Hi,
A couple of weeks ago, I bought a modchip from Racketboy for my PAL Model 2 (round buttoned) Saturn. I'm a bit wary of soldering, so, having read that others had done so successfully, I tried "wedging" the red power lead in place, and made a nifty little hook on the end of the black lead for pin 14 on the 32 pin chip. I also diligently filed down the edges of the modchip so it would fit in the slot correctly, and slotted everything (firmly, but, er, fairly?) in place. So far, so good.
With everything where it should be, I reassembled the case, and fired up my (original, PAL) copy of Sega Rally, and hurrah!, it worked; the game loaded fine and everything acted normally. (I wasn't able to try any backups - I've burned an enviable collection of coasters in the last few weeks trying to get Radiant Silvergun working, but I think that's something for another thread...)
Fast forward 10 days, and I turned my Saturn on to give it a quick blast, and... nothing. It had been left set up exactly as it was when it was working fine before (and not been moved an inch), but now there was no power light when I turned it on. Bizarrely, when I turned it off, it made a quiet sighing/ whistling noise, but other than that, there was no sign of life.
I didn't have the patience to have a look at what might be wrong with it there and then, so a few days later, I tried turning the machine on again, and hurrah! (again! Sort of!), the power light came on, and the CD menu screen came on. I inserted my trusty copy of Sega Rally again but this time it wouldn't load - the disc wasn't spinning in the drive. There was also a message on screen saying "Checking CD format" (or something similar) when the Saturn was first turned on. This happened every time I tried loading a game up - the disc would just sit in the drive, as if patiently awaiting further instructions.
I've had the Saturn apart and checked all the connections, which all appear fine (and exactly as they were when everything was working ok). I've also tried removing the modchip, and (perhaps importantly?) the Saturn works perfectly when it's not plugged in. (Plugging everything back in again, jiggling the chip, pushing it in as far as it goes, etc. etc. has had no effect; it refuses to load games.)
So, erm, any advice? Is the chip knackered, or am I just inept and missing out on something obvious?