Hardware nand flash dump (3ds xl)

[gamesquest1]

Yeah, just try adding a bit of pressure to the case, and make sure it lines up perfect when closed

 

[MrTaco]

Yeah, that's the tricky part The case gets in the way of being able to see where things are going the closer it gets to closing. It *mostly* looks like things are lining up properly, but it's hard to be certain.

I seem to have shifted it slightly or something now though. Connecting CMD and DAT0 is now giving me the error that apparently means it's connected to DAT2 :/

Edit: Ok that's super weird. I got an extra set of hands to help and connected it all up without the backing on, so the pins were all definitely connected to the right places and CMD and DAT0 were connected but I still got that same F/F/7/0 error. I don't get it.

 

[MrTaco]

Hmm. Is it confirmed that FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF 00000007 00000000 *definitely* means CMD and DAT2 are connected? Because I just bridged the CMD and DAT0 with the tweezers (according to this image, which I've been working from) directly rather than through the adapaters and still got that error rather than the 200 error which you're apparently supposed to get from CMD+DAT0. So something strange seems to be going on.

 

[Msparky83]

In your pic it doesn't look like you've got your GND pogo soldered but I could be wrong. I believe it was said somewhere in the forums that it doesn't even matter if GND truly needs to be connected but again...I could be wrong. I would think not having it soldered would be dangerous.

Damn good job on your mod by the way.

 

[gamesquest1]

try wiring the SD adapter straight to the pogo pins, see if there is an issue with the ribbon cable,

 

[Msparky83]

Question ganesquest1, can you theorhetically use this mod without the battery even installed if using power from the ac adaptor...or is this dangerous?

 

[gamesquest1]

i think the 3ds has to be on to do it, the 3ds doesn't come on without the battery afaik

 

[Msparky83]

OK thanks, that was the answer I was looking for.

 

[Msparky83]

Hmm. Is it confirmed that FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF 00000007 00000000 *definitely* means CMD and DAT2 are connected? Because I just bridged the CMD and DAT0 with the tweezers (according to this image, which I've been working from) directly rather than through the adapaters and still got that error rather than the 200 error which you're apparently supposed to get from CMD+DAT0. So something strange seems to be going on.

Give this a try:

Put your pogo board on the motherboard and fixate it with tape and then close your case. See if that works.

*Sorry for the double post* I just got off work and its early in the morning here.

 

[gamesquest1]

one more thing you could try would to be cutting the rest of line either side of where you the pogo pins are connected on the board, i had problems once and moving the wires helped....so im not sure if you could be getting interference or something through the extra unused trace

 

[MrTaco]

In your pic it doesn't look like you've got your GND pogo soldered but I could be wrong. I believe it was said somewhere in the forums that it doesn't even matter if GND truly needs to be connected but again...I could be wrong. I would think not having it soldered would be dangerous.

Damn good job on your mod by the way.

Oh, a bit hard to see in that pic. In that gap between the first third wires I've cut off the end of the second wire and it's soldered onto that rail going across there, connecting to the pin.

And thanks!

try wiring the SD adapter straight to the pogo pins, see if there is an issue with the ribbon cable,

I've tested the full connection, there's no problems there. Current makes it all the way through from the SD adapter to the pins.


So I kinda went and tried resoldering the three vertical pins so they were a bit better aligned, since it looked like they weren't quite hitting the spots properly. Got them done really nice, exactly 2mm apart at the ends. Aaaaaaand seem to have buggered something up in the process, since now I can't make it trigger the CMD+DAT0 error at all. Oops

The annoying thing is that I propped up the board to have it sitting out from the case but perfectly flat, just so I could better see that the pins align with the pads. Still really hard to do but it looked like they were good. But now it acts like they aren't at all. Although there is that small lump of plastic on the back of the case (injection point I think?), which irritatingly sits right where one of the pins has to go so there's no drilling a hole in the board to avoid it. Dunno if it makes that much of a difference in angling of the board, but it's a possibility I guess.

 

[lambstone]

In your pic it doesn't look like you've got your GND pogo soldered but I could be wrong. I believe it was said somewhere in the forums that it doesn't even matter if GND truly needs to be connected but again...I could be wrong. I would think not having it soldered would be dangerous.

Damn good job on your mod by the way.

Yeah, great job but with any low level flashing, it being not soldered onto the board runs the risk of disconnection mid flash which should definitely perma-brick your 3ds unless you jtag it or something.

 

[gamesquest1]

Yeah, great job but with any low level flashing, it being not soldered onto the board runs the risk of disconnection mid flash which should definitely perma-brick your 3ds unless you jtag it or something.

i have knocked the SD adapter out during writing, just plugged it back in and restarted....no perma brick
....thats not to say you "should", just that its not likely to do much harm except interrupt your nand restore.......not sure i would recommend trying it whilst running the unlock command when unbricking or anything though (not sure it would do any harm, but idk so i wouldnt try, but the unlock command literally takes a second though so you would have to be pretty unlucky to DC during that 1 second command )

 

[Elusivo]

I kinda went and tried resoldering the three vertical pins so they were a bit better aligned, since it looked like they weren't quite hitting the spots properly. Got them done really nice, exactly 2mm apart at the ends. Aaaaaaand seem to have buggered something up in the process, since now I can't make it trigger the CMD+DAT0 error at all. Oops

The annoying thing is that I propped up the board to have it sitting out from the case but perfectly flat, just so I could better see that the pins align with the pads. Still really hard to do but it looked like they were good. But now it acts like they aren't at all. Although there is that small lump of plastic on the back of the case (injection point I think?), which irritatingly sits right where one of the pins has to go so there's no drilling a hole in the board to avoid it. Dunno if it makes that much of a difference in angling of the board, but it's a possibility I guess.

When i did mine i thought of making the cuts of the pcb attach to the bottom case protuberances, like Lego pieces, but I soon gave up as it would be a pain in the ass to get the position right, so I just decided to go with a piece of duct tape to hold it in place, that way can clearly see if the pogo pins are aligned with the 3ds pcb and when the shell is closed it will not move away, maybe that's the problem ur having...? I didn't have any problem with the plastic lump tho, didn't even notice if there was one there, everytime I tried to read the nand, windows never failed once to detect and read correctly.

I guess maybe u can measure the resistance or the voltage drop between the 4 3ds pcb pads and then check with the case closed on the sdcard to see if u get the same values

 

[Frozen_Fish]

From what I understand it's possible to downgrade a 3DS as long as you have a backup of it's NAND from that firmware? So if I was to perform this mod, back up my NAND at it's current fw version (6.3.0-12E), I could then update to play newer 7.x games and if an exploit for 6.x is ever discovered I could flash back my backup and take advantage of it? Is this correct?

 

[gamesquest1]

From what I understand it's possible to downgrade a 3DS as long as you have a backup of it's NAND from that firmware? So if I was to perform this mod, back up my NAND at it's current fw version (6.3.0-12E), I could then update to play newer 7.x games and if an exploit for 6.x is ever discovered I could flash back my backup and take advantage of it? Is this correct?

yeah

 

[Frozen_Fish]

yeah

Awesome, thanks for the clarification.

 

[MrTaco]

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. I've gone and snapped the ground wire on the ribbon cable where it joins to the board.

Shit.

 

[Avalynn]

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. I've gone and snapped the ground wire on the ribbon cable where it joins to the board.

Shit.

Ouch, well guess you'll need a new cable and by the looks of it it's a flat flex cable? You could try shortening all the lines up till where it snapped and work from there. Or you might have to come up with another solution. I like flat flex cables for relatively stationary connections but moving them around a lot it sucks, specially if it get twisted . Best of luck!

 

[MrTaco]

Not just yet!

I seem to have managed to bridge the connection with 3mm of wire offcut from the SD adapter

Not sure how well its soldered, but it's coming up ok on the multimeter. Seems like it should be stronger than the last, and more resistant to breakage...