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Reliability of NAOMI and NAOMI 2

suverman

suverman

Bulti Moyz
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Just wanted to know if people who own NAOMI 1/2 have seen high failure rates?

I bought a NAOMI 2 in Aug 2017 and it was dead on arrival - the shipper on eBay swore it was working when he shipped it (good eBay rating as well).

Two weeks back I got a NAOMI it worked for a week and after that some RAM died and it started running at really 1/4th speed. I have asked an experienced SEGA repairing person in SF he feels that he can repair it - though he did point out that given the prices of NAOMI 1/2 at the moment probably cheaper to buy another one.

Have I been unlucky or should I avoid it? I would love to play Initial D games on the NAOMI 2 and few of the shooters in it are my favourite.
 
I always assumed the slightly higher failure rate of the Naomi 2 was due to the super cap used (everyone recommends replacing it).
Both are pretty reliable tho, at least in my limited experience. I hope/think you just had some bad luck and this isn't a trend.
 
Thanks, I shall check what super cap is and try to replace it. I hope its my bad luck too, at least that means I can get another one and give it a try.
 
The naomi's can be delicate about the input voltages, but they are reliable. maybe you just had bad luck.
 
There is honestly no reason to replace the SuperCap unless you plan of having it set as one game and/or on location to hold settings.

So at a bare minimum remove it. If you really need it to hold the settings, replace it with a high quality SuperCap.

The other issue I find with Naomi, especially if it was pulled off location, is cleaning it out. A lot of these motherboards are caked with dirt and dust inside from being on location for years. Heat just stresses the hell out of components. Especially stuff off eBay, most stuff is acquired from OPs and not cleaned thoroughly in and out.

CPU Fan, you can repack them, in many cases I've run into the bearings being completely fine and are just caked with debris.
 
I plan to just remove the supercap, I dont need it. I do however need to open them up and give it a clean for the replacement board I will get. Thanks.
 
I think the supercap is there to allow the coin battery to be replaced without losing settings. I removed all of mine and didn't replace them, put fresh new coin batteries and I haven't had any problems with settings not being saved.

Naomi 1 seems to be pretty reliable. I have seven of them and all of them are running fine.
 
I've had a few Naomi 1 units over the years, lucky enough to never encounter a problem with any of them. I do know that they are sensitive to voltage though, specifically the 3.3V line. I know people who just feed 5V into the 3.3V line as they can't be bothered sourcing an IO, that's really not a good idea.

Naomi 2 seem to have a high rate of failure, not sure why. I always seem to find faulty ones.
 
@'Frank_fjs what do you do with the NAOMI 2 tha fails? Just dump them or get them repaired?
 
i replaced the supercap to be sure when i got my naomi 2 but that was a pain in the ass because you need a LOT of heat to get it off - the next time it is due i`ll simply remove it because at the time i didn't exactly know what it's needed for - atm i run a piboot setup and will later upgrade to a darksoft multi if it ever happens :D

Apart from that i found out the hard way like many people that the naomi's are pretty picky with their psus - once i got a sun everything worked perfectly
 
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