Gaming Firmware corruption? White screen of death?

[Asaki]

I'm probably a few years too late, but I'm having an issue with my original "phat" model DS. It must have started somewhat recently, within the last year.

I first noticed it when I went to change the time settings on the alarm clock. On the main menu screen, I tried going into the options screen, and it started to load, and then just froze right up. I thought taking the battery out and popping it back in might help, but it actually made things worse. Now, it won't even boot up at all. I'll get the "Nintendo DS" boot screen, then it'll fade to white and stay there.

I do have my DS set up to autoboot, so I can still play games with it, but it would be nice if I could fix this. I've never flashed the firmware, so that shouldn't be the issue. A search tells me that this is a common issue with n5 cards, with a fuse in the console getting blown (the "fix" was a dead link), but I don't have one of those. I do have a newer R4i card from r4ids.cn with SCHD support, but it says those are supposed to be safe.

If it is the R4i causing this, should I keep it away from other DSes, and especially my 3DS??

 

[NicEXE]

You wont like this but here is what you have to do:

1. Open the console
2. Put your multimeter to do continuity test and probe the fuses
3. Replace the blown one with a new one

It seems easy but its not. You first need to identify the fuse and then you have to hope that the continuity test wont show that it is working because it leaks from elsewhere in the circuitry. This is why you shouldn't do continuity test on soldered components because if the meter says that there is continuity, the results are unreliable.

If there are only like 3 fuses or so just replace all of them or maybe start replacing them until it works.

 

[Wafoe]

I literally have the exact same problem. Fat Nintendo DS, settings crashed, battery out and in, two white screens after the Nintendo DS startup screen. I also have the same R4i card.
I have used this R4 card before in my DSi when I still had one and it worked fine for months. Might be some compability problem, I don't know. I have used this DS with this R4i card for 2-3 days now and it broke down.

Did you end up fixing it by replacing the fuse?

 

[Asaki]

Nah, I bought a broken Japanese DS off eBay for $6 and swapped out the mainboard. I figured it would be much easier, and it had working R/L buttons, a less scratchy touch screen, and the battery holds a charge longer than my old one. I was secretly hoping for a v5+ revision board, but that's a heck of a dice roll (you can allegedly hack them to enable a screen brightness toggle).

I had been thinking about it, and some possibly related symptoms had started showing up before I bought the new R4i, so maybe the card wasn't the problem? Whenever I booted up, it would skip the "Touch the Touch Screen to continue." message and load right to the DS cart after the jingle. I'm pretty sure I never flashed the BIOS, so it did seem kind of strange, but I just kind of disregarded it because it was convenient.

I'm still afraid to use the R4i in my 3DS, but I've been using it in my repaired DS phat pretty frequently for over a year now, with no problems.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Nah, I bought a broken Japanese DS off eBay for $6 and swapped out the mainboard. I figured it would be much easier, and it had working R/L buttons, a less scratchy touch screen, and the battery holds a charge longer than my old one. I was secretly hoping for a v5+ revision board, but that's a heck of a dice roll (you can allegedly hack them to enable a screen brightness toggle).

I had been thinking about it, and some possibly related symptoms had started showing up before I bought the new R4i, so maybe the card wasn't the problem? Whenever I booted up, it would skip the "Touch the Touch Screen to continue." message and load right to the DS cart after the jingle. I'm pretty sure I never flashed the BIOS, so it did seem kind of strange, but I just kind of disregarded it because it was convenient.

I'm still afraid to use the R4i in my 3DS, but I've been using it in my repaired DS phat pretty frequently for over a year now, with no problems.

Some DS flashcarts have that autoboot feature, it's just a flag set in the header that enables autoboot.
I haven't heard of the R4i Gold bricking consoles, actually the only cart I've heard of that does that is the n5, so it should be safe.

 

[GGebizu]

I'm probably a few years too late, but I'm having an issue with my original "phat" model DS. It must have started somewhat recently, within the last year.

I first noticed it when I went to change the time settings on the alarm clock. On the main menu screen, I tried going into the options screen, and it started to load, and then just froze right up. I thought taking the battery out and popping it back in might help, but it actually made things worse. Now, it won't even boot up at all. I'll get the "Nintendo DS" boot screen, then it'll fade to white and stay there.

I do have my DS set up to autoboot, so I can still play games with it, but it would be nice if I could fix this. I've never flashed the firmware, so that shouldn't be the issue. A search tells me that this is a common issue with n5 cards, with a fuse in the console getting blown (the "fix" was a dead link), but I don't have one of those. I do have a newer R4i card from r4ids.cn with SCHD support, but it says those are supposed to be safe.

If it is the R4i causing this, should I keep it away from other DSes, and especially my 3DS??

I've done the exact same thing : settings froze, remove/replace battery then complete freeze. But i'm really unlucky because my R4i Gold 3DS plus does not have the autoboot feature enabled :/ is it possible to change a setting in an SD card file to enable it so that i could still use my old DS ? Thanks in advance !