Weird NES cart issue

[nasune]

It's late so I can't tell for sure, but it looks it:
https://www.nesdev.org/wiki/AxROM

Yep, it's an AMROM board, which the page does say has bus conflicts so maybe that's the issue? Granted even if that's the case I have no clue how to fix that so it won't help much (although it would mean that I'll know what the cause is at least).

 

[tech3475]

Yep, it's an AMROM board, which the page does say has bus conflicts so maybe that's the issue? Granted even if that's the case I have no clue how to fix that so it won't help much (although it would mean that I'll know what the cause is at least).

That shouldn't be an issue as the devs should have dealt with it.

I just linked to it as it had info on the IC you mentioned.

 

[gorgyrip]

Even if you tried different consoles, there are many revisions of the cpu/ppu.
I usually have issues with mmc1 games.
You could try to write the rom to a flash ic and see if that works. this is a cheap game, you could buy another one and swap de roms and see if anything changes.
myavbe it's something like on megadrive:

 

[hippy dave]

Even if you tried different consoles, there are many revisions of the cpu/ppu.

Not too many for the western NES, just a couple of main ones each for PAL and NTSC. The big list of weird variants is mostly from the Famicom.

 

[nasune]

That shouldn't be an issue as the devs should have dealt with it.

I just linked to it as it had info on the IC you mentioned.

Oh I agree that the devs have probably dealt with it (especially as I know that this game did work at my grandmother's house way back when), but I wonder if the clone console messes with that somehow. I'd probably have to dig out my original NES to see which is something I did not want to have to do (the console should work fine, its just stored away in an annoying location to get to).
That said it is weird that the flashcart does work with the console but to be honest, I have no clue how those deal with the mappers.

Even if you tried different consoles, there are many revisions of the cpu/ppu.
I usually have issues with mmc1 games.
You could try to write the rom to a flash ic and see if that works. this is a cheap game, you could buy another one and swap de roms and see if anything changes.

Yeah like I said above maybe it's the clone console? As for flashing a new ROM, I wanted to do so, and even put in a socket, but the pinout is weird.

 

[tech3475]

Oh I agree that the devs have probably dealt with it (especially as I know that this game did work at my grandmother's house way back when), but I wonder if the clone console messes with that somehow. I'd probably have to dig out my original NES to see which is something I did not want to have to do (the console should work fine, its just stored away in an annoying location to get to).
That said it is weird that the flashcart does work with the console but to be honest, I have no clue how those deal with the mappers.

This is why I'm wondering at this point if it's the RAM chip, either by being faulty or some difference making it incompatible.

I'd presume any flash cart has to emulate the RAM chip and how it behaves, correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[nasune]

This is why I'm wondering at this point if it's the RAM chip, either by being faulty or some difference making it incompatible.

I'd presume any flash cart has to emulate the RAM chip and how it behaves, correct me if I'm wrong.

So faulty is very unlikely at this point since I've replaced it with another chip from that board (again the board was working but extensive trace damage made it unable to read the cartridges), and I do think it's very unlikely that all three chips were suddenly faulty (plus diode testing on the original chip does make me think that's fine too, all address/data lines having the same readings etc.). Incompatibility might still be a thing though (from what I can make out on the data sheets they share the same pinout and logic, but who knows), but if that's the case it'll have to wait until I have another chip.
One thing I will probably try sometimes the next weekend is wiring in an EPROM to see if it works with that.
As for the flashcarts, that goes way over my head. No clue how they work with the RAM chips.

 

[gorgyrip]

Some programmers have sram and logic testing.

 

[nasune]

Some programmers have sram and logic testing.

Yep mine can test logic chips, that's why I know that the 161 is fine. It won't do ram though. That said I've tried testing the RAM using a cart dumper and that one tells me that the RAM size is as expected, so that looks like its fine so far. I'm just going to try wiring in an EPROM to see if that works.

 

[nasune]

So, long overdue update (long story short, got the flu, managed to somehow injure first my left, and then my right foot, got a pretty severe headcold giving me a splitting headache for about a week, and as of a couple of days ago twisted my ankle pretty badly), wiring in a new EPROM did nothing (I mean that literally, it grey screened). I checked the wiring multiple times but nothing, and putting the original ROM back in gave the earlier result. I'm just gonna assume it's a weird clone thing until I get around to grabbing my original NES (which will not be anytime soon I think).

PS. I might be rambling a bit here, my ankle makes sure I'm pretty sleep deprived at this point (and somehow this is still a better year than 2025 so far).