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50/60hz PAL saturn
mike44au - Jun 29, 2005
  mike44au Jun 29, 2005
Hi everybody im from Australia, i recently bought an action replay 4 in 1 cart and a japanese copy of xmen vs street fighter and was very disapointed to find out that the game run slow and have big borders around the edge of the screen.

So i have been researching and ive taken my Saturn apart to check what it is.

It has circle buttons, and on the board it says va-9, also i checked the ribon and it says 21 next to it so im guessing its 21 pin? so from my guess my saturn is a model 2. also the model number is 80200A-50

Now ive looked at the 50/60hz switch thing so you can play both, but it looks a bit complicated for me to do, im not interested in playing PAL games anyway so is there a simple way i can make it 60hz?

Somebody told me i just have to Draw a line with a pencil on the jp1 jumper but im not sure if that will work on my Saturn.

Any help will be great! thanks alot.

 lordofduct Jun 29, 2005
I would probably say the 50/60 hz mod is the hardest of the mods...

Here is what I consider the easiest way to do it....

You can do it so it stays in one of the two instead of having a switch... but I don't know if you have to ground it or send the 5v to it. I think you ground it for 60hz.

So this means just send a wire from that pin 79 to the ground post in that image. If it flickers when you turn it on, I was wrong and send it to the 5v.

 lordofduct Jun 29, 2005
Oh yeah, I forgot to tell ya... unless you have a 60hz tv this all won't work.

You are in a PAL country.

 dj898 Jun 29, 2005
all PAL telly sold in last ten years or so can sync at 50 as well as 60Hz... hell some even can sync at funny signal in between...

anyway by doing it fixed at 60 Hz you won't be able to play some of PAL optimised titles like PAL Guardian Heroes...

 lordofduct Jun 29, 2005
he said he didn't want to play any PAL games... but yeah, he should install the switch just incase. He already has to do all the hard work, why not just toss the switch on there anyways.

I did not know that about PAL TVs, but then I live in the US what use do I have for a PAL TV.

 mike44au Jun 29, 2005
hey, thanks alot for your help, yeah i got a TV that can support NTSC also i dont care about PAL games at all, so i just want to change it too 60hz for good.

So the Pencil connecting the JP1 jumper wont work on my saturn?

If not could you explain

"So this means just send a wire from that pin 79 to the ground post in that image. If it flickers when you turn it on, I was wrong and send it to the 5v."

like i said ive never done anything like this befor, do you have a pic of where these things are? or can explain in more detail, thanks for your time much apprecaited.

 mike44au Jun 29, 2005
i can find pin79, but i dont know what you mean by ground it/ground post?

also which one is the 5v, so what your saying is i do exactly like the step in the site by lifting up 79s leg, putting a wire on it but instead i "ground it" or send it too 5v right?

 lordofduct Jun 29, 2005
Seriousily bro, you already did all the hard work... follow that guide word for word now and toss a switch on there.

You'll find those posts in that first image on the site on the under side of the Saturn mobo... you'll know which one because the top side is the 4/5 (depending board version) metal posts that go up to the power supply. The black wire in the image is the ground and the red is 5v.

 mike44au Jun 29, 2005
i dont have a switch man, i just want to make it 60hz and i dont really understand the first diagram because it says

" very easy mod to do, if you've done the single switch region mod, then you can get power from that board (top row of diagram for +5v, 4th row for GND), if not, then you can get power from the underside of the motherboard."

so is the pic a pic of the single region mod, or the underside of the motherboard?

 lordofduct Jun 29, 2005
Its a pic of the underside...

 mike44au Jun 29, 2005
ok, sorry for being so stupid, its just ive never done this kind of thing befor and i want to make 100% clear befor i go ahead and do something.

let me get this straight a switchless 60hz mod i need to do this:

Connect a wire (any?) to the ground post

or connect a wire to the 5v.

thanks in advance

 lordofduct Jun 29, 2005
yeah, the type of wire doesn't really matter... smaller the better just for space consumption. I don't know which one you'll want to hook it too, just test. Either way though won't hurt the saturn so just use trial and error.

Seriousily a tip to anyone out there looking to get into the modding of systems just trial and error it. Get yourself an old system that your not afraid to break and just do anything to it. You will come to find it is rather difficult to actually fry the bastards.

I once cut the 32 pin chip thingy on the CD board of a saturn. I then soldered it back on with STAPLES! yes staples for paper. It worked still. It is amazing the shit you can do to these things... Another time I made a PS2 to USB1 converter for a keyboard. I got the pinout backwards and when I plugged it in I heard a loud pop and smoke came out of the USB port of my computer and the keyboard. Of course the keyboard fried, but the USB port was still fine.

I swear though all the shit ive done, all the things I've fried were well worth it. I learned so much from it. I had an old HP 75mhz computer (top of the line when I got it). I beat the hell out of thing and then would fix it again, over and over I did this. Learned a lot that way.

Wow, what a tangent, why do I do that?

 mike44au Jun 29, 2005
does connecting the jp1 jumper together with solder or pencil only work on model 1's, or can it also work on model 2's like mine?

 lordofduct Jun 29, 2005
I never thought to do that... but it seems it would work. Looking at the board it looks like that would work if you want ONLY 60 hz

but if you already pulled up pin 79 then your going to have to solder that back down.

Test it, let me know what happens.

[EDIT]You'll still need the cart to play imports though, unless you do the region mod as well.

 mike44au Jun 29, 2005
yep i got a cart, this one here http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=...oduct...

ill try connecting the jp1 jumper first, if that dont work ill connect the 79 to the 5v, and if that dont work ill try the 79 too the ground.

out of all of them hopefully one will work, hopefully i wont damage the saturn too bad though cuz i only have 1 and have never used a soldering iron befor.

 mike44au Jun 30, 2005
oh one more thing, if i pull up pin 79, and the mod doesnt end up working is there anyway to put it back in? and if its not put in will the saturn not work at all? thanks.