Hacking How to tell if my flashcard is dead?

[Sonic Angel Knight]

So a few days ago I found this post about converting r4 into Acekard with 3ds. https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-...a-legit-acekard-2i-using-a-hacked-3ds.473764/

It made me wanted to try something. I do have a Acekard2I i got years ago, I used it but it hasn't worked in long time. It lead me to buy other flash carts like ACE3DS which also don't work anymore, Super Card DStwo which I lost and can't find at the moment. I started hating flash carts for buying them and not keeping them long enough to get satisfy useage. I tried the method to restore it but I guess is just broken. The card doesn't work, i stick it in and it just shows nothing. On DSlite the boot screen freezes.

I dig deeper and found some thread from years ago that a member "Another world" posted trying to repair it by reflashing update to it. I tried to do it but it stays stuck at 0% and it never does anything, only when i remove the card will the counter reach any higher number. I am beginning to think is just done. I really liked having flash carts but really dislike paying for them over and over just to get disappointed after a few months. Is there a simple way to know if is dead or if I'm doing something wrong? It would be nice to have a working Rom loader for my portable system, so far I had games I never finished cause of the flashcarts, so I just been using emulators like DESEMU on pc or wii u VC injection, is okay at first but some games I wanna play is just isn't the same experience as a NDS/3DS.

Now I don't want to think the idea of flashcarts was a scam but it felt like it to me. Especially at the time I had waited like over 2 months from shipment from china, I usually dislike ordering from out of country cause of the long times with saving shipping options.

 

[Ryccardo]

Now I don't want to think the idea of flashcarts was a scam but it felt like it to me. Especially at the time I had waited like over 2 months from shipment from china, I usually dislike ordering from out of country cause of the long times with saving shipping options.

All modern DS flashcards except maybe the DSTwo should be considered disposable, the "yearly models" with timebomb kernels obviously so, but it's not like the most recommended R4i Gold is built like a tank/with accurate molds/guaranteed to be unbrickable

If you want a cheap but really reliable flashcard, buy an original R4, yes it only supports up to 2 GB, but in my experience even the currently sold 100% clones with transparent plastic packaging are properly built, and the firmware is on a real rom instead of rewritable memory without proper safeties in the hope you'll need to buy another...

$2/3 week shipping from nds-card isn't bad for the price imo (yeah I know that people including myself only buy stuff when they need it ), even then compared to untracked free shipping it's mainly a matter of avoiding theft in transit, it's not really faster or significantly more reliable!

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

All modern DS flashcards except maybe the DSTwo should be considered disposable, the "yearly models" with timebomb kernels obviously so, but it's not like the most recommended R4i Gold is built like a tank/with accurate molds/guaranteed to be unbrickable

At the time I was interested in flash carts i didn't know anything about this. Until I got my DSI system, all I know that the website would have firmware updates i need to download and use to keep it working on updated DSI firmware. By the time I had 3ds, it wasn't doing anything else. Getting other flash carts like R4I-sdhc, and ACE 3DS and the lack of functionally it kept running into over the new updates and how long it takes to release one for the new system firmware I just disliked it all.

I just say to myself maybe it was cause i kept going cheap, so i bough DStwo card that cost more than $30 and i was happy until i misplaced it and not sure where it is. (I suppose it still works) I just hated buying flash carts and spending money on things that kept giving me problems.

I didn't know anything about "Timebomb kernels" I dunno what it means, i just felt like i was getting scammed, yes the product worked like advertised but it didn't work for very long is why i didn't like buying them. No one buys a product to only get some time of use out of it, they buy it to least last until a better one is released to consider upgrade. Is like buying a new pc and 6 months later, your HDD is broken, and a new HDD that maybe functions better or has More storage wasn't released yet.

 

[The Catboy]

The Ak2i is hit n' miss. Some people have had the cart for years now without hassle and others had the cart die in an extremely short period of time. It was actually made to be a budget flashcart, so it the quality can be a bit dodgy. It's pretty easy to tell when the Ak2i is dead. If the contact method of fixing it doesn't work, try restoring the file in this thread. If it errors out, then the cart is dead.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

The Ak2i is hit n' miss. Some people have had the cart for years now without hassle and others had the cart die in an extremely short period of time. It was actually made to be a budget flashcart, so it the quality can be a bit dodgy. It's pretty easy to tell when the Ak2i is dead. If the contact method of fixing it doesn't work, try restoring the file in this thread. If it errors out, then the cart is dead.

I tried that thread weeks ago, and it lead me to another thread created by user another world. None of them worked. I dunno why. Inserting the cart into a DSlite just freezes the system at boot, and so does anything else like trying to flash firmware or anything, always freezes progression meter until the cart is removed. I would buy a new one but as i said, dislike spending money on broken promises.

 

[The Catboy]

If it just freezes the DS Lite, then chances are extremely high that the cart is dead. Did you try updating it with another flashcart?

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

If it just freezes the DS Lite, then chances are extremely high that the cart is dead. Did you try updating it with another flashcart?

I tried using the TWLOADER since it can load NDS homebrew. I also saw someone managed to do ds download homebrew injection i thought about trying as well, though wasn't sure if i could since i had WII U. I would have tried my DSI but not sure if i have any homebrew access without a flashcart.

 

[The Catboy]

I tried using the TWLOADER since it can load NDS homebrew. I also saw someone managed to do ds download homebrew injection i thought about trying as well, though wasn't sure if i could since i had WII U. I would have tried my DSI but not sure if i have any homebrew access without a flashcart.

You are going to need a DS Lite/Phat and a working flashcart in order to run the updater. There is no way around this because future systems prevented the cart from being removed after the updater was ran

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

You are going to need a DS Lite/Phat and a working flashcart in order to run the updater. There is no way around this because future systems prevented the cart from being removed after the updater was ran

I don't quite understand what you mean, the cart can be removed at anytime.

Anyway I could use the dslite but I would need to find a way to run homebrew, I don't know where my DSTwo is at the moment and is the only flash cart that works.