Is Your Saturn Doing Stuff It Shouldn’t?

Despite being ultra reliable, most of the time, my Saturn occassionally has a few bodge ups. You may be having these troubles yourself, so read on, and see if I can help.

One problem you may have encountered, is where you turn the Saturn off, and when you turn it back on, say after inserting a cartridge or changing control pads, the picture is as wonky as. Wobbly flickery lines and such. The answer is quite simple. The Saturn has overheated. Leave it for 5 to 10 minutes, and you should be fine. (Either that or you could try some tricky cooling fans!) If that’s not the problem, you probably have a dodgy connection between the Saturn and your T.V.

Another nasty problem regards the back-up memory cartridge. My one in particular has the bad habit of not working, and sometimes dying during some quality gaming. (I lost my Daytona USA CCE, NiGHTS & Christmas NiGHTS save files because of the stupid thing! Ouchy.) Watcha might need to do is give the contacts a clean on the cartridge. Sega recommends using one of those pink erasers on the contacts. (How ever it’s supposed to fit in there, I dunno, but do it lightly, mind you, or you may rub the tracks off the PCB, if you’re a bit harsh with it.) I used a bit of methylated spirits on a cotton bud, which seemed to work okay. Just be sure you don’t use anything too abrasive. The main problem is cleaning the contacts inside the console. Sega recommends flushing out dust and grime with a can of compressed air. But cleaning them of oxide and the like, I haven’t figured out yet.
In regards to the last sentence I’m going to try some Brasso on an old “nail file” - you know, those sand papery looking things. Once you’ve cleaned them up, it might be worth spraying on something like “CRC 2-26” which is a type of oily stuff for protecting PCBs, loosening dirt etc. You might want to try some brasso on a cotton bud on the cartridge too, but be careful — for all I know it could unstick the tracks on the board inside.

Like Dreamcast GDs, Saturn discs apparently can’t be easily backed up either, simply by shoving them into the computer. The Saturn CDs have a track on the very edge of the disc that the Saturn checks 1st before reading any of the game. Most computer CD drives won’t go near this area, because after the audio tracks, they presume that’s all there is.

A chap called Robert said that Panzer Dragoon Saga won’t work with an Action Replay cartridge either.

Anyhoo, hope I’ve been of assistance. Please send me e-mail and that if you find another problem that you think’d be worth mentioning. Remedies’d be nice too.