Pseudo Saturn Kai official thread

saturn pseudo issue.jpg
I've been using this for the last few years with no problem, but now I keep getting this message at the bottom of the screen every single time I put a burned CD-R or an original SS game. When I try the Saturn without the Action Replay cart and have a real SS game, everything works perfect.

So, I know it's not the laser, but for whatever reason, I can't boot games anymore. I'm currently trying to update the firmware flasher for the Pseudo Saturn Kai, but even that won't boot. Should I just get another AR cartridge and try from scratch?

Thanks for any help,
Jeremy
 

cafe-alpha

Established Member
It's not a problem related to laser because in that case the contents from CD-ROM would either be unreadable at all or the disc would be spinning strangely etc.

As you can see on the screen capture, there's a difference of 16 characters between the corrupted characters displayed on screen and their expected value. (Example : W-16 = G, u-16 = e, q-16 = a)
So I suspect something wrong happening on D4 pins of your cartridge : if it is returning random signals on the data bus at random timings then the read result from CD-ROM is likely to be corrupted because cartridge and CD Block share the same data bus.

-> Please try to cleanup the connector of your cartridge, and to re-seat it in your Saturn. If needed, please also use the secret technic of lifting the cartridge by around 0.5mm or 1mm after inserting it in your Saturn.
(Please insert/remove your cartridge when Saturn is turned off. Doing that when Saturn is turned on may damage it)


20230425_d4.png
 

dibz

Boss
Staff member
Pretty sure the most common things to do with a saturn with a bad cd-rom are, in no particular order:
  • Repair the CD-ROM
  • Replace the CD-ROM using a donor from another broken Saturn
  • Replace the CD-ROM with an ODE
    • ODE's currently on the market:
      • Fenrir
      • MODE
      • Satiator
      • Rhea/Phoebe
Personally - I would just slap a Fenrir in it.
 
So the errors are probably the cdrom drive being faulty? I've now got a fenrir on order, hope that gets this back in business.
 

dibz

Boss
Staff member
So the errors are probably the cdrom drive being faulty? I've now got a fenrir on order, hope that gets this back in business.
That would be my guess, though I'm not much of a hardware person. You could always visually inspect it, check the cables, etc.
 
That would be my guess, though I'm not much of a hardware person. You could always visually inspect it, check the cables, etc.
Fenrir is on track for Monday delivery. Will see what happens when I get that put in.

Nope, still doesnt work with the fenrir. Boots to the system menu and is forever stuck at "checking disc format".
 
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Hi I am new here, I have a problem when trying to flash my AR cart, the flasher always detected an UNKNOWN flash ID as below 0145 2041:
20230522_185819.png

even I tried many times cleaning contacts of the cart, re-sit trick, the result was the same and always failed to flash the cart.

I opened up the cart and found that the flash chip is AM29F010, as below:
20230522_192906(1).png

why it is not detected correctly (AM29F010 flash ID is 0101 2020)? Any help please.
 
one thought: will the modchip affect the flasher utility in chip detection?
the id 0145 2041 when compare with post#244 which id is 5345 4741 the last 2-digits are the same!! Will that help answer to my problem, any ideas?
 
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