Hacking EZ Flash Jr, potentially defective unit

[Elmi]

Hey. I got my Jr today, which worked fine for about half an hour but now I am having major issues.

When attempting to turn it on after booting a rom, I get stuck in an infinte loop of booting, sometimes it's even going so far as to mess with the contrast and sound. This does not happen when the cart is inserted without an SD card (it loads the Nintendo logo and sits on the EZ Flash Loading screen just fine, no wierdness) or with a normal game cart.

I have tired reformatting the SD, but the same corruption then loading loop occurs. I have tried a different SD card, but the same issue occurs. The cart is updated to V4.

Any advice?

 

[Calyptor]

I just got mine a few hours ago. Im using a 4gb fat32 sd that seems to work flawlessly. Make sure its formatted correctly ... this what it says for the OMEGA version.

card size ≤ 2 GB FAT/FAT16 32KB
card size ≤ 32 GB FAT32 32KB
card size ≤ 128 GB exFAT 32KB or Larger

Im assumin your roms are unzipped in the root of the sd. Does it act up with all roms? If not then the issue might be the rom itself..

 

[Elmi]

It's formatted correctly.

It is also now happening before I even load a ROM after a fresh format.

 

[zfreeman]

What device are you playing it on? What kind of batteries are you using?

 

[Elmi]

What device are you playing it on? What kind of batteries are you using?

GBP, fresh AAA's

I'm going to take the back off to clean the contacts and change my batteries, just incase. But I'm not confident that will be the issue.

 

[zfreeman]

Flash carts demand more power compared to original or multicart cartridges.

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Support/...atteries-be-used-in-the-Game-Boy--619646.html

https://bennvenn.myshopify.com/pages/gameboy-pocket-flash-carts-backlights

A rewired (parallel) Pocket runs great on 10440 batteries because of the higher voltage.

Series: 2x AAA, 1.5v & 150mAh each = 3v and 150mAh.
Parallel: 2x 10440, 3.7v & 350mAh each = 3.7v and 700mAh

https://imgur.com/gallery/FCvmf#s2qMLHd

https://imgur.com/gallery/8mm6c

Low voltage operation
The regulator could manage to keep the CPU alive at an input voltage as low as 1.5V. However, at that voltage there were significant power losses in the conversion, sound wouldn’t work and the Gameboy would crash easily.

https://blog.gg8.se/wordpress/2009/07/22/testing-gameboy-input-voltage-ranges/

 

[Calyptor]

Just for a side note im running AAs...sounds like zfreeman is right

 

[Elmi]

So I need to rewire the console and buy specialised batteries to run the cart. Greeeeat.

 

[zfreeman]

So I need to rewire the console and buy specialised batteries to run the cart. Greeeeat.

You could sell the Jr. and buy a low-power Everdrive clone, but they have slower RAM when changing games. That's the trade-off: battery life or loading speed.

 

[Localhorst86]

GBP, fresh AAA's

I'm going to take the back off to clean the contacts and change my batteries, just incase. But I'm not confident that will be the issue.

AAA is the size. Are you using rechargeable batteries or alkaline? If its alkaline, make sure they are quality brand ones, not some cheaper off-brands.

 

[Elmi]

Yeah I got some rechargeable NiMH batteries, and now it appears to be pretty stable, at least when the batteries have high charge. Thanks for the tips.

 

[Localhorst86]

Yeah I got some rechargeable NiMH batteries, and now it appears to be pretty stable, at least when the batteries have high charge. Thanks for the tips.

Well, for the GBP I would have advised against using rechargables and use quality alkaline instead.
The Pocket is known to be finicky when it comes to power consumption, so rechargables will quite often not provide enough power, particularly when the cartridge draws more power than a retail cart.
But if you found rechargables that work fine for you, the better.