Hacking Battery light turns red after 2 hours with r4, menu battery is still full

[Forte224]

Hey all, I recently got an r4 so I could use a mod for HGSS. I bought a DS Lite used that seems to be working fine otherwise. I'm not using WiFi, sound is about in the middle, brightness is level 3. After about an hour and a half the battery light starts rapidly changing from green to red. After another half hour or so it turns a solid red. If I save and restart the DS, the official DS menu says the battery is still full. I've been letting it sit on a solid red for around 20 minutes now in game, and it's still going. Has anyone else had this issue? Thanks.

EDIT: To clarify, the r4 I bought was off of Newegg, the "2019 R4 R4i Gold Pro Dual Core Flash Card Adapter for Nintendo DS 2DS New 3DS XL V1.0-11.9"" As I'm a new user I'm not allowed to post the actual link, sorry.
The Micro SD card is an official SanDisk 32GB I bought at Target, FAT32 formatted.

EDIT #2: I didn't realize that time bombs existed until now. My r4 has "2019" written on it, so I assume it has one. I ordered an R4i Gold 3DS Plus from nds-card instead. I emailed them, apparently they send me their PayPal email, then I send payment that way. Seems sketchy, but this site and Reddit seem to give them good reviews. I figured I should just buy a "proper" r4 card. Anyway, it's been close to an hour and HG is still playing and the DS hasn't died. So I assume this is just a weird issue with the card?

 

[Ryccardo]

the official DS menu says the battery is still full

I don't know if you know, but that icon has only 2 levels - the same as the power light

The battery check also is only based on voltage, which isn't terribly accurate since it varies based on instantaneous load only and not any past performance (on the flip side, there are no battery controller chips to fuck up, and making replacement batteries on both amateur and industrial scale is as simple and cheap as it could ever be)

If we assume that the 3DS/DSi/WiiU are representative of the DS/Lite, their light turns red at 10% and starts flashing at 5; over 20 minutes for 10 to 0% on a well-worn battery isn't bad (especially given how "fully" discharging them often is far from ideal)


As for time bombs, yes, most official r4isdhc.com kernels have one (if you can install a 3rd party kernel such as YSMenu as "primary boot" = fully replacing the stock one, you can completely bypass it - at least until the card spontaneously bricks as I have experienced on more that one of theirs) - oh, and despite the name they are closer to the TTDS than the original R4

The r4ids.cn is indeed considered reputable, in part because of the better reliability (though it still has a rewritable firmware - if it wasn't for the non-SDHC limit and the fact they finally sold out a couple of years ago, I would still be recommending the bombproof original R4), in part because it runs an official build of the Wood kernel, as opposed to an hacked and/or old version of it

And yes, nds-card is reliable, they have to do that because "someone" lobbied Paypal over a decade ago to ban sellers of console modding tools, so they only take generic "donations"

 

[Forte224]

Thank you for the detailed reply. So, for HeartGold, does 2 hours seem about right at brightness 3? Or is something wrong?

 

[Ryccardo]

So, for HeartGold, does 2 hours seem about right at brightness 3? Or is something wrong?

By interpolating the official worst-case run times for brightnesses 1 and 4, 3 should last approximately 7:30 to 8 hours; that's with a new battery and an original game

Nintendo also claims that a battery will lose 30% of its (current?) max capacity after 500 cycles, and 70% of 8 is 5.6;
that still doesn't mean much without knowing the temperatures in which it was stored/used/charged, how often the most stressful ranges (the top 10% and bottom 10 to 30% depending on who you ask) were gone through, how many times was it left sitting/at which %/for how long, just how old it is, and how good was that production run

But while 2 hours is clearly not an "aged remarkably well", it may not be unreasonable - and trying a replacement (while also of very unknown quality and age) may be an affordable gamble!

 

[Erencikefe]

I have New 3DS XL, DSI, Fat DS and DS Lite. This problem occures on my DS Lite and Fat DS, and sometimes in the menu whenever i touch any button red light blinks. I don't think it's some kind of an error.

 

[AnotherMuggle]

I don't know if you know, but that icon has only 2 levels - the same as the power light

The battery check also is only based on voltage, which isn't terribly accurate since it varies based on instantaneous load only and not any past performance (on the flip side, there are no battery controller chips to fuck up, and making replacement batteries on both amateur and industrial scale is as simple and cheap as it could ever be)

If we assume that the 3DS/DSi/WiiU are representative of the DS/Lite, their light turns red at 10% and starts flashing at 5; over 20 minutes for 10 to 0% on a well-worn battery isn't bad (especially given how "fully" discharging them often is far from ideal)


As for time bombs, yes, most official r4isdhc.com kernels have one (if you can install a 3rd party kernel such as YSMenu as "primary boot" = fully replacing the stock one, you can completely bypass it - at least until the card spontaneously bricks as I have experienced on more that one of theirs) - oh, and despite the name they are closer to the TTDS than the original R4

The r4ids.cn is indeed considered reputable, in part because of the better reliability (though it still has a rewritable firmware - if it wasn't for the non-SDHC limit and the fact they finally sold out a couple of years ago, I would still be recommending the bombproof original R4), in part because it runs an official build of the Wood kernel, as opposed to an hacked and/or old version of it

And yes, nds-card is reliable, they have to do that because "someone" lobbied Paypal over a decade ago to ban sellers of console modding tools, so they only take generic "donations"

Hey man, I'm curious how the spontaneous bricks present themselves... what are the symptoms and at what age etc?

I have New 3DS XL, DSI, Fat DS and DS Lite. This problem occures on my DS Lite and Fat DS, and sometimes in the menu whenever i touch any button red light blinks. I don't think it's some kind of an error.

Likewise... my DS Lite battery struggles with flashcarts and does this premature red light thing My DSi XL and regular DSi both seem to cope well and give decent battery life I'm not sure if this is a quirk with the Lite or because the battery in the DSi's are likely newer and healthier.

 

[yparker14]

Yes I can confirm my DS Lite drains faster while using a R4i cartridge. I bought a new battery for my DS and it only lasts about a couple of hours on a full charge before the red light turns on and I’d have to charge it again soon after.