Misbehaving Saturn, please help!

[balkiry]

Hi, apologies for the long-winded post, but I recently bought an unmodded model 2 PAL Sega Saturn and am having trouble with it
a) frequently freezing and dropping out on games as they load
b) telling me the system memory needs clearing, and then appearing to be empty anyway, even after I have definitely been saving a game

I have searched through a lot of posts and have so far tried:
1) replacing the system battery with a new one
2) cleaning the laser
3) reseating both ends of the ribbon that runs from the laser assembly to the main board
4) cleaning the system memory battery contacts
5) cleaning the cartride slot contacts

I have 3 games, Nights (PAL), Alien Trilogy (PAL) and SFA2 (NTSC, I use Action Replay 4M+ with it) and all are either brand new or good condition.
Nights seems to load more reliably than the others, but generally I need to boot my saturn up 5-10 times to get the games to work. They freeze or drop out to black usually when I can hear the laser attempting to load the game.

Usually after several drop-outs, I'll get directed to the "system memory not ready for use" screen, where I have to clear the memory once again.

Anyone got any suggestions for me? I guess the only other thing I can think of that I haven't tried is adjusting the laser pot.

[raylydiard]

the power supply need takeing out and reflow solder jonits on power bourd and i have had the same fault it may take time but in the end it will work

[balkiry]

the power supply need takeing out and reflow solder jonits on power bourd

thanks raylydiard, so nice to find out someone else has had this problem.

anyone got an idiot's guide on how to do this? i've never fiddled around with a console to this extent, but I'm really determined to get it working :)

[raylydiard]

are you good with soldering if so where you slot the power bourd in the sega saturn
4 or 5 pins if you know how to take a mainbourd out then just reflow the solder jonits or if you you know someone thats good with eletronics

[balkiry]

not so good with soldering, may have to seek help. thanks for the advice.
the thing seems to behave after playing nights, which is odd.

[16bitter]

If you ever find out how to repair this, or a good place to have it done, could you post or send me a PM? My Saturn is doing the same thing although it may end up being cheaper just to snag a replacement console on ebay.

[balkiry]

If you ever find out how to repair this, or a good place to have it done, could you post or send me a PM? My Saturn is doing the same thing although it may end up being cheaper just to snag a replacement console on ebay.

This morning, I discovered a way to boot up SFA2 without any dropping out to black screens:
I booted up my PAL Nights (which has always been problem free), but did it using the Action Replay cart. Then once it loaded successfully, I quickly switched the saturn off, chucked in SFA2 and turned the saturn back on (still with Action Replay card in). It loaded through action replay first time every time doing it this way.
Will try other games tonight, but I'm willing to bet they'll work the same way.

Before you buy another saturn console, might be a good idea to give this method a go (if you have an Action Replay cart that is). Could save you some $$$ :)