Saturn Back from the dead but still needs help

[cheshire191]

I found a broken saturn at a local shop. Picked her up and brought her home. Gave her a good cleaning.

Plugged in and boots us fine. But I get a blinking red light, and drive empty error.

Anyone know what the blinking red light means?

I opened the box up and snooped around. Looks like the laser was jammed under the disc rotator. I got it unstuck, and the plastic shell of the laser assembly was cracked.

When it boots up, the laser moves around and pumps up and down looking for the disc, but that is where it stops and pulls the drive empty error.

I am thinking it would be a good idea to change out the whole laser assembly but I am wondering still about the blinking reset light. I can't find any thing on that on the net.

Any help would be great. thanks in advance,
Chesh

[gepeto]

I had one that was broken I tried to fix but the saturn had so many revisions it was had to nail down what part would work with what.

[cheshire191]

I was wondering if anyone knew what the blinking red light was indicating.

for example when an Xbox FRAG's without a mod chip installed it means that there is probably a broken solder point or something.

but when it just blinks orange it means there is no cables hooked up.

I thought maybe someone would know what the saturn is trying to tell me when the reset light just constantly blinks.

thanks
chesh

[PentiumMMX]

Normally, the blinking red light on the older Saturns means that there is either no disc, it can't read the disc (Probably what's happening to you), or the disc isn't spinning right now.

[cheshire191]

Thanks,

since the laser portion looked damaged, I'm going to start there and see what happens. Since these things are getting harder and harder to find it might be a while.

It looked as though it got hit pretty hard, so it may have jarred something loose. I'll keep ya posted.

-C

[otaku]

good luck! Definetly not one of the easier machines to work with I had one that would only read some discs and others no matter how perfect they were it would not read. Replaced the laser and its fine now but for a single laser system to only read some discs and not others instead of either being dead or not dead was weird!

again good luck

[cheshire191]

Thanks.

Last night I isolated it to the actual laser itself. The laser wasn't 'shining' bright enough. I adjusted the Focus/Intensity Pot on the CD PCB, and it just wasn't enough to get it going.

I also read on a website, that it was possible to swap out an normal 2x CD-Rom Laser assembly for the one that is in there. (not 'easy' but possible ;) )

Gonna try that today. Luckily, We have 15 junk computers at work that have 2x drives in them that have been sitting for who knows how long.

We will see how that goes. I have to make 2 genesis v2 A/V cables today first. Hopefully I will still have time.

-C

[thegardentool]

Well definitely get the Saturn to work as it is one hell of a system. I got back into playing it a couple months ago and while I wasn't intending on collecting for it; I am slowly working towards it.

[cheshire191]

yeah, i used to have one and remember it being awesome. I am also modding this one with direct RCA jacks in the back instead of needing the special adapter. I am writing a tutorial on that also, It will be on my blog in the next day or so. I'll post it here also.

C

[otaku]

so is it up and running yet? Just got into saturn restored one that was basically fine just a bit beat up and then brought one back to life like you (I found an official laser though for mine) great system I'm loving it. PDS is on the way and I still have a slew of other games to get to

[cheshire191]

not up and running yet. I had to put the project on a short time-out. Had a few real paying projects to complete first. I am hoping to get back to this this week.

I did take apart one of the old CD-ROM drives and it looks like it might fit with a a little 'work'.

I'll keep ya posted. I can say with almost 100% certainty that the laser is the problem.

-chesh

[MonoTekETeA]

Awesome! If you get this thing working, please, post a tutorial, it would be greatly appriciated! Just any 2x drives you say?

Definatly looking forward to this repair.