ToToTEK.COM

rippin snare · Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 144

Hi, I emailed this to Tomy over a week ago and have found no response. I am hoping he or something else here will read this and sort me out.

Thanks.

Hi Tomy,

I unfortunately have a problem with the SNES flash cart I recently purchased from you. Before any program and to your suggestion I trid tried the preflashed cart on my snes with the games that you put on before shipping. I noticed that the blue menu screen would only show up at best only a few times. Sometimes the system would start with a solid black screen. When the menu would come up the games would start but would quickly and randomly cut out to a solid black screen causing me to power off and on the system again. I thought perhaps it was a bad flash so took it upon myself to use the cart as it was intended and reflash it myself with the games of my choice. I started out small with just a couple small games and same thing! The games would cut out to a solid black screen after a minute or two of gaming. I thought I would try other games this time trying to fill up the full 64M of the cart. That is when I noticed another problem. The cart would not flash the full amount. About 80% in the flashing process it would come to a complete halt and never finish. This was always at the same memory address which is leading me to believe that perhaps the flash chip itself is damaged and not properly storing or executing information from it.

This is not my first order from you. I have another SNES flash cart with programmer from the past that I got from you. In the past I was sent V2 and this recent order was a V3 of the programmer. They do look different and thought this might have something to do with it. I tried using my older V2 programmer on the new seemingly defective cart and the same thing happened. I also used my older and working flash cart on the newer V3 programmer and it was fine. This leads me to believe the programmer is fine but infact the flash cart is defective. I used the latest 2.34 of superflash software but also tried 2.1 as it was mentioned it works when 2.3 doesn't due to different flash chips used but all that brought me was a black screen with garbled white lines scrolling and flickering on the screen. I am unsure what else to do but as you can see I was pretty thorough on my testing to eliminate all possibilities. The flash cart PCB was placed into a NTSC case immediately to eliminate any static or damage the cart itself. If you have any other ideas or suggestions please do share otherwise can I get an exchange for a working one please? From my last order I also ordered a parallel port and usb cable from your site. I take it these are fully compatible with the SNES flash kit correct?

I am terribly sorry for the hassles and for the very long email. I am trying to be as thorough as possible. I hope you fully understood all I had to write. If not feel free to write back. I hope something can be done about this. Have you seen or heard of this problem before?

All the best Tomy, I hope to hear from you soon.

Andrew

rippin snare · Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 144

this is Bullshit. Nearly 2 weeks of trying to email Tomy about this issue and not a single response. Multiple emails to different addresses, a forum posting and still nothing. What kind of business is this? He may be busy fine, I am busy too yet still take the time to spend 10 minutes of my life to write this. I really hope something can get worked out of this. I have ordered here in the past and yes it was dodgy trying to get a hold of Tomy but at least the product I ordered worked, this one doesn't. This is leaving a real sour taste in my mouth and I will not order from here again nor recommend anyone to order from here either. $120 canadian spent for nothing and not a single bit of recognition for my issue which is completely out of my hands and by no fault of my own.

Tomy · Site Admin Joined: 02 Aug 2005 Posts: 414

rippin snare :
Sorry for the late.

q: randomly cut out to a solid black screen
a: look like cic chip bad, do you order cic from us ? or you solder your own ?
q: 80% in the flashing process it would come to a complete halt and never finish.
a: Because you used our cables and you already tested your used super flash cart. look like new super flash cart is damaged.

I don't know why this happen, because it is tested before ship. Please mail me again for the cart replacement.

I'm not always stay in Hong Kong, when I'm in China. I can't connect internet. But I'll try my best to do the replacement. Thanks.

Tomy · Site Admin Joined: 02 Aug 2005 Posts: 414

Replacement parcel shipped on date : 3-MAR-2006 Hong Kong Time
Airmail Register Number : RA078483751HK

rippin snare · Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 144

thanks a bunch Tomy, I was just going to repond here notifying everyone who reads this thread that you did get back to me.

I have no clue how the CIC chip went bad, I ordered it from you and you put it in for me before shipping.

I am using your cables so I too have no clue what happened. I hope the second one is problem free.

I will let you know.

Thanks again

Andrew

rippin snare · Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 144

I recieved my second flash cart this week and games are no longer cutting out to a black screen a minute in which is a good sign. One thing I am wondering however that I hope someone can answer. If I put 3-4 games on the cart totalling 64M or close to it I always get a memory address halt at 007F8000 while programming causing the software to halt with no further write progress. The game at the time of course doesn't finish writing and it is corrupt. If I only put 2 games on the cart totally a full 64M it doesn't quite reach up to address 007F800 and completes without issues. I am guessing that because the 2 games totalling 64M completes without issue that the flash chip must be fine however, why does multiple games always halt the write process at that memory address? Very weird.

JohnDie · Joined: 12 Jul 2004 Posts: 28 Location: Germany

The SuperFlash has a total flash ROM capacity of 64 Mbits. The menu program uses 32Kbytes of this Flash ROM at location 7F8000-7FFFFF. So you cannot put two 32M games onto the flash cart without overwriting the last 32Kbyte of the second game with the menu program.
The order of the games is also important. The SuperFlash assigns ROM space in 16Mbit chunks. There is a total of 4 of those 16M chunks. You can put a maximum of 4 games onto the cartridge.
So if you want to put a 4M game, a 32M game and a 16M game onto the cartridge, you should write them in the order 32M+16M+4M onto the flash cartridge (32M+4M+16M is also possible) so the menu program won't overwrite a part of a game.

rippin snare · Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 144

hmmm, makes sense. So you mean the write error I get at times is due to the fact that I have the wrong sized games in the wrong order? I will take what you said into consideration on my next flash. I take it my card isn't defective when it quits writing at address 007F8000 if I have the games in the wrong order?

You want to know the odd thing? I currently have 2 x 32M games on my cart without issue, menu and all. Donkey Kong Country 2 and Final Fantasy 3.

One thing I noticed is my Donkey Kong Country 2 saves never keep. Could the reason be because I have 2 X 32M games on the cart or is this a known issue? Is there a solution? Any other games I should know about that won't retain saves?

Thanks.

JohnDie · Joined: 12 Jul 2004 Posts: 28 Location: Germany

It could be possible that the Software writes the games first and after that tries to write the menu program to 0x7F8000. This could lead to a halt or an error if the games did fill up the entire Flash ROM, as that area is than already written so the FlashROM state machine will report an error when trying to write to those addresses.

It depends on the game if the last 32K block is important. It could be just padded with unused data or it could be some graphics. If it happens to be program code you will certainly see a lockup sooner or later in the game.

If a game would check its ROM it would surely report an error.

Concerning the saves you have to know, that the Super Flash does not partition the SRAM. This means that you will overwrite your FF3 saves when saving in DKC2 and vice versa.
Does DKC2 keep its save if you only play this single game, then save, power off, wait some time, power on and start DKC2 again?

rippin snare · Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 144

Hi there, thanks again for the response.

I am well aware of the save partition. I know you can only have one at a time. The only game being played at the time is DK2 and no when i power off and back on the saves are gone.

JohnDie · Joined: 12 Jul 2004 Posts: 28 Location: Germany

Just to be sure: Does this only happen to DKC2? Or with other games, too?
Which variant of DKC2 are you using?

rippin snare · Joined: 09 Sep 2003 Posts: 144

Hi, in all honesty this cart purchase was for a friend so I am relaying what he tells me. FF3 is also on the cart so I have told him to save in that and get back to me on its happenings. He says DCK2 will not keep a save however. I believe it is the (U) version. As soon as I hear an answer back I will post here.

Again I thank you for your time and efforts in replying to me on this matter.

Tomy · Site Admin Joined: 02 Aug 2005 Posts: 414

If you put 2 x 32M game, sure the menu will overwrite the end of second rom. So, please don't use full 64M.