Hey, I’ve a problem with my Japanese Saturn, unlike any I’ve read about, and mind you, I’ve had this Saturn for many years, so I know it quite well and all of the issues with dead battery, worn ram cart slots, etc…
Well, after loading a game, it just hangs. It’ll get past the “SEGA” license screen, but it’ll just hang. Some games like Fighters History Dynamite have a ''now loading" screen like seen in this link…
Lets start with the easy stuff and work from there.
Is your disc dirty or scratched at all?
If it is not the Disc then we have to start to take a look at the CD drive.
Make sure the laser lens is clean and unobstructed.
If all that isn’t working for you it is time to look into repairing/replacing the drive.
Yeah if its not your disc it sounds like the laser is dying like stated above. At a last resort you can play with the pot to increase the laser power. I did that with one of my dreamcasts which would hang on shenmue loading screens.
I adjusted the top pot clockwise until it wouldn’t recognize the disc as a game disc. I’ll try all the way in the other direction when I get home. In the mean time, I’ll be browsing eBay.
Not sure if you adjusted one before or not, but you have to turn it in very small increments. Generally less than 10 degrees of rotation if I had to guess.
Hmm, that is a bit more beyond the scope of my knowledge.
Are you getting to an actual disc screen? How will it load with out a disc in the tray? I believe it sends you to some menu if you do not have a disc in it IIRC. It has been a while since I tried anything like that since I use the action replay and it boots you to a separate screen instantly.
If its hanging on the disc I would more so believe its the disc drive, however if it is hanging before the disc is loading then there might be more serious issues in your system. Though I never really heard of a saturn just crapping out before (not that its not plausible). Most of the stuff I have heard of is bad disc drives.
EDIT: Just did a small amount of research. The majority of problems come from the disc drive laser failing or the motor starting to fail. However it could be that the bios might be having some issues, but if you can get to manage memory (and if your battery is not dead) then it is not a bios issue. However I have seen a couple people bring up that the caps might be bad. I would look for bulging caps. The only problem is that the caps used in the saturn do not always bulge when they fail. I can not really help you beyond the scope of that as I am more of mechanical guy not electronic. Also as one more question, is the disc acting weird when loading? Sounds slow, or something? I am pretty sure there is a way to trick the saturn into believing the disc tray is open to check if your laser is working properly or not when spinning a disc.
Yeah, my disc loading noises sound the same and my games aren’t scratched or anything. Its just when the system is about to load the initial bulk of game data, it never makes it past the now loading screens???
Wow that is really cheap. I have been looking for one for my brother for cheap. Most of them are $40 around here and do not pop up often. I picked up mine for $20 plus a couple of controllers.
Well for what it’s worth, my replacement Saturn came in the mail with a non working lens. Anyway, I put my lens assembly on it, and now I have a working Saturn.
So now, I’ve one fully working Saturn and one with a bad lens and bad cache memory or something. You can’t possibly want that Dezalb. Not worth the postage IMO.