Hacking My Gateway cannot load the game and says: "The game card has been removed."

[MrEl]

I have to restate my title. it says:

"The Game Card was removed.

Press the HOME Button to
return to the HOME Menu"

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Last time I played SMT4 with my Gateway about six months ago (with GW 2.0) and was trying to play it again today (with Omega 2.2). Somehow, my 3DS says, "The game card has been removed," and don't load the game (and shut down the system). When I try it again, the system says my save is corrupted and delete my saves. Can anyone think of any cause of this (and hopefully a solution as well)?

My SMT4 is in 3DS extention, not 3DZ, and I haven't modified anything with this rom. By the way, this rom was perfectly playable with GW 2.0 six months ago.

Now I have to go though 20+ hours again...

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After it deleted my save file, I put my savefile (which I backed up before updating to Omega) in SD Card again and tried again.

Now I'm stuck with the message above and can't proceed further.

Is this the contact issue that everyone was talking about, which I can possibly solve by jamming paper??

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I just realized that it is happening to all of my roms, not just SMT4....
It was Okay, but suddenly it is happening today!!!

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Diagnostic Test shows:

FPGA TEST OK!
SPI TEST FAIL
SPI READ TEST FAIL
SD TEST EXFAT

How can I fix these??

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I found out those card2 games (nand) are working. I can run Animal Crossing and Pokemon... but not other games.

 

[Dewdrops]

You tried reinstalling everything from scratch yet?
Before that, try and save down the savs from the 3DS SD card.

 

[MrEl]

You tried reinstalling everything from scratch yet?
Before that, try and save down the savs from the 3DS SD card.

I did. I even formatted and backed up Nand...

 

[Dewdrops]

I found this. Might be related to your problem.

http://gbatemp.net/threads/gateway-3ds-game-card-removed-findings-and-possible-solution.354434/

Something about the GW card connectors having a defect.

Sorry, no idea about how to fix this.

 

[MrEl]

I found this. Might be related to your problem.

http://gbatemp.net/threads/gateway-3ds-game-card-removed-findings-and-possible-solution.354434/

Something about the GW card connectors having a defect.

Sorry, no idea about how to fix this.

I think my Gateway is a faulty one.

 

[gamesquest1]

Have you ran diagnostics, See if your getting spi fails

 

[MrEl]

Have you ran diagnostics, See if your getting spi fails

Yes, I'm getting fails for both SPIs as you can see in my original post.

 

[gamesquest1]

sorry missed that bit XD
well have a look here, its not guarenteed, but i have done it on 2 cards, one now works fine the other is still a bit hit n miss
http://gbatemp.net/threads/gateway-3ds-spi-fail-quick-fix.365436/

 

[MrEl]

sorry missed that bit XD
well have a look here, its not guarenteed, but i have done it on 2 cards, one now works fine the other is still a bit hit n miss
http://gbatemp.net/threads/gateway-3ds-spi-fail-quick-fix.365436/

I will let you know after trying it.
By the way, why did my Gateway suddenly stop working? I mean, I would say it's faulty if it didn't work from the beginning, but it just stopped working since today.

 

[gamesquest1]

tbh i'm not sure why it would happen, probably either bad soldering or a bad spi chip, hope the fix works for you

 

[MrEl]

I haven't tested your method yet.

However, I tested with GW testing rom according to http://www.gateway-3ds.com//page/2/

I get red-yellow-teal-blue lights.
Can anyone interpret this for me?

Sorry.. I am not a techie

 

[gamesquest1]

afaik the test rom was only for running diagnostics in 1.2, i don't believe it works for 2.2, diagnostics test does the same thing....except the colour of the LED is no longer used as the fault indicator its on screen instead

 

[MrEl]

I didn't do as exactly as you did in that video but fixed this issue. Thank you.
Can I possibly do some soldering or other stuffs to make it look as good as the new one? You know, this card is now fat and ugly with tapes

 

[gamesquest1]

I didn't do as exactly as you did in that video but fixed this issue. Thank you.
Can I possibly do some soldering or other stuffs to make it look as good as the new one? You know, this card is now fat and ugly with tapes

well to really get access to the SPI ship you need to snap/cut some of the plastic away on the card, i would say just leave it as it is for now, as you seen in my video i started messing about and buggered it up again, once you have it in its "sweet spot" as long as its all working good, you don't really need to take it out of the 3DS, you can just stick to popping the micro SD card out for putting new games on