Hacking 3ds won't run supercard dstwo/other ds carts.

[masterz87]

I've got that second 3ds and I just recently updated it to 4.3.O-4U and it is refusing to run any of my carts. It's a plain 3ds and when I first got it, it was firmware 2.0. Is it possible that the carts don't work with it for some unknown reason or something? I never thought to try them since regular DS games worked just fine on it.

 

[gamesquest1]

try formatting the system, some people had a semi-bricked NDS mode, and the only way to recover was a system format

EDIT, oh so normal DS games work fine....hmmm dont know then

 

[masterz87]

Well the game shows itself at least. I won't say that it runs, it shows up the icon, but I haven't tried playing it yet.

Edit: yep it ran super mario 64ds(it was the game I had in my dsi) but it won't show up my super card dstwo, nor the r4i 3ds gold deluxe edition will show up.

 

[gamesquest1]

Well the game shows itself at least. I won't say that it runs, it shows up the icon, but I haven't tried playing it yet.

well maybe a system format will help then, iirc people had their NDS mode semi-bricked by the homebrew roploader, and the only way to recover was to format the system......pretty much the same symptoms in those cases i.e game showed up but on launching it said an error has occured

 

[masterz87]

I haven't heard of the homebrew ROP loader thing. If it's related to the stuff to get the keys to decrypt your 3ds games I haven't even done the card on this one. But who knows maybe this guy the previous owner did it.

 

[masterz87]

OK, so I've formatted the system memory and it still won't read them. This is literally making no sense to me.

 

[Abcdfv]

Are the carts themselves on the latest firmware?

 

[masterz87]

Both of them ran fine on my primary 3ds which is a blue one and is on 4.5, this red one is now on 4.3, and as far as I know they are both on the latest. The supercard is on 1.25 which supports 8.1, and the r4i 3ds one is on wood 1.64 which is the latest according to their site.

 

[gamesquest1]

last thing i can think is checking the pins inside the card slot to see if any are bent, i have a old DS that works fine with normal retail carts, but 2 of the cart pins are slightly bent, so with flashcards due to the lack of cart guide rails it wont read flashcards (i can only imagine that the missing guide rails lets the bent pins short out)

 

[masterz87]

Well when I first got it, it wasn't reading some of the games but it had a parental lock on it, but after that it worked AOK, I can't get the thing oepned atm because the only screw I have that's small enough to get inside of the shell screws is the screwdriver I have from an old battery replacement and it looks like I'm going to have to buy a bit set to try to get it.

I've tried the various other little things that I've seen and that could definitely be it, I guess I wish I would've thought of this when I first got the thing since I could've probably gotten a partial refund on the unit to help pay for the new game cartridge slot. Is there any easy way to get them to work without having to desolder the old cartridge slot?

 

[tbb043]

Try ejecting and reinserting the DSTWO a few times (with the 3DS on). Sometimes I have to do this for no apparent reason.

If that doesn't eventually work, it's probably a contact issue. You can try the paper trick. Take out the DSTWO, fold a small piece of paper in half (I cut a piece of a post it note for this) and put that between the label of the DSTWO and the slot of the 3DS when you're inserting the DSTWO. I've never had to do this for my DSTWO, but I do have to do this for my Gateway Blue card, and it's not out of the possibility that some DSTWO/3DS combos might need it.

Finally, at one point there was a bad batch of DSTWO cards that would work on some systems but not others. But you say it works in one 3DS and not another, so it's probably not that. I think with those they worked on DS/DSL but not DSI/3DS. Still might want to look into it.

 

[masterz87]

I've already tried the paper trick with my dstwo, and I saw the bad batch thing,and I had mine wait and let the company get a new batch of cards before I got mine shipped to be doubly safe. It has worked perfectly on my ds lite, dsi and blue 3ds. This one appears to be dropepd as it's got a chip on the bottom of it, and when I got it, it was kinda finnicky but then worked fine after awhile but now it's refusing to do it. The 3ds blue card has no guiders, whereas the dstwo has all but ~9 of the ones of a retail card and refuses to run on it.

And yeah the gateway blue card has no guiders for the pins on it, so that can definitely be seen by me, but since it's just that one that refuses to run it's got me confused. My dstwo does take a little bit to load(because I have 4.5 and thus the 3ds is doing more checks and it takes longer for the card to complete the fooling) but this one doesn't do it at all which makes me confused as all get out.


Edit: OK so after trying to do it over and over again. And then finding the thickest paper that I can find and continually pushing more into it. It's now working. So the pins are bent.

The paper trick half works, it takes a lot of working with it to try to get it to fully get into it. And it's more a case of guessing what to do than a real science. I wish that flash carts would've used more guiding pins on their cards as it can't cost very much to include them.

OK so trying the paper trick again, I can get it to read the dstwo/blue card but the white card won't do it. this whole thing is making my head hurt as to why the hell it won't just work even with paper behind it. I can't put anymore behind the label as it won't fit and yet it refuses to show up.

Edit: OK the paper trick kinda works, it works with the dstwo, and the blue-card but the gray card refuses to show itself. I don't know if this is something weird with the card itself as I don't know why it's not wanting to run it. So it is bent pins.

 

[wischmob]

Well if the paper trick actually does work, but not always, i´d say you indeed have bent pins. I don´t have my 3DS here right now, but one possibility for the paper trick to not work could be caused by horizontally bent pins. The paper trick only applies more pressure onto the pins in order to make contact with vertically bent pins. Retail game cartridges have teeth between all contact surfaces so horizontally bent pins get bent in normal position as long as the cartridge is inserted. I´d suggest you have a look into the slot of your 3DS to identify the bent pin(s) - if they are visible, of course. I don´t remember how my 3DS looks from the inside because i never had contact based problems with retail or flashcard cartridges yet.

 

[gamesquest1]

you can check the pins by poking something in to press the metal bit down and just looking in the light, you don't need to open the whole thing to check, i got a 3DS XL for £40 because it wouldn't read games and it only took a few mins to open it up and bend the pins back....the good thing about the 3DS vs NDS in regards to bent pins is that the 3DS has a gap on the back of the card slot so you can easily use a pair of tweezers or something to move the pins back into place

 

[masterz87]

OK, so yeah I see ~3 or four pins that are not sticking out enough(in a uniform fashion, and what do you know, they are all at the spots where the dstwo doesn't have little guider things on it.

Is there any videos/guides or something that'll show exactly hwo to get at them. I'd greatly prefer to not have to do any soldering if possible since I don't want to take the risk.

 

[gamesquest1]

well with the 3DS there is a gap on the back of the slot, so you can get in there and adjust the pins much easier than on the NDS

 

[zhdarkstar]

MasterZ, Kobalt makes a $6 precision screwdriver set that includes tri-wing bits that work with the 3DS. If there's a Lowe's near you, see if they have it in stock.

 

[gamesquest1]

MasterZ, Kobalt makes a $6 precision screwdriver set that includes tri-wing bits that work with the 3DS. If there's a Lowe's near you, see if they have it in stock.

you dont need a tri-wing to open the 3DS .....wouldn't hurt to own one for other stuff though

 

[zhdarkstar]

you dont need a tri-wing to open the 3DS .....wouldn't hurt to own one for other stuff though

Didn't know that Ninty finally stopped using the tri-wing with the 3DS. It's about time. I assumed that it just like all of the rest. [/themoreyouknow]

 

[masterz87]

I know that they were doing that for a really long time, and I'm still going to have to get an extra bit set, since the triwings that I have here are way too thick to try to use on my gba/gbc which need a good cleaning. So I'm just going to bite the bullet and pay like 10$ and get a bunch of little bits even though i don't really need them all.