Sega Saturn White freeze on startup Screen?

[retronerd]

I have an white Japanese Saturn. There's no start animation with bootup sound, it just shows the Saturn logo (as if I had pressed Start to skip the animation) and then freeze. I can reach the time and date if i take out the battery.





I really have no clue what could be wrong?

[matthew]

I had the same issue. I cleaned my machine and found the cd drive ribbon was slightly pulled out. this caused all sorts of freezing and weird issues. Also give it a gold clean out of any dust etc

[retronerd]

Aug 27, 2014 8:56:20 GMT matthew said:

I had the same issue. I cleaned my machine and found the cd drive ribbon was slightly pulled out. this caused all sorts of freezing and weird issues. Also give it a gold clean out of any dust etc.


What is the best method to clean it comepletely?

[matthew]

I basically pulled it right down , blew out the dust. When I do it next I think I will also use a pcb cleaner. Also give the board a good once over - check for bad caps etc

[fightingvipers]

Saturn motherboards dont like dust at all, it can cause all sorts of weird issues, as suggested already strip your saturn down and make sure its completely clean.

[retronerd]

I have already done that, i shall try to clean it even more, Im reporting back

[retronerd]

i have cleaned the motherboard completely but i got the same freeze at the sega logo again?? havent find anything wrong on the motherboard???

[matthew]

Hey have you checked ribbons are seated correctly ? They are delicate so will need a bit of care when removing and re- inserting

[phb1969]

You can buy cans of compressed air to blow away dust on pcbs - this is better than blowing as it contains no / less moisture than our breath that can lead to corrosion.

[retronerd]

Aug 28, 2014 20:11:06 GMT matthew said:

Hey have you checked ribbons are seated correctly ? They are delicate so will need a bit of care when removing and re- inserting

Yes! I have done everything, it cant be a dust problem. Maybe something else is wrong:(   

[matthew]

Aug 29, 2014 0:28:42 GMT phb1969 said:

You can buy cans of compressed air to blow away dust on pcbs - this is better than blowing as it contains no / less moisture than our breath that can lead to corrosion.

Good call - the cans of air work well. I've had good results cleaning all types of boards with pcb cleaners (can) that includes a little brush to lightly brush over the board. They come up looking brand new!

[matthew]

Did you get it working again ?

[matthew]

Aug 31, 2014 19:01:10 GMT @saturnhst said:

I have 2 US Saturns that have the same problem. I've cleaned the boards so I don't know what's wrong.

This has nothing to do with the disc drive or ribbon cables if it can't even get to the cd player menu. Even if you unplug the drive on a working console, it will still boot up to the cd player menu.

Interesting - with my pal system cd cable unplugged it would not boot properly. Would get past the logo - into the cd menu and freeze etc.

[retronerd]

Aug 31, 2014 11:32:13 GMT matthew said:

Did you get it working again ?

Sadly NO:( i have cleaned everything its like new but it still freeze at the Sega Saturn Boot logo:( what can be the problem?

[retronerd]

anyone?