Hacking Flash cart firmware reloading?

[kolosus]

Before we begin. I'm not talking about the stuff that you have to put on the microSD card. I'm talking about the firmware of the card itself.

I have two DSTTi cards. I'm sure they are fake. They both have a large (1in by 3/4 in) chip protruding from the front plastic frame of the game cartridge. When I put them into my DS they are detected correctly. The DS recognizes that there is a cartridge in the slot... but the icon and game name section of the screen is left blank. When I push A/tap the top "launch game" button nothing happens. I get a blank white screen. This happens regardless of if the cartridge holds a microSD card or not.

Now one of the two "dead" cartridges used to work. It would correctly show up as Lethal Alliance and the icon for the game would show too. But after about 2 weeks in the pocket of my trousers it stopped working. My guess is that at some point I'd built up enough static to zap the cartridge and delete the internal firmware.

The other cartridge came out of the box that way.

My question is if it is possible at all to reload/revive these "dead" cartridges? I'm completely sure that if I return the cartridges to their sellers somewhere in China they'll probably have the right tools to revive it... but that's too much hassle. Is there something that I can do myself?

I hope I've described the problem and what I want to do correctly. If any part in unclear please ask.

On a side note, we really do need to get this firmware business sorted out. The stuff we put on the microSD card is not firmware... its more like OS...

Looking forward to some good suggestions. Thanks.

 

[The Pi]

The chips are on ROM most likely so you couldn't rewrite over them.

See if you can have them replaced or if you can get a refund.

I'd suggest getting an AK2i or a DSTWO from a good site, lightake for example.

 

[kolosus]

I understand the bit about the ROM. But every ROM needs something to write to it in the first place. There usually is a write enable point on the pcb, like on the original xbox, so you could flash the onboard TSOP. Question is where... and what to flash it with once write capability is achieved.

I was hoping for a more constructive approach than the refund/return approach.

Which is not to say that I condem that route. I asked for suggestions and I stand by that. And to make sure no one thinks that I'm being a troll or flaming I'm going to elaborate.

In my case the refund/return route is just impractical. How so? I bought these carts for about $4 a piece. Not counting shipping which was free anyway. So now I'm going to spend another $8 shipping it out to China in the hopes that the seller refunds/corrects my problem. Perhaps they'll do it.Perhaps I should send the $8 to them for two new ones instead of spending $8 to mail the non-functional ones out to them. Perhaps the package will get "lost in the mail" or who knows what else.