Different saturns, different quality lasers?

[zyrobs]

Have you guys ever found it that some machines have higher quality lasers? As in, they load games faster, fail to boot/load less often, loading times are shorter, etc.

I've came across a bunch of extremely scratched discs and some of my Saturns loaded them fine, others failed to boot... so, out of curiosity I did a rather extreme test, with a CRACKED (and also very scratched) copy of Darius Gaiden. The disc has a huge crack from the inner ring to the middle, though the crack does not reach the outer edge. It is also not just a cosmetic issue, as I can force the disc apart at the seams of the crack. I've had the disc aligned for the tests however.



Now, before this disc got cracked, it was already in very bad shape and could not play back audio track 06 right. AFTER it got broken, I get the following results:

- Model 1 machine, VA1 PAL board, ENR-007 drive:
Game boots and plays fine, loading times are a little longer (like one second longer). When track 06 is playing, the track will get buggy and skipping first, then completely silent, and eventually the game drops back to the BIOS. However as long as I avoid the level that plays that track, the game plays fine from start to finish.

- Model 2 machine, VA5 PAL (aka VA SD PAL) board, EXL-P604 drive:
Game boots and plays fine, loading times are a little longer (like one second longer). When track 06 is playing, the track will get buggy and skipping. But the game never freezes at any point, it is playable from start to finish.

- Model 2 machine, VA9 PAL board, EXL-P605 drive:
Disc is not recognized after a long while of trying.

- Model 2 machine, VA9 PAL board, Sanyo drive (610-6185-30):
Game boots and plays fine, loading times are moderately longer (like 2-3 seconds). Otherwise identical to the VA5 PAL machine, playable start to finish with track 06 skipping but never freezing.


I also have another Model 2 machine with a VA9 PAL board, that can barely read backups. I couldn't test it since its at my sisters place, but I bet that it couldn't recognize the disc either, as it has the same EXL-P605 cd drive.

I've heard other people mentioning that later machines have more problems reading discs. Perhaps the famous "disc swapping kills the laser" rumors are based on this, since I've heard people saying that they are using disc swapping since 1995 and their Saturns are still running. However I can't base any of this on my own machines since they are all bought second hand, and who knows how much pain they've been through before I got them.

Does anyone have similar experiences? Machines that can't play scratched discs or backups right? Machines that got eventually broken due to disc swapping? Please post the machines serial number too, as it is possible to identify the motherboard, and with a high probability the disc drive the machine uses too.

[mick_aka]

Going from personal experience, so many vary with other people, the older models 'model 1' if you like seem to be a lot more reliable laser wise.

I've owned in total 100+ saturns (only have about 30 now) and I've yet to encounter any laser issues with the earlier models.

[prabmire]

The thing with making comparisons the only real true way to do it, would be to find 1 of each variant that had had the same amount of use, or no use at all, then try the disc on each saturn and test results, in real terms this would notbe possible, but when doing stuff like this results vary so much nothing is conclusive

[zyrobs]

I've thought about that. But common sense would dictate that older Saturns have seen more action due to their age alone - and yet, so far no one seemed to mention that their model 2s have had less errors than model 1s. The only possible thing I can imagine that would reverse these positions so much would be everyone wearing out their model 2s on with modchips and never touching model 1s. But could that wear down model 2s in such a widespread way?

[ajmetz]

Perhaps they used cheaper parts for later models, to help facilitate price cuts? I bought my PAL Saturn in 1997, but it presently has trouble reading discs and loading games. It takes a lot of resetting before it'll boot a game, and it can freeze mid-game. This is what prompted me to get a chipped/modded Japanese Saturn. It was a chance to get a new machine, if the machine was at fault, and a chance to work from backups if it was the CDs getting scratched, etc. The Jap Saturn seemed to play all my game discs fine however, so I only ever made a backup of one game.