Saturn VA0.5 Wont boot, no sound

[deezdrama]

Bought a model 1 VA0.5 saturn complete in box from mercari japan, it was described as not working and only paid $40

I get it and its in pristine condition but wont boot after date/time screen also has no sound.

I did complete recap of the board, cd board, power supply, and install FRAM.

Plug in a Fenrir and its still doing the same exact thing

I reflowed every pin on every single IC....twice!
Tried different ribbon cable,different AV cords, with without 2032 battery,newbattery, clear memory button...... also tried firing up with and without daughter cd board...

Still same issue.... no boot after date and time and no sound.

Looked over board with jewelers loop, i see no bad traces or anything that jumps out to me.
Any ideas or suggestions?


heres the work i did if interested (which seems for nothing )

...

 

[gorgyrip]

I can't help you much and it's been a long time since i looked at a saturn, but from some old notes of mine (can't remember the exact model, but i think it was a va 0.8 usa):
Without the ram at ic32, the bios starts , but freezes at the logo.
If i remove the ram at ic31, it will freeze at language selection.

Check in the schematic and see where those ram ics are connected and check for continuity.
Also look carefully at the traces near all the ic legs. I had broken traces in those places. They are really hard to see.
If you have another board, you can try to swap the ram (most likely it will also be glued with epoxy).

Here's the va05 schematic:

https://gamesx.com/wiki/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=schematics:sega_saturn_va0.5_schematics.pdf

 

[Druid II]

Do a continuity check on the pins of the sound cpu, sound ram, and SCSP chips. Some traces run under the chips, so you won't see if they have problems. If you have no sound whatsoever, then there's an issue with one of those. It could also be that they don't receive any clock signals from IC20, or they get a wrong frequency, so check that too.

 

[deezdrama]

Sadly I never learned to read these schematics and have no clue really how to do further testing.
I removed the boards again and checked all my capacitor, FRAM work. Everything looks great.
Checked all pins...good. All traces look good. No oxidation or degradation anywhere.The board and system looks pristine.
I can replace these ic components no problem but no idea really how to test other than basics.
Im scared to buy another Saturn after this.
This is the first console I couldn't get working again. I found another va0.5 for parts dirt cheap but has exact same symptoms so I would just be blindly swapping components that could have the same issues.
Guess it's time to hang the towel up and sell my Fenrir and psk cart

Were just the early revisions problematic?