help with saturn modchip

[koopi]

Hi Guys,

Been getting back into saturn gaming recently and decided to get a mod chip from Rob Web at consolegoods.
I have a white japanese saturn that appears to be 0014 64pin version by looking at the pics on the website. I thought it'd be relatively easy looking at the instructions but I think I've really stuffed things up!.
I did the modifications to the chip and attached everything, but when I turned the saturn on, all I got was some crackling noises. there was no sound and the boot up screen doesnt show any animation. it just displayed the sega saturn logo.
The CD drive doesnt more at all and the saturn goes to the CD player screen.
I tried removing the modchip and reconnecting the cables but now the saturn does the exact same thing without the chip and I can't play any of my original disks!
I've double checked all my connections and I still get the same problem.
Have I ruined by saturn?

[mick_aka]

Hi there

Chances are by the sounds of that you have a bad original ribbon cable going to the CD-ROM board, that was my main reason for experiencing that problem, it's probably become brittle and become damaged when installing your modchip.

[termis]

yeah, you get those symptoms when the motherboard doesn't recognize the laser unit. triple check your ribbons for damage and/or direction of the fit. Sometimes the pins get lifted off the ribbons and start shorting the signals. I've done this to ribbon cables a few times.

[koopi]

Thanks for your replies guys,

I triple checked my ribbon cables and everything seem to be ok with them. I also tried the ribbon cable in my aussie pal saturn and it seemed to work fine in that machine. Still no luck with the jpn saturn

I also was reading another topic about transplanting the CD drive (suggested by termis). When I tried that, the Jpn saturn still didnt read any disks (same behaviour), which makes me think the problem isn't with the ribbon cables or the drive.

any other ideas on what the problem could be?

Thanks