I bought a Sega Saturn at a yard sale and when I try to turn it on, the boot screen shows up but the Saturn logo is missing, just the 'planet'. Then it goes to the date/language selection and the cursor block is unaligned with the selection and sometimes doesn't even move with the selection. Then after I save the settings and try go to the main menu, the screen is mostly missing and it freezes. If I have a disc in when turning it on, I can boot it normally but the screen is off-center and there is a green area on the bottom of the screen. I reflowed all the solder joints for the AV port with no change, used a different AV cable, used an RF cable, changed the power board etc. Nothing helps, at all. I have no idea what is wrong with this.
Are the capacitors ok? What about the ribbon cable? When I first did my region switch mod on my Saturn, with crappy kynar wire, I experienced some odd behaviors. You should probably look around the board for anything odd.
well it wouldnt be the ribbon cable,,cause the problems there from the boot menu. look around your board see if it has been modded on seen a few with this issue of people piggybacking chips. sounds like the video encoder. post a pic of your board.
When the games are playing (although the screen is misaligned and there is a green point) do they show any additional graphical glitches? If so it may be a GPU issue. Try reflowing that and the CPU (since they work together).
I'd try replacing the caps around the PLL (IC20), and maybe reflow the solder around the VDP2 and its memory (IC14-16).
I finally got around to trying to fix this Saturn. "reflow the solder around the VDP2 and its memory (IC14-16)." I tried this with no change whatsoever. "I'd try replacing the caps around the PLL (IC20)" The capacitors are on the way, I'll update the thread again later this week.
I just fixed a similar problem on my model 1 Saturn. Mine would boot to the date/language selection screen without a cursor at all. It would even "start" games, and by start I mean I could hear sound effects and the system didn't crash, but it only only displayed background graphics. I was able to partially diagnose mine by pushing on the top of the board in the area near and between IC14 and IC17. I ended up fixing mine by resoldering IC11. Although I resoldered IC11, IC14, IC15, IC16, and a bunch of other surface mount components while trying to figure out what was actually causing the problem. Here is a link to some images that illustrate exactly where I had to push down on the board and what IC I actually had to resolder to fix my problem. I hope this helps.
Thanks for the pictures. Oddly enough, the circled chip is the only one that I didn't bother to reflow. I'll give it a try later today. Use rubbing alcohol and a cotton swab/ball to remove that flux man, it looks awful.
Thanks for the advice on removing the flux, it looks a sightly less terrible in person than in the picture. IC14 was actually my first time using desoldering braid to resolder surface mount components so I was just pretty pleased that I didn't kill anything.
Reflowed every chip, no change at all. If the capacitors don't help then I'm throwing it in the trash.
I think some of the video memory (the sdram on the bottom of the board) may be bad. You say that the CD Player is missing, that one is drawn by the VDP1, so its IC11-13 which may have problems.
