Think my Supercard is defective. Can anyone verify?

funkball · March 31, 2005, 10:41:38 AM

I recently purchased a Supercard. I'm trying to use it with my DS

When it arrived I checked the firmware and it was already at 1.43.
I formatted a 512mb Lexar CF card to FAT using Win XP. I used the 2.20 software to convert some GBA roms.

I put some verified working roms, as well as the movie player, onto the card.

The cart boots up fine. It shows the directories, etc.
When I try to run the movie player, however, it just goes to a black screen.
When I try to run any GBA rom, it just goes to a white screen.

I tried re-flashing the cart to the 1.43 update.
This time it worked with a couple of games, although I only tested it for a minute or two. Then after the 3rd game I tried to load, it froze on the title screen and went to white.

It has not worked again since. I've re-flashed the cart. I've flashed it to earlier firmwares (1.41 and 1.24) and back again; still not working.

I bought a 256mb SanDisk CF card, formatted it and tried that one. Still doesn't work.

I decided to try it with some NES roms. They work just fine. There's also the GBA rom that someone created with 4 gameboy games on it. It also loaded just fine (that only loads about 1024kb).

It seems that the small items, the ones that load less than 4000kb, seem to pull up. Anything that loads more than that, come up with a white screen, or the black screen for the movie player/mp3 player.

At this point I'm thinking the cart is defective.

Does anyone have any experience with this. Is there anything that I'm missing here? I just want to make sure before I ask chipdealer.com to replace it.

Thanks

NT · March 31, 2005, 10:58:51 AM

Sounds like you've done everything correctly as far as setting up your card and troubleshooting. It also sounds like the card's RAM might be bad considering that you can load small ROMs but the bigger ones lock it up. Seems like it hangs up when you load ROMs to a certain spot in memory.

funkball · March 31, 2005, 11:11:54 AM

Thanks for the feedback.

I was thinking the same thing. Does anyone know how well chipdealer does with returns?

Diablo · March 31, 2005, 11:18:09 AM

Yeah, it sure does sound like the SRAM is the culprit.

Isn't there a diagnostic check on the Supercard? I doubt it is very useful, but if it for some reason says something is wrong with the RAM, then you would definitely have some strong support for a return/replacement.

Good luck getting it replaced.

dshier89 · March 31, 2005, 11:40:50 AM

Ya also check to make sure your roms aren't corrupt. This scares me since me sc is in the mail :-D

funkball · March 31, 2005, 02:04:06 PM

Good point. I'm pretty sure I have at least a few good roms, however, it wouldn't hurt to check.

What are the programs used to check the roms?

Diablo · March 31, 2005, 02:18:40 PM

I doubt it's the ROMs, but it doesn't hurt to test them first (and replace any of the corrupt/overdumped ROMs you find with verified good dumps).

GBA-Renamer to identify the ROMs, and GoodGBA with the GoodGUI frontend to verify them.

tigermask44 · March 31, 2005, 04:02:20 PM

Clean the supercards connectors with a soft cloth and a screwdriver. I had the same problem and it cleared it right up. Don't know why!

Diablo · March 31, 2005, 04:06:16 PM

Why not the traditional Q-Tip, instead? :wink:

funkball · March 31, 2005, 05:00:23 PM

A little Q-tip, a little alcohol... I'll give it a shot this evening. Thanks.

funkball · March 31, 2005, 10:14:20 PM

Well, scratch that off the list of possible fixes.

I also tried the self test, and, of course, it said the SRAM was ok.

Anyway, I called chipdealer.com and arranged a replacement. It was very easy, and the guy was very nice.

Diablo · March 31, 2005, 10:41:49 PM

Good to hear you'll have a complimentary replacement.

Sucks that we're not sure what the problem was, though. :?:

funkball · March 31, 2005, 10:55:07 PM

Agreed. I just couldn't think of anything else to try.

plflorence · April 03, 2005, 07:55:40 AM

no way
chipdealer actually answer their phone calls?!

and the guy was actually being nice??

I called like 5 times already from monday to friday... some random time around 10am-5:00pm.... I've never heard a human voice from their phone..... it's ALWAYS voice messages....

whoa.... I talked to the america shipping guy and he was pretty impatient complaining how much work load he has...... and I was all "um.... I see you have such huge work load..... but how about my order from 2 weeks ago that haven't even been sent yet?

"

I still haven't got mine yet T^T
tell me when you get your new one man, coz I'll have to really talk to them if you get your replacement even before my actual order!