Is there any service that can repair my Saturn?

[Xen]

So, my MK1 American Saturn is broken (received it with a broken LA), and I feel really bad looking at it lying on the shelf, useless and unoccupied. I'd like to have it fixed, but can't do it myself. Is there any service that I can send it to for repairs? For the meantime, I'm rockin' my Hitachi MK1 Saturn, it's working perfectly so far.

Thanks!

[termis]

Try describing the symptoms and I'll see if it's an easy fix that you can try out for yourself.

For example,

- Does it boot the game at all?
- If not, does the CD spin? (and if so, does it seem to spins slow, spins fine, then comes to a half, doesn't spin at all, etc)
- If it doesn't boot and drops you to the menu screen, are there any weird things happeneing (i.e. the sound "globes" on the lower corners of screen look red & are blown up...)
- Does it play music CDs?

I'd say a good half of saturn repairs need not much more than a simple screwdriver.

[Xen]

It doesn't play anything, I've opened it up to see what the problem was (and possibly apply the dial spin fix), but I noticed that a certain part in the LA is torn... I think that only a full LA replacement would help here.

[termis]

So it doesn't play discs, but do the discs spin at all?

When it boots, does it go through the whole saturn animation (with the bits of saturn logo coming into one, with music), or does it flash a stationary saturn image, then boot straight into the CD menu? (I'm trying to determine if the saturn motherboard "sees" that the laser is there or not)

Answer every question you can, then I can at least pinpoint the problem, then work on a solution.

[Xen]

I have to re-connect it to check that, so I'll check back with you tomorrow.

[Xen]

Well, sorry for the delay, but finally hooked it up...
-it has the usual saturn pieces coming together into a logo
-it says that the drive is empty

Upon opening it up to see what's wrong, I noticed a certain aprt of the LA being torn. Maybe that;sw hy it won't read.

Thanks!

[termis]

Yeah, you're probably on to something...

If you're getting the usual saturn animation on start-up screen, that means the motherboard at least "sees" the whole laser assembly at this point in time. Yours probably looks like this one:



One more diagnostics question:
Turn the saturn on with the cover off, BUT with the drive latch mechanism closed (so that your saturn thinks that the CD drive is closed). On your model 1 saturns, the drive latch is either 1) just off the top left corner of the laser assembly on the main motherboard and you have to physically squeeze the latch with your fingers or tape it down while you turn the system on, or 2) there's are some PCBs screwed on to the top cover half of your saturn and as long as the CD drive is closed on the top half, you can just turn the system on as is (even though you have the top cover off).

And now, when you turn the saturn on, the saturn should play through the animation with the broken saturn bits with the music (it MUST play through this whole animation), then it'll try to access any CDs in the system. At this point, see if there's ANY movement on the laser eye. Does it shuffle just a bit up & down (and it should make a little gear noise), or does it not move at all?

Answering that'll help me a bit further.

Anyway, in all cases, from what you've described, we can narrow the problem to something ON the laser assembly itself.

I've taken out the black cover on the laser assembly (you can pinch the front end and lift it off), and turned the it around so I'm seeing it from behind. It should look something like this below:



USUALLY, when you get your symptoms, I ask people to adjust the plastic orange screw that's right below the laser eye in small increments to the left and right to fiddle with the intensity of the laser until it reads the discs. For this to work, your laser eye should've moved a bit up & down when you checked it from the diagnostic move I asked you to do above. However, you said your tried that already? So moving on...

When you say a part was "torn" I'm going to assume it's one of the cable ribbons (that's the only thing that can be torn. Is it the thin brown piece above that connects the laser eye to the brown PCB below? If that's the piece, you might have to take off the brown PCB, and follow the traces on the ribbon see, where it leads, and reconnect those spots with a piece of thin wire and solder to the ends. There's only 4 traces I see, so this shouldn't be too bad...

If it's a different piece that's torn, let me know --

[Xen]

Sorry for getting back late again, I'll do it tomorrow.

Thanks for your help so far!