Hacking how to fix fake supercard mini sd's

[wolffangalchemist]

i recently purchased a fake/cloned supercard mini sd knowing they have issues i took the gamble and it worked fine for about a month or so.
then last week i started having issues with games loading and the cart would sometimes not be seen by my gba sp or would have a garbled Nintendo logo.

out of curiosity i looked here
http://forum.supercard.sc/thread-4704-1-1.html
and seen some people where putting paper behind the PCB but to me this seemed like a temporary solution and also didn't work to well for me was a hit and miss solution.
though one person mentions soldering the flash chip in the thread so upon further inspection i noticed the solder joints on the chips of the supercard mini sd looked kind of dull as if they may be corroded or some of the joints may be dry, only thing left for me to do having nothing to loose was to reflow the solder on the chips with some flux... all of them to be sure to get the culprit.
i applied the flux past to the contacts on all of the chips then took my soldering iron and carefully heated up the pins on each chip till the solder became shiny i did this for each chip twice to be sure of there being no dry joints.
This worked very well the card has worked flawlessly now with no issues for the past 3 days.
some pics

the reflowed solder joints

i just thought i'd put this here for anyone who might have issues with supercard mini sd's they may have purchased recently.

 

[xerces]

How can I tell if I have a fake Supercard Mini? I just bought two of these and have no idea how to tell

 

[Lemmy Koopa]

There used to

How can I tell if I have a fake Supercard Mini? I just bought two of these and have no idea how to tell

There used to be an article about fake Supercards. They had different coloring on the circuit board on certain places.

 

[xerces]

There used to
There used to be an article about fake Supercards. They had different coloring on the circuit board on certain places.

Well, it looks as if the 2 I just purchased are real...

Closeup of the board:

The one without the label is only missing it because I took it off... I'm making a custom label for it.

 

[wolffangalchemist]

Well, it looks as if the 2 I just purchased are real.

just note mine looks the same as yours and the original picture and is definitely a fake, those images are of some different older fakes the ones we have i am more certain are just clones that look more like the original if you have a blue battery and these where recently purchased they are most likely fakes as supercard team has not made any mini sd units for some time..
I also had the save issue once before it messed up bit it went away so i failed to mention it, damn thing killed my mother 3 .sav file.
there where some sold by DX as mentioned in the thread linked in my original post some time ago that look just like the one i got and had the same issues so it is more than likely your cards are the same as mine.

 

[xerces]

just note mine looks the same as yours and the original picture and is definitely a fake, those images are of some different older fakes the ones we have i am more certain are just clones that look more like the original if you have a blue battery and these where recently purchased they are most likely fakes as supercard team has not made any mini sd units for some time..
I also had the save issue once before it messed up bit it went away so i failed to mention it, damn thing killed my mother 3 .sav file.
there where some sold by DX as mentioned in the thread linked in my original post some time ago that look just like the one i got and had the same issues so it is more than likely your cards are the same as mine.

My original came from Dx back in 2007 or 2008. My 2 mini's came from ebay a few weeks ago.

 

[Lemmy Koopa]

Someone is still producing fake supercards?

 

[wolffangalchemist]

Someone is still producing fake supercards?

apparently that is the case or they made a bunch when they were in production as they are all over the place, seen them on quite a few places like ebay and some Chinese websites, that's how i got mine.
I wasn't really expecting problems but i have enough soldering skill to save most anything unless it's completely fried, these cloned Supercard mini sd's would be decent quality if they just didn't solder them together so poorly.

 

[Count Duckula]

Is the RAM used in the miniSD supercards faster than in the SD version, or do they also suffer slowdowns in a lot of games?
I have an SD version and a lot of games are pretty unplayable, but perfect on a ez-flash IV.

 

[locolol]

I had the same problem with that fake/cloned supercard mini sd , the piece of paper thing worked for a few weeks but later the garbled nintendo logo appeared again and i ended up selling the fake supercard for 4Dlls ...Some months later i bought the EZ-Flash IV and let me tell you: It works great and it has better performance/speed than the Supercard Mini SD

 

[wolffangalchemist]

Is the RAM used in the miniSD supercards faster than in the SD version, or do they also suffer slowdowns in a lot of games?
I have an SD version and a lot of games are pretty unplayable, but perfect on a ez-flash IV.

The Mini SD still suffers the same symtoms sadly but most the games i have played either don't have issues with it or very seldom, Supercard was always more focused on the DS side of things sadly.

I had the same problem with that fake/cloned supercard mini sd , the piece of paper thing worked for a few weeks but later the garbled nintendo logo appeared again and i ended up selling the fake supercard for 4Dlls ...Some months later i bought the EZ-Flash IV and let me tell you: It works great and it has better performance/speed than the Supercard Mini SD

yeah the only permanent fix is to use flux paste to re-flow the solder on ALL the joints of the fake cards chips other wise a myriad of issues is likely to happed with these fakes,if the guy you sold it to knew what he was doing he got a good deal.
The EZ-Flash IV is definitely superior but cost was an issue at the time i got my Supercard, i had planned to get one but the supercard mini sd has met all my needs for GBA so far.

 

[Fabian A.]

So any Supercard with blue battery is fake? I have had a Supercard with blue battery for over a year and it has given me no issues other than a misreading problem that was fixed by unscrewing the card a little (it was too tight).

What's the save problem you guys refer to?

 

[Kouen Hasuki]

I'm more curious if the fakes suffer from the same slowdown issues of the original

 

[Fabian A.]

I think everything is the same. Some games like Warioware Inc. work beyond perfection. I've had the same save file for more than a year and I haven't had a single problem with this game, and Mario Kart works fine, but at some point in some race you feel it a little sluggish

 

[DinohScene]

Me Supercard SD has a Lattice chip.
As far as I know it's a real one.
Never had any problems with it.

 

[Shadow#1]

interesting read