Phantom modchip and Psuedo Kai but still can't boot back ups

my.retro.tech

my.retro.tech

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Hi guys,
I've just installed a Phantom Universal Modchip and also have a Psuedo Saturn Kai. For some reason my Saturn (Japanese Model 2) will not boot any back ups. I've followed the instructions to the letter, so now I'm wondering if it could be my laser. Should I try to adjust the POT, as I can't think what else could help?
Thanks in advance for any help or advice.
 
hi retro , leave adjusting the POT as a last resort. With your ISOs you need to patch them to your Saturns region (Japan in your case). Also use Nero to burn you games as it produces a better quality burns than say IMGburn. Btw what burn speed are you burning at?
 
s8n said:
hi retro , leave adjusting the POT as a last resort. With your ISOs you need to patch them to your Saturns region (Japan in your case). Also use Nero to burn you games as it produces a better quality burns than say IMGburn. Btw what burn speed are you burning at?
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Thanks for the reply. i am using Japanese ISOs (.bin and .cue), using IMGBurn at x8 (slowest I can go). I use those settings for Dreamcast games with no probs but my Saturn is not playing ball. Is Nero better than IMGBurn in your experience then?
 
yes Nero is better as i have scanned discs after burning , Nero gives a better score than IMGburn. Nero CD DVD speed is what i used to scan the discs btw not all burners can scan accurately so don't go rushing into scanning discs. Also i found that burning at X16 gave the best score , all burners are different some will be better at say X12 speed or X24.

definitely burn 3 discs one at X16 and then one below and one higher for testing purposes till you get the console booting games.

is your Saturn booting original game discs fine with the modchip?
 
Post the inside of your Saturn so we can see the laser assembly and 5v power source. Are you setting your jumpers correctly?

Define won't boot... Does it not read at all, as an audio CD or say "Disc unsuitable for this system"?
 
He probably just didn't install it correctly, you need to post pictures before anything else can be said. Pretty braindead troubleshooting after that, not much to these.
 
s8n said:
yes Nero is better as i have scanned discs after burning , Nero gives a better score than IMGburn. Nero CD DVD speed is what i used to scan the discs btw not all burners can scan accurately so don't go rushing into scanning discs. Also i found that burning at X16 gave the best score , all burners are different some will be better at say X12 speed or X24.

definitely burn 3 discs one at X16 and then one below and one higher for testing purposes till you get the console booting games.

is your Saturn booting original game discs fine with the modchip?
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Yep, my Saturn boots original discs fine with the mod chip installed.
 
Nully said:
Post the inside of your Saturn so we can see the laser assembly and 5v power source. Are you setting your jumpers correctly?

Define won't boot... Does it not read at all, as an audio CD or say "Disc unsuitable for this system"?
Click to expand...
I'll post some pics when I'm home if that helps (I'm away for a couple of days). Most discs I burn are showing as CDs but not as bootable games.
I set the the jumper to JVC and soldered the +5V to the base of the drive as instructed in the guide.
 
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my.retro.tech said:
I'll post some pics tomorrow when I'm home if that helps. Most discs I burn are showing as CDs but not as bootable games.
I set the the jumper to JVC and soldered the +5V to the base of the drive as instructed in the guide.
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When you say "most discs I burn", what is the other error if not reading as just an audio CD?

Worst case scenario just buy a replacement for $10 on eBay, they work fine. I use one in my main console without issues for many years.
 
i'm not sure if this is a good test but maybe use a emulator on PC to try and boot one of your backups.
 
not sure if this is a good test
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Imho it doesn't really say anything, other than that the source images are OK and the burner isn't completely broken. Different (probably waaay better) drive and laser, no CD block copy protection or Saturn BIOS involved... eh.

If OP knows how to do the swap trick, that may be worth a try to at least see wether the Sat laser is okay with his burned media in general.
 
cta said:
If OP knows how to do the swap trick, that may be worth a try to at least see wether the Sat laser is okay with his burned media in general.
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That's a good idea, I'll give that a try. I've managed it in the past so fingers crossed.

Thanks to everyone else so far for the help and suggestions.
 
Your troubleshooting isn't flowing together and has a lot of holes, unsolvable at this point; good luck!
 
Let me tell you pal, i've got 2 Sega Saturns with Pseudo Kai and Modchip
If they insta take your OG games and NOT your backups, even if you burn them at low speeds or anything. Then your CD Laser is dead (or dying)
You either buy a new CD Laser, or re-calibrate it with a multimeter. You need to take off the cover, take off the laser and find the little screw behind the CD Len.
You need to give it a little push to the right...or left, depends on your multimeter until it hits...1.77 aprox, thats what i was told, done and it ended up working. Its not permanent tho.
 
definitely try the swap trick and if your burns skip on FMVs or CD Audio or long load times the laser needs to be tweaked or replaced. There still is the possibility your burner is the culprit or not so great CD-R media.
 
Seconding that recommendation about Nero. Imgburn is just junk. I used Nero to burn thousands of discs with no errors, all the Saturn games I burned with it worked fine too, even on junk noname media burned at 48x speed.

But the first two discs I burned with Imgburn ended up with read errors - despite Imgburn stating the discs verified fine. One of them was an OS install disc; not a fun thing to find out that the installer DVD is corrupt while in the middle of installing windows from it.

That's not even counting the numerous times people complained about Saturn burns not working on many many forums over the years, and switching to any other burning app fixed their problems. It's pretty much the first thing I recommend any time anyone has a problem burning discs. Imgburn is trash.

my.retro.tech said:
Hi guys,
I've just installed a Phantom Universal Modchip and also have a Psuedo Saturn Kai. For some reason my Saturn (Japanese Model 2) will not boot any back ups. I've followed the instructions to the letter, so now I'm wondering if it could be my laser. Should I try to adjust the POT, as I can't think what else could help?
Thanks in advance for any help or advice.
Click to expand...
Gonna state the obvious by asking you to post pics of the machine; you either have the chip set up wrong, or you are burning games wrong, or the laser is too weak to read CDRs. One common issue is sourcing the 5V line from the power supply, it will be slightly out of phase if you do that, just enough so that the microcontrollers on the modchip get timing problems. Source your 5V power from the CD player, there's a cap right on the front which is perfect for this purpose.

You also need to be very verbose on stating what error the Saturn gives, since it can have 2-3 different problems with only subtle differences in the error messages. For ex. one error says "Disc unsuitable for this system" another says "Game disc unsuitable for this system", and they mean two completely different things. The first means an unrecognized data disc, the second means the disc is recognized as a Saturn game but the region is wrong.
 
Been using IMGBurn for every CD/DVD based modded console for over 10 years without issues and recommended it to hundreds of people. Nero is bloatware, disgusting!

And yes he isn't posting pictures, isn't being honest about error messages and the story is full of holes; do not waste your time until these issues are addressed. It's completely unsolvable, this is a technical issue and if you cannot address technicalities then it's a waste of time.
 
Nully said:
Been using IMGBurn for every CD/DVD based modded console for over 10 years without issues and recommended it to hundreds of people. Nero is bloatware, disgusting!
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Not going to argue, this was proven ages ago, it makes worse burns on average & lacks some features that other apps have (multisession, copy protections, not even sure if it can burn subcode, etc).

Nero is named after a roman emperor, so some bloat is expected :D But, I wouldn't know, I use an older version, Nero 7 lite. It only includes the burning app, and the few handy small tools (infotool, cd-dvd speed, drivespeed). No junk whatsoever. Has been serving me perfect since 2007.
 
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