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Flickering sprites in Saturn
Belegdol - Nov 12, 2005
  Belegdol Nov 12, 2005
Hi. I guess my Saturn mobo has a micro crack somewhere . The problem is that the image is flickering and with the help of SSF I have deduced that the layer that is suffering from this issue is sprites one. This has to be some kind of micro-crack as applying pressure on the pcb helps. What is more cooling it down makes things worse whereas heating it up stops the flickering. The crack is most probably located somewhere near ne motorola cpu. My question is: where to look for the defect? And also, how many layers the saturn main pcb has? Any infowould be helpful, as now it is like looking for a needle in hay. I'll try to post a 'screenshot' later. Greets and thanks in advance.

[edit]

here is the image:

http://www.republika.pl/belegdol/temp/DSC_0001.jpg...

 orta Dec 12, 2005

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Belegdol@Sat, 2005-11-12 @ 05:37 AM



 This has to be some kind of micro-crack as applying pressure on the pcb helps. What is more cooling it down makes things worse whereas heating it up stops the flickering.


I don't think that the mobo has a crack, because i've had the same problem, based on your findings heating and cooling affects the performance sometimes when a component on the PCB is cooled or heated up it reacts on it, you probably have a resistor, transistor or capacitor in intermittent condition. as for my case i've had an intermittent capacitor condition, but it's not that easy to find because it was a micro capacitor very small and I have to check each and every capacitor with a digital VOM all I can say is

GOODLUCK

 Belegdol Dec 29, 2005

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by orta@Mon, 2005-12-12 @ 08:23 AM



I don't think that the mobo has a crack, because i've had the same problem, based on your findings heating and cooling affects the performance sometimes when a component on the PCB is cooled or heated up it reacts on it, you probably have a resistor, transistor or capacitor in intermittent condition. as for my case i've had an intermittent capacitor condition, but it's not that easy to find because it was a micro capacitor very small and I have to check each and every capacitor with a digital VOM all I can say is 



GOODLUCK




[post=142437]Quoted post[/post]


Which one was that in your case? And by the way, how many layers saturn pcb has? two or more than two?

 orta Dec 29, 2005
I want to show you but my cam is behaving badly I'll post some pix if the cam goes nice

What layers do you mean? is it the wafer board where the circuits are etched?

 Belegdol Dec 29, 2005
You wrote that you had the same problem, so tell me which capacitor was screwed up in your case (they all have numbers). Maybe I'll be lucky. As for layers, the problem is that multi-layer boards look almost the same as double layer ones - only top and bottom layers are visible. Greets.

 orta Dec 29, 2005

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Belegdol@Thu, 2005-12-29 @ 06:30 AM



You wrote that you had the same problem, so tell me which capacitor was screwed up in your case (they all have numbers). Maybe I'll be lucky. As for layers, the problem is that multi-layer boards look almost the same as double layer ones - only top and bottom layers are visible. Greets.




[post=142990]Quoted post[/post]


OK I'll post it tomorrow I have to open up the saturn to look for the number and it's 8pm here in the Philippines I have to go to my night job

 Belegdol Dec 30, 2005
Thanks but it's not needed anymore, problem solved. I resoldered some connections and it works now.