Hacking Acekard 2.1 freezes when writing .sav file

[By PoLOr]

Yea I received my "replacement" from DX yesterday it has the same issue. Now I have two cards that only play older games. Oh well. Hasney let me know if you get another one out of them. Looks like I need to shop for a different brand of flashcard. Any suggestions?

 

[Gariscus]

Get a Acekard 2i. Basically the same as Acekard 2.1 but without the save problem and DSi compatibility.

 

[Corpus Scotty]

Just to add to the melee,
I bought 5 AceKard 2 from Price Angels after Xmas and none of them would work with the microSD I also got from them.
Turns out the memory was fine - Kingston 8G - but the carts wouldn't play the roms on other memory I have from other cards bought last year from DX.
Got no response from AceKard, as I expected but did eventually get a reply from PA.
BTW, I also prised apart the carts, photographed the innards and forwarded these to AceKard for verification.

-I hope I managed to get them into this having never done it before-

Anyway, I think the replyer from PA was passing on a message as it didn't quite make sense:

"Could you try use kernel file v 1.4 please?

Have a nice day/evening
Jenny
PriceAngels Support team"

I figured this to mean AKAIO v1.4 which I eventually tracked down and installed. It works but I note it is dated Feb 2009 so I suspect some roms released after then might have issues.

So, I am relatively satisfied having learned on this forum AceKard isn't making AceKard 2s anymore and we have old stock that still runs old firmware and old roms. What else can we expect.

Cheers,
Scotty form Aus,
but why is my flag American?

 

[masbass]

sssso, it's a case of old and obsolete hardware batch ???

WTF are we going to do w them now???

 

[theADDict]

Where exactly has this 'old batch' confirmation come from ? Seems more like a new batch that needs new firmware to me.
Has anyone received a different batch AFTER receiving troublesome cart ? I haven't head of any. Are they still producing these non saving on new firmware carts ??

 

[Corpus Scotty]

Now I'm in a quandry.

When I hadn't heard from Price Angels after 2 emails I started dispute resolution with PayPal.
I didn't hear anything through that forum and then jenny from sales replied to my earlier email and asked me to use "kernel v 1.4" as above.
PA have now replied through the dispute resolution in which the brief message was return the goods for exchange.

Christ on a stick!

I feel compelled to return the 5 carts and chance they will be exchanged for working ones.

None of this makes sense.

Why would PA be flogging really old stock that only runs really old firmware - as it turns out not all the roms make decent readable saves under akAIO v1.4 as I thought, (and sprouted above), but a lot of them do. The carts work better with akAIO v 1.4 than with later updates but the most reliable firmware seems to be ak v 4.07 that predates soft-rest and other system enhancements.

The AceKard 2s I have are version 2.1

This is all getting too hard as an earlier forum member identified. This will be my last hurrah then I will give up and order something new and other. But what?

Compos Scotty Mentis

 

[tk_saturn]

Now I'm in a quandry.

When I hadn't heard from Price Angels after 2 emails I started dispute resolution with PayPal.
I didn't hear anything through that forum and then jenny from sales replied to my earlier email and asked me to use "kernel v 1.4" as above.
PA have now replied through the dispute resolution in which the brief message was return the goods for exchange.

Christ on a stick!

I feel compelled to return the 5 carts and chance they will be exchanged for working ones.

None of this makes sense.

Why would PA be flogging really old stock that only runs really old firmware - as it turns out not all the roms make decent readable saves under akAIO v1.4 as I thought, (and sprouted above), but a lot of them do. The carts work better with akAIO v 1.4 than with later updates but the most reliable firmware seems to be ak v 4.07 that predates soft-rest and other system enhancements.

The AceKard 2s I have are version 2.1

This is all getting too hard as an earlier forum member identified. This will be my last hurrah then I will give up and order something new and other. But what?

Compos Scotty Mentis

It's not PA, these bad carts are everywhere.

I would be nice in how you handle PA. Someone posted on here today they put in a dispute for the same bad batch carts from DX, and PayPal told them to shove off when they tried to get their money back. If you try to esculate the dispute PayPal may not do anything.

 

[Canker]

Got my replacement from DX today. Another HW 80 AceKard, which can't save games. Since I have two, I have opened one up and will tell you what exciting thing lives inside.

Here is what I found. The PCB is black, one side has hand written in what looks like a sharpy, "12." The other side has an IC on it which is made by spansion, with this written on it.

S29AL016J70TFI02
932BB274 K
© 07 SPANSION

Google told me me it's a 16MB 3V 70NS BTM SECTOR PBF.

 

[keyra]

after few hours of reading forums and almost breakin my nerves on this asskards

2.1 i finally got i working with every games even new ones like zelda
just use akaio 1.4.1 proper
edit : it was too good to be true... it doesn't reload my saves on mario inside browser

 

[Canker]

Hey, cheers.

I tried the same thing and had no luck though.

after few hours of reading forums and almost breakin my nerves on this asskards

2.1 i finally got i working with every games even new ones like zelda
just use akaio 1.4.1 proper

 

[keyra]

second try with ak2_407_a15_20080626_release
this time zelda keeps its save, kirby too and i can play other mini games after rebooting first time
looks like we have a winner

 

[Hasney]

They've offered me $5 store credit, or I can return the cards for a full refund.

I'm taking the credit, saves a lot of hassle and I can give the cards as gifts to friends who don't need the latest games and they might even be fixed eventually with software.

 

[MisterKilroy]

So I take it that buying one of these right now isn't such a fantastic idea?

You see, the only experience I have with this is a friend who has a TopToy. I looked at one of those, but an Acekard 2 seems to be the superior choice. Now I'm not so sure.

Terribly confused.

 

[tk_saturn]

So I take it that buying one of these right now isn't such a fantastic idea?

You see, the only experience I have with this is a friend who has a TopToy. I looked at one of those, but an Acekard 2 seems to be the superior choice. Now I'm not so sure.

Terribly confused.

Acekard 2i yes, Acekard 2.1 no. Even if you don't have a DSi and will never ever get one, still buy the 2i instead of the 2.1.

 

[adder]

The crooks at the focal price now tell me they don't have any in stock and don't know if they will get any and are offering me half the refund I paid.

Why make be pay for postage for tracking if you not got the item in stock!

I'll advice anyone not to use focalprice for anything. As a heads up.

 

[karyuudo]

Unfortunately I just bought one from Kick Gaming myself. I'm emailing them right now to see if anything can be done as far as an exchange is concerned. If I had known about this problem prior to buying I wouldn't have ordered the Ace2Kard and gotten a Ace2Kard2i instead

Checked it HW ID and it's 80 just like the others

 

[TSYA]

Well - add another vendor to the list of the "bad batch".

Ordered my 2.1 from 0Shipping late Jan. Received it early Feb (shipping was actually quite fast).

HW ID 80 and SAV's causes the system to freeze. Some games complain that the sav is corrupt.

So following your thread's advise and thank you very much to the person that discovered that 4.07 works fine - I downloaded and installed the 4.07 official firmware and its running on the older games.

 

[karyuudo]

I've found that if you use AIKIO 1.5.1 and AK RPG firmware 4.11 with your Ace2Kard you can play and save games except for Zelda Spirit Tracks.

I'm not sure what the extent of the compatibility is, but I've been able to play a few. It just upsets me that I bought something that doesn't work as it should

 

[Sonia]

I've found that if you use AIKIO 1.5.1 and AK RPG firmware 4.11 with your Ace2Kard you can play and save games except for Zelda Spirit Tracks.

I'm not sure what the extent of the compatibility is, but I've been able to play a few. It just upsets me that I bought something that doesn't work as it should

Interesting... I'll test this to see if it works with mine.

 

[karyuudo]

I've found that if you use AIKIO 1.5.1 and AK RPG firmware 4.11 with your Ace2Kard you can play and save games except for Zelda Spirit Tracks.

I'm not sure what the extent of the compatibility is, but I've been able to play a few. It just upsets me that I bought something that doesn't work as it should

Interesting... I'll test this to see if it works with mine.

Let us know the results of your testing. Hopefully this can be a minor workaround for the time being.

This problem also has been reported on AIKIO's website forum. Apparently the reason for this problem with the ACE2KARD's is that there's 2 different teams working on them now... so somebody, somewhere dropped the ball releasing these faulty cards.