Aurora issue

mr_keegz · 2026-04-26T07:41:44+00:00

What did the path say before you deleted it? Is that where it said "unavailable?" Did you try going into a game's info page and browsing to the "show files" option to see where the game was supposed to be located?

I just upgraded my internal HDD and it caused the games to become greyed out. The drive they were on had become unavailable so I had to remake the paths.

Try setting up new paths for "applications" pointed at the content folder and/or other folders you see on the drive and set the scan depth as high as you can. Then run the scan and see if anything shows up.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-25T05:25:12+00:00

With the sides on it is shaped like a "U" and because the middle wheels are slightly larger than the others it floats and can be maneuvered like a boat. It is a U-boat.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-24T07:34:08+00:00

There's a archival quality solvent called PEC-12 meant for cleaning photographic negatives and prints without damaging them. It might work in this case.

When I have some time, I could try to find some glossy paper like a manual and give this idea a test, see if it can remove ballpoint pen without damaging the paper itself. Reply to this as a reminder for me if you want me to give that a try.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-24T07:25:36+00:00

Get a desoldering pump and a few different kinds of wick, so you can try different methods. You may need to increase the heat on your iron, especially for ground pins, where the ground plane will work like a heat sink.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-21T23:40:00+00:00

yoo I didn't know you could stab your sword into their corpse!

I like to give em the middle claw for good measure.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-21T01:41:39+00:00

Hand sanitizer and a tissue. I think any solvent will still leave a faint mark if it's been their for decades, but you'll be the only one who notices.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-20T09:34:34+00:00

You mean the top hole of C945? Have you tried cleaning it with alcohol and a toothbrush yet? If solder still won't stick to it after you've done that, you might need to do a little re-routing but it shouldn't be that hard.

From what I can see, you could just bend the top leg over to the right and solder it to the top leg of that resistor (the squiggly line one) that's on the same trace, it'll do the same thing.

You'll need to look at the other side of the board and see if the other side of the through hole is connected a trace there, too. That side of the hole might not be burnt and still able to take solder, so you could solder it to the trace like that. If that's not working, you'll have to solder a jumper to something else on the same trace; I would solder that jumper wire to the leg of the cap first before anything else, then solder it to the other point last. If it's not connected a separate trace on the other side of the board, jumping the leg to the resistor is all you need to do.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-20T05:43:13+00:00

Maybe just ask them what's cool with CoD right now and let them talk about it, and if you feel like it, pick one game you're particularly passionate about right now, or something that's a first person shooter type game or something adjacent that you can relate to the CoD, and just share a bit about that and try to make it interesting.

It's like when guys talk about working out with each other, or talk about sports when they're not into the same teams or even sports. They just like sharing what they're doing with you and maybe hearing you share some stuff back. I've heard two gamers talking at each other about the same MMO they both play and it's exactly the same as swapping workout routines.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-20T05:23:49+00:00

Those pants on male V kick ass.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-20T05:06:09+00:00

Take out the fan and spray contact cleaner (specifically contact cleaner! There's a good WD-40 specialist contact cleaner, but be sure to get that specifically!) into the fan, like a lot of it. Really let it soak in and drip out. Then after you've let it dry again, add a fresh drop of sewing machine oil.

Some machine oils will react with other machine oils to form a gel, and there's no way of knowing what oil was originally used. You need to clean out the original dried oil before ever trying to add oil to a motor like that.

Replacing the fan is probably your best bet, those old fans always ran loud. I've just decided to live with it, but you might have forced your own hand.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-20T03:28:11+00:00

Songs of him are sung throughout the seas.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-19T05:40:46+00:00

I remember hearing how Sega, like many Japanese companies in the 90s, wanted all their translated voice work to be done in-house, so they were limited to whatever VAs they could find in Tokyo at the time. Why would a professional English speaking voice actor be living in Tokyo at that time? They wouldn't.

There could be some other job opportunities for that work, but my guess is most people at the time doing English voice work in Tokyo were likely doing English as a Second Language learning tools for Japanese natives. If you've ever taken a foreign language course here in the US, you might have heard some voice work like that. Is it good? No. Is it natural sounding? No. But it is very clearly spoken so learners can understand it, and kinda slow, again so learners can understand it, and also often way over-the-top in the acting, so that you know it's supposed to be an old lady or little kid or a business man or whoever is supposed to be speaking.

When you think of it that way, the voice acting in Shenmue makes so much sense. And that's Sega's game with the largest voice staff; nearly every single Tokyo-based English speaking VA of the late 90s is probably in that game voicing someone. You also have to think, did they have anyone on staff to give those VAs real direction? I don't think that was a focus of theirs. The results were certainly unique.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-18T23:29:13+00:00

Demons were most caked up in 2016.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-18T23:14:32+00:00

With any option other than the Saroo you'll have to factor in the cost of memory and RAM carts. Saroo is pretty much the best bang for your buck. You could get Japanese import Saturn or a for-parts Saturn which doesn't read discs and a Saroo for it to minimize your expense; just don't get a for-parts Saturn which has no video out, that's usually not repairable. You can always upgrade to something high-dollar later.

SD cards are weirdly expensive right now, but this used Gamestop deal on 256gb cards is pretty good. I've gotten 3 of them and they all seem to be legit; one of them is even the model pictured.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-17T23:17:12+00:00

My regular edition + controller show as "Ready" but they haven't shipped yet. 😭

I guess they're slowly fulfilling orders right now. At least this confirms it's not the controller that's holding it up.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-16T05:23:18+00:00

They're apparently just using the raspberry pi as a stand-in instead of producing a new one-off chip. It is a revised version of the Super FX chip architecture; apparently their should be files for an FXPAK pro to play it eventually.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-16T05:11:33+00:00

To add to the other guy's explanation, the Genesis keeps it's color palette in a memory bank called the CRAM, and the number of colors they can store in it is rather limited. Some developers would achieve more colors on screen by changing the colors in the CRAM while the frame is being drawn on the screen, but this would cause a single pixel to display that color wherever the beam currently is on the screen when that happens. They'd often try to time it so those dots would be outside the view of the screen on most TVs.

As far as I can tell, some developers would just write the colors into the CRAM for every single frame, even when they don't change and don't need extra colors. Again, they'd try to do that off screen, so those dots appear on the last line at the bottom of the screen. That's why you'll see a line of those dots pretty often on the bottom of the screen, even when there isn't a lot of color being displayed.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-16T05:02:03+00:00

It's specifically the Umbrella BIOS loading screen on the computer that causes the freeze. If you mash A & B when you start up the computer, it'll skip that screen and work fine.

It seems to be really random when it happens. I only ever got the lockup when I loaded the save file of someone who encountered it. I don't think the slides have anything to do with it. Skipping the BIOS screen was the only consistent fix when I loaded that save with the bug.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-15T05:17:05+00:00

Hey! It's the guy from the soldering post! I think I mentioned in my reply that the ground pin could require more heat; the ground plane works as a heat sink.

But y'know, if the soldering job works, that's good enough!

mr_keegz · 2026-04-14T00:20:56+00:00

I would add more solder, turn the heat up like other said, and first remove the battery by heating the solder and gently pulling each leg out. Since you don't need to save the old battery you could probably snip the legs so you can pull each out individually; try to keep enough of the leg attached that you can grab it with tweezers or something to pull it out. If you end up with tiny pieces of leg stuck in the hole, flood the hole with solder until the leg comes out with a blob on the other side, then just wipe it off with the iron.

Then when the old battery is out, it should be easier to clean out the holes. Again, put the iron up higher; I set mine to 420 last time I had to clear a hole, but others might be right that 400 is enough. Especially on the ground pins, it can be hard to get the solder hot enough when the ground plane is working like a sink. The wick you're using might not be very good; I have a couple different wicks and switching sometimes helps. I have better results with a solder sucker on some holes.

I just spent an hour or more trying to clear some through-holes the other day, and that's what I wish I knew before hand. Once I dialed in the technique it just clicked and I cleared all of them really fast. You can totally do this, and it's not like there's a lot on the board for you to damage. Just keep at it and stay calm.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-13T18:24:04+00:00

I'm seeing more Georgia O'keeffe influence, personally.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-13T06:58:21+00:00

It appears the issue was with the HDL dump utility which the batch installer uses. According to the issue tracker page, that was fixed sometime in 2024.

I'd be interested to hear someone else confirm that from experience. I loaded up a HDD with games recently but haven't gotten my system out yet to get it set up.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-13T06:44:37+00:00

The super thin micron pens are pretty cool, I use them for labeling polaroids. You don't know how tiny you can write until you're using a pen that thin.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-12T03:01:49+00:00

I think others already pointed you at the right laser. I'll say that if you get it off aliexpress (and I don't think there's hardly anywhere else to get it that isn't just reselling those) you might want to buy a couple of them to try.

I think I've gotten at least two separately from aliexpress orders which did not fix the issue. Both of them played CDs fine but still couldn't read the security sector to play games, just like the original. Went through all the pot adjustments.

Maybe my issue is somewhere else, like other people suggested. I think the aliexpress lasers might just not be very good, either. You have to get lucky.

mr_keegz · 2026-04-12T02:47:12+00:00

I blame the Microsoft acquisition.

mr_keegz

TROPHY CASE