Sega Saturn Video Problem - Any Ideas?

[Metal Ghost]

Thanks to all who take a look at this. Any input is greatly appreciated.

 

The pictures probably speak volumes on the situation. I have a Sega Saturn that doesn't want to output clean video. Whether I use an RF box or the composite cables, same result. Beyond that though, the console seems to still work fine, can get into the game, etc.

 

Any ideas on what might be causing this, and is/how is it fixable?

Edited October 19, 2012 by Metal Ghost

[the.golden.ax]

I would start with a cleaning. Blow air in the video jack holes. Test it.. then if no improvement open it up and clean with canned air around all the chips. See if that helps. If no improvement it could be a capacitor (look for bloated or leaking components) or a dry solder point on something.

[Metal Ghost]

Thanks for the insight!

 

Yea, we shot some air into the AV jack around back, but didn't get any further than that. I actually took those pictures at our local game store, as I have the power cord and controllers, but unfortunately no AV cable. Before I warranted to myself the need for an AV cable (though they have them as low as $4.50 on ebay) I wanted to see if/what was wrong with the ol'girl.

 

So now I have to decide if I buy and wait for cables to then tinker with the console, or not. I might throw this up on the marketplace with a non-reading PS2 I have and some other stuff. I have to think about this.

 

But anyway, thanks again, I appreciate it!

[Rex Dart]

Since you say you get the same trouble whether you're using RF or AV cables, you ought to be able to diagnose it at home with your RF cable. And it does sound like it's something internal... might possibly be a loose solder connection, or a rebellious capacitor like Ax suggested.

[jlanier]

I don't believe this is repairable. Cleaning contacts is pointless; you aren't seeing signal noise. you are seeing bad pixel data. The video is not being encoded correctly for the background tile graphics; IMHO, this looks like a classic case of VDP2 hardware failure. Note that the VDP1 (polygon hardware) graphics look correct, only the VDP2 (2D tile hardware) graphics are corrupted. Either there is a bad trace or joint connected to the VDP2, or the VDP2 has failed, or possibly VDP2 RAM has failed but that seems less likely since the corruption would usually be greater. The VDP2 is surface mount and custom, I don't think you won't be able to easily get that repaired. If you're lucky you might be able to swap the board if you can find a replacement.

[bust3dstr8]

You can try pressing on the QFPs to see if it's a bad connection. If you press on them and get any sort of change reflow the chip.

[the.golden.ax]

Yes, Yes, but if I've seen it once, I've seen it 100 times. Bugs get inside a deck, eat shielding or some of the board, take a metallic shit on the pins (I'm not kidding) or there is metallic dust. That happens in modern CD based systems more often than a bad chip or a pin not being soldered down. I'm looking forward to hearing if a simple cleaning fixes it.

[jlanier]

Yes, Yes, but if I've seen it once, I've seen it 100 times. Bugs get inside a deck, eat shielding or some of the board, take a metallic shit on the pins (I'm not kidding) or there is metallic dust. That happens in modern CD based systems more often than a bad chip or a pin not being soldered down. I'm looking forward to hearing if a simple cleaning fixes it.

 

Agreed that this is a possibility. I've seen tin solder whiskers (evil!), smoke-cicles, solder splash leftover from manufacturing, and even plating and shavings and dust from metallic screws, joints, and gears inside the devices themselves that can flake off onto the mainboard. I've also seen plenty of disgusting things too gross to mention inside of broken gear. But good lord. I've never seen bugs that could crap metal deposits. I seriously hope you are joking about that...

 

Anyway golden ax has a good point - it certainly couldn't hurt to clean the board. A swipe of a cloth or blast from an air cleaner isn't usually sufficient to dislodge that sort of debris. Chemical board cleaner plus some careful brushing would be best, especially if the offending bit of metal were trapped in residual flux or wedged in underneath the back of an SMD pin. A good magnifier would be worth inspecting the entire VDP2 area; if there were detritus on the board you should be able to see it under magnification.

 

Still, I would lay money on it being silicon failure. I'd be happy to be wrong about that, but I've seen chip failure far more often than shorted out parts. Chips don't last forever, especially newer chips that are more susceptible to electromigration.

[the.golden.ax]

Whatever the roaches are in Madison, TN where I used to get allot of my broken systems. (Once I opened a Gen3 system that had THOUSANDS of corpses inside). I never want to see another one of those as long as I live. All incoming systems spend a few hours in the freezer now.