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Alright...I'm pretty confident on my moding skills as far as soldering and such goes...so I dont really need much help...but, I bought two modchips a couple of weeks ago to mod this model 2 32pin saturn. The first chip i started out trying the A+B method and upon doing so i was able to play normal games but burnt games only showed up as audio cd's, with a message about not playing saturn cds in normal cd players or something. Anyway, i checked my wiring and such and decided i should hook the signal up to pin 14 as noted in the guide...with this modification, no games were playable (neither burnt or real), tried going back to A+B and still nothing worked...so i figured i managed to fry something on the modboard. I swithched out the modchip for a new one, and started with the pin 14 signal setup. This time the system reacted the same way as the other modchip ont he first time through when it was hooked up in A+B configuration (burnt games = audio only, real games work fine), and thats where i am now.

Unless anyone has any idea's to try im just going to assume that my luck is as normal...bad...and that my system is like the .01% that cant work with modchips :'( I have pictures available that i can upload later if anyone feels it's necessary...

guess its worth noting that i found this on an angelfire site:

No solder bridge:
Boot up animation
Two green cubes at the CD player screen
CD rotates
Displays "checking disc format"
Will then only play audio tracks of CD-Rs and originals

which is pretty close to the way my system acts except that the originals do infact work...:S

Someone else is having a similar problem, you might want to check it out.

have you made sure your games have the correct region setting when you burn them? the first time I modded a saturn I was testing with a JP disc and it wasn't working. I messed that chip up good trying to fix it.

How can i verify region? Is there a certain media type recommended for burning discs (i read memorex is bad)? Im using alcohol 120% through the image burning wizard to make the saturn game cd.

Also, i was wondering about how the solder bridge shoule look on solder pads labeled 0014 and 0019...there are 3 pads there i believe (on the back, only 2 visible on the front). The 0014 has a solder bridge from the bottom pad to the middle pad, and there is no solder on 0019. Is this correct?

Alright, thanks to you two for the comments and the ideas
I tried switching media types from Precision to Fujifilm and that did it....which kinda sucks b/c that means the first mod i did was working and im out a modchip with another system to mod...oh well, at least it works now!

megfourfun wrote:How can i verify region? Is there a certain media type recommended for burning discs (i read memorex is bad)? Im using alcohol 120% through the image burning wizard to make the saturn game cd.

I don't know about your issue with the pads.. but I can help with media.

Alcohol 120 can mess up the header sometimes, so you may want to try burning a different way. Here's what I do that works 95% of the time:

1. use the A120 virtual drive to mount the image (you could also use Daemon tools for this)
2. use cloneCD to copy the mounted disc to a CDR
3. burn at a lower speed

As for discs, I only use Taiyo Yuden, but for testing purposes you should be OK.

The region of your game is important. If you are playing a JP or UK game on an NTSC system then it won't work without changing the region before you burn or using an Action Replay cart.

--edit-- glad you got it working.. the region thing should still be valid, so if you run into trouble with JP discs or something, you may have to search around online to get the region changing software.

thanks =)

[quote="megfourfun"]Alright, thanks to you two for the comments and the ideas
I tried switching media types from Precision to Fujifilm and that did it....which kinda sucks b/c that means the first mod i did was working and im out a modchip with another system to mod...oh well, at least it works now![/quote]

Hi,
I'm having the same problem: my japanese model 2 doesn't read the disks anymore; I try with original japanese or backups - that worked perfecly untill some week ago -, but it reads the audio tracks only now.
I'd like to know: how did you solve the problem?
thanks