Hacking R4 SDHC Troubleshooting

[hairypottah]

Greetings Scene,

I bought my two five-year olds some used DS Lites and a couple of R4i 1.4 SDHC, and some 4gb micro sd cards for Christmas. I've been able to get one working flawlessly, but I keep have problems with the other, but it's not the R4i, it's the SD card.

Allow me to explain. The first problem was the white screen on game load, followed by a corrupted SD card. In every attempt, I have swapped DSes, R4is and SD cards and the problem followed the SD card. I finally replaced the SD card and bought two other 4gb micro SDs. Now I've got extra long (2+ min) load times on most games in both TT menu and R4 with 1.14b firmware. Once again, the problem follows the sd card, regardless of DS or R4, so it's very frustrating.

Now, here's what I've done:

1. Formatted with Panasonic SD card formatting tool
2. Updated both infolib and savlib on the latest official r4 firmware 1.14b
3. tried yet another 4gb micro SD card with the same steps

I have not yet tried to load the YSmenu, ( I have to actually let my kids play with them every once in awhile ) but that's my next step. I've heard that there are problems with 4gb cards as opposed to 2gb cards and that some games just take awhile to load, but the most frustrating part is that one combination of R4i, DS and SD card works perfectly, and I consistently have problems with the other. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Again, through swapping and troubleshooting, each R4 and DS will work with one of the SD cards, but one always gives me problems and I've tried three cards. I'm beginning to think I got lucky with the other SD card and that if I format it or mess with it, I might start getting the same problem. So thanks again for any help. BTW I hope it's not some noob mistake, I've been hacking since before my GBflash cart and LPT reader / writer for the original gameboy!

 

[hairypottah]

I guess my question is a stumper for more than just myself. Still no takers? *bump*

BTW, I realize that it's a clone R4. I didn't realize that clones where such a problem until I started doing research, but I guess there's no one in the scene who's going to claim copy write infringement on what are basically hacking tools. Still, the cards seem to work great.

 

[hundshamer]

Is there not a web address on the card?

 

[hairypottah]

Yeah it's the R4i-SDHC at www.R4i-SDHC.com.

 

[twiztidsinz]

You answered your own question before anyone had a chance to read it.....

it's not the R4i, it's the SD card.

To elaborate on that, all SD (Secure Digital) cards have a class which is their minimum Write speed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digita...d_Class_Ratings

• Class 2: 2 MByte/s - 13x
• Class 4: 4 MByte/s - 26x
• Class 6: 6 MByte/s - 40x

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an equivalent for minimum Read speeds.
However, two things that seem to play a role in overall speed of cards are brand and where it was manufactured. Many cards made in Taiwan seem to have slower read speeds causing extra delays in loading ROMs. Also, Kingston has been shown to have lower speeds as well, though weather that is due to the brand or manufacturing location isn't really well known.
Conversely, brands like SanDisk and PNY have had good results and cards manufactured in Japan.
Also, be weary of counterfeit cards, obviously, as they tend to be lower quality.

 

[hairypottah]

Thanks for the reply. Conversely, all of my sd cards are Kingston, so I guess it's as I expected, I got lucky with the one that works well. Thanks again.

 

[DeeBozman]

You answered your own question before anyone had a chance to read it.....

it's not the R4i, it's the SD card.

To elaborate on that, all SD (Secure Digital) cards have a class which is their minimum Write speed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digita...d_Class_Ratings

• Class 2: 2 MByte/s - 13x
• Class 4: 4 MByte/s - 26x
• Class 6: 6 MByte/s - 40x

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an equivalent for minimum Read speeds.
However, two things that seem to play a role in overall speed of cards are brand and where it was manufactured. Many cards made in Taiwan seem to have slower read speeds causing extra delays in loading ROMs. Also, Kingston has been shown to have lower speeds as well, though weather that is due to the brand or manufacturing location isn't really well known.
Conversely, brands like SanDisk and PNY have had good results and cards manufactured in Japan.
Also, be weary of counterfeit cards, obviously, as they tend to be lower quality.