I bought 2 DS lights for my twins on eBay for their birthday recently and they both came with a standard DS (2GB fat) R4 card. I bought 2 new SDHC cards with the lastest Moonsh on them and games ready to play at the local market. One DS will play both the old (DS) and new (DS SDHC) cards but the other will only play the old card (and sometimes take a few tries to load even that one. I even bought an Acekard 2i (supposed to work for both DS light and DSis) and it too will only work in one sons DS and not the other. I told the seller of the one that will only read a DS standard card (faulty one) that his device must be faulty but he states in it a software problem on the new cards (both of them?). I believe that with DS lights there is no way to update the firmware (is this true) so I assume the firmware must be standard for all of these? Could this be the problem (i.e. ones firmware can only read Fat 16 but the others can read Fat 32 also)? Any help would be very appreciated.
Forgot to mention I also did the following tests:- Lets assume the DS standard card (NDSL/NDS) that came with the Faulty DS is called Card A and the one that came with the other DS console is Card B and the 2GB Memory cards that came (preloaded with moonsh and games) with them are called Mem A and B. I placed Mem A in Card A in the Faulty DS Console and it works fine. I placed Mem B in Card A in the Faulty DS Console and it works fine. I placed Mem A in Card B in the Faulty DS Console and it will not load the card as all (states no card in slot). I placed Mem B in Card B in the Faulty DS Console and it will not load the card as all (states no card in slot). All combinations work in the good console... including the Acekard (which did not load in the faulty one). i.e. the only card recognised by this faulty console is the one it came with (but it will read other 2GB mem cards if used in this card.
Hi GBX_Lee, Card B can not be broken because All combinations work in the good console. This is why I believe the problem is with the console and not the card... I just can find not any other reference online of a card working only in one console and no other card (including the exactly same type/brand of card) not working in the same console even with the same Memory Card! It make no sense to me. I thought it may be the contacts on the cards but they look exactly the same (and are both brand new)!
Have you tried the paper shim trick - some Ds's do not have tight connectors and as Flashcarts are thinner than a standard cart means that they do not work ( or work int.) Put a piece of folded paper or thin card between the back of the cart and the DS slot (pushing the contacts together)
Hi Kittymat. I had tried this initially and after your post decided to try a variation on this (as I noted the card that worked was very slightly banana shaped i.e. bent in the middle). I gently but firmly bent the other standard R4 card and it too started to work in the 'faulty' DS console. Instead of a paper shim as wide as the whole card (which I had tried initially and failed with) I tried one that was only about 5 cm thick and folded 3 notepaper pages thick shoved in the very middle of the back of the DS Card to make it bend and it worked for the Acekard! It seems the middle contacts must be higher than the outer ones enough to cause this problem. I may try carefully bending the contacts (using a jewellers screwdriver) out more to see if I can remove the need for the Shim. Thanks everyone! Not an elegant solution but I am sure my boy will not mind!
Glad it worked. For the nice clean solution I open the flashcart and use electrical tape on the back of the pcb to push the board and contacts together. Usually 2 or 3 layers of tape is more than enough. Put the flashcart back together and it looks the same as ever but works!
I used a piece of wire which I bent to be able to hook behind the pins inside the console slot, then for those that were too low I gently teased them up so that now the contact with all the cards is perfect. You don't need to fix them all to do this just a few near the middle. Has been working ever since.
