable, though there are versions with two white cables (one cable connecting the laser assembly to another daughterboard, and another cable connecting from daughterboard to motherboard).

Another problem may be that the power cable is disconnected/not making the proper connection, and the laser isn't getting any power. Again, this is another set of cables, usually on the lower left hand side. Connect & reconnect.

Doing this will take care of almost all instances of the problem above. It's still not a guarantee that your saturn will work, but it should take away the buzzing noise and the big blown up balls in the CD menu once the saturn "sees" the laser assembly.

[mick_aka]

^^ This.

[ameisenmann]

I repaired a broken saturn of one of my friends lately with that same problem. As already said it can be mostly traced back to the fact that the white ribbon cable is defective.
I had one on spare and so I could fix the problem. But usually they are not easy to buy because you will need a certain length.

If you have a working saturn you should try this cable or even change the whole laser unit to locate the error.
Good luck!

[termis]

As for the "buzzing noise" I meant more specifically those sound effects when navigating the menu, which is exactly the noise it makes when the motherboard doesn't "see" the laser assembly.

Try wiggling the ribbon cables just a touch, as sometimes the contacts are kinda finicky.

If it still fails, and you want to try different cables, I do have some spare cables that I can send you. PM me and I'll send you one for the cost of postage. If at this point it still fails, I'd imagine 1) something on the laser assembly itself is defective, 2) it's not getting power from the power supply unit, so it can be something simple as a defective wire going into the laser assembly, or something screwy with the PSU itself.

[termis]

Yeah, I understand what you meant. As you stated, I meant the noise when moving around the menu -- those sound effects are "buzzier" rather than the normal "chimy" sounds. We both know that's not normal, and it's NOT your capture card.

Oh, and if you are going to try different ribbon cables, make sure that you do it with the one that have the same number of silver contacts, as there are two different versions of those ribbon cables -- one with 20 pin contacts (*most* mk1 saturns), and another with 21 pins (all mk2 saturns, and a small percentage of mk1 saturns).

[markhulkus]

Is it still under warranty.... take it back to Dixons for a refund!