Hacking The R4 bricked my DS Lite (personal story)

[granville]

My old SuperCard miniSD Slot-2 card bricked my Mario Kart Edition Fat DS. Suffice to say that the flash card was stolen along with a white DS Lite not long after. I hope it bricked on whoever stole it, cause that was around the time that the SC DS One had been released as well

LMAO!

(not at your misfortune of course. At hoping it bricks the thief's DS!)

 

[granville]

So no matter WHAT card I get, it's possible to brick my DS (however unlikely)?

 

[001100]

I'm gonna ask a dumb question but I ask it only because it was not mentioned in start of
thread. Did you re-charge either new DS before hand?

 

[belzilep]

I'm gonna ask a dumb question but I ask it only because it was not mentioned in start of
thread. Did you re-charge either new DS before hand?

Funny, how I thought the same thing and said "Nah, he's not stupid!" No offense of course.

 

[granville]

I'm gonna ask a dumb question but I ask it only because it was not mentioned in start of
thread. Did you re-charge either new DS before hand?

Yes, but could that even POSSIBLY cause a short-out?

 

[belzilep]

That's not what he meant. In the first post, if you don't read carefully, you cannot know if there was indeed some power in the battery

 

[granville]

Assuming there wasn't, could that short out the DS? The sales rep told me there's about half a charge in new systems. Playing them immediately shouldn't hurt them. I played my first DS (the one I got 2 years back) without charging it up first. It worked fine.

 

[belzilep]

Assuming there wasn't, could that short out the DS? The sales rep told me there's about half a charge in new systems. Playing them immediately shouldn't hurt them. I played my first DS (the one I got 2 years back) without charging it up first. It worked fine.

there shouldn't be any problem with that.

 

[GameDragon]

I believe the same thing happened to me once. When inserted my R4 into my DS and powered it on, the light flickered for half-second and the DS went dead. It wouldn't turn on at all then. Of course, it was the microSD that bugged out on me. I tried the same microSD on my friend's DS, and his bricked too.

Fortunately, the DS were simple to fix. Just taking out the batteries and re-inserting them fixed both DS. I guess the SD card shorted the battery.

 

[granville]

I did the battery trick too but it didn't work. Bet your friend was about to kill you though!

 

[GameDragon]

I think so too. As soon as his bricked, he gave me that, "You'd better watch your back" look...

 

[go185]

If its the MicroSD card causing the damage, why dont you plug it into your computer (and see if it bricks your PC!) XD

 

[seedvt]

If its the MicroSD card causing the damage, why dont you plug it into your computer (and see if it bricks your PC!) XD

It would probably just short out your USB port, and potentially shorting out your motherboard.

Dunno if that classifies as "bricking".

 

[Another World]

i'm confused...

in some posts you say the ds works
in others you call your ds "bricked"
then again you said it plays everything else but won't use the r4.
then you said the r4 and msd work on your old dsl... so your saying its not the card and the msd then its the new dsls you have??

so which is... your ds no longer turns on at all without anything in the slots??

"It's when I combine them and put them into the DS together that the brick occurs."

 

[matrix121391]

I have an R4 as well for nearly half a year and it's worked fine for me. But this topic is starting to get me worried. Maybe I missed it as someone has already mentioned it, but I'm thinking maybe it was a firmware issue? Sorry if that was a dumb guess, but I want to resolve this problem and know the cause so I can ensure it won't happen to me nor my friends. You were trying to play GRID you say? I downloaded it today and it seem to work fine and mine is also a legit R4. Hm...

 

[Another World]

just chill... he contradicts himself with each statement. in 1 post his ds is bricked in others he is afraid to turn it on for fear of bricking it, still in others it bricks each time he turns it on, and in othes it doesn't turn on.

he seems to be throwing the term "brick" around to freely. it sounds more like his r4 is causing a short or that its not making contact. mine has made incorrect contact and causes the "health and safty" screen to freeze.... i never went around saying my r4 bricked my ds tho.

-another world.

 

[IHN02]

Sounds like an extremely isolated incident. Add in all the variables like the specific type of microSD card and the fact that it's an old R4 and this doesn't look like something for anyone to freak out over.

 

[LuOmeoga]

just chill... he contradicts himself with each statement. in 1 post his ds is bricked in others he is afraid to turn it on for fear of bricking it, still in others it bricks each time he turns it on, and in othes it doesn't turn on.

he seems to be throwing the term "brick" around to freely. it sounds more like his r4 is causing a short or that its not making contact. mine has made incorrect contact and causes the "health and safty" screen to freeze.... i never went around saying my r4 bricked my ds tho.

-another world.

See he got a DS the R4 bricked it. He returned that one, and tried it again. And again it got bricked. Then he got ANOTHER DS and he doesn't want to try the R4 again because of a potential bricking.

 

[granville]

just chill... he contradicts himself with each statement. in 1 post his ds is bricked in others he is afraid to turn it on for fear of bricking it, still in others it bricks each time he turns it on, and in othes it doesn't turn on.

he seems to be throwing the term "brick" around to freely. it sounds more like his r4 is causing a short or that its not making contact. mine has made incorrect contact and causes the "health and safty" screen to freeze.... i never went around saying my r4 bricked my ds tho.

-another world.

I'm not contradicting myself. The bricked DS' I am speaking of I was able to exchange for new ones. I now have a new one in-box that I haven't tried yet. I won't use my R4 out of fear that it will brick that one as well. Here's the outline of my circumstances:

1- played my DS fine August 8
2- the next day I loaded GRID on my microSD. It still worked fine RIGHT before I added to my microSD
3- after loading Grid, I attempted to boot my DS with the R4 and microSD. My DS wouldn't work at all. I tried removing the battery and all cards. No avail. Busted.
4- returned the DS to Gamestop and swapped it for another (I had returned it within the 30-days Gamestop warranty). At first I thought it was just that my DS had broken (a faulty model).
5- set the settings of the 2nd DS and it worked fine with a commercial game. Inserted my R4. Started up, but I forgot to put the microSD in. Put the microSD in and it killed this DS as well.
6- returned the 2nd DS to a different Gamestop so as not to arouse suspicion. Got my third DS. I now know it's my microSD card that did the damage. My 3rd DS is unopened and still in the box. I don't know what to do yet. I'm not going to use the R4 anymore out of fear of destroying another DS.

I know which R4 I have and it's confirmed to be a legit one. It's the first version. It's spring-mounted (I removed the spring) and was made and purchased by me BEFORE any clones were made. My microSD is a Kingston Japanese 2GB. It's never given me trouble before. My DS (and I mean all the ones I have tried) is a cobalt blue/black DS Lite. They were all brand new and worked perfectly BEFORE I put in my R4/microSD. I'm absolutely sure something went wrong when I wrote GRID onto it. It worked perfectly before. It's also worth mentioning that I updated my CHEAT.dat to Narin's update as well. There's nothing wrong with his dat or the GRID rom. It's got to be some sort of data corruption.

I don't believe it's a firmware issue. I've been using the latest real R4 firmware for months. It would have screwed up before now if it was a firmware issue. I'm about 90% sure it's corruption on my microSD.

And yes, I can plug the microSD into my computer. The R4 and microSD only brick things when put together. It's bizarre.

The big question is if I get a Cyclo or Supercard DS-1, will using those cards brick my DS?

 

[Sonicandtails]

Yeah, not going to lie, you bricked your DS because of fault of the hardware. There is no way at all that copying a ROM to a microSD and then putting it in could brick your DS. This could only happen if you put on R4 firmware that actually was a bricker, and even then, you said that the lights don't power on at all, and my experience with bricks (On purpose, had failsafe) shows that even when you brick the DS, power can still circulate through it. It sounds like your R4 is certainly shorting something, so just buy a new R4 and be amazed.