Offline
Spain

I have Windows 7 Home Premium (or something).
Also have the Chinese-sold SMC cartridge with its linker.
And I installed both the official software and the original Reiner Ziegler's utility.

The official Smart Boy software shows Timeout every time, no matter what I do.
The Reiner Ziegler one starts erasing flash, then shows Timeout just before it reaches 95%.

I don't have a virtual machine and my XP desktop is broken.
Thanks!

Offline
matt's mind

has this cartridge ever been successfully flashed?

it sounds like a lifted pin on one of the ICs, the timeout errors aren't too uncommon.  check the MBC5 IC especially, they're prone to have lifted pins.

Offline
Spain

Thanks for the reply! I used to have XP and it workes just fine, maybe had to shake the cart a little for it to work. I sucessfully wrote Wario Land, Shantae and Zelda and they worked great.

Maybe it's something with the driver.

Offline
Melbourne, Australia
thedimitry wrote:

...had to shake the cart a little for it to work.

kitsch wrote:

it sounds like a lifted pin on one of the ICs

Offline
celsius wrote:
thedimitry wrote:

...had to shake the cart a little for it to work.

kitsch wrote:

it sounds like a lifted pin on one of the ICs

That pretty much rules out the chance of it being a lifted pin.

Smartboy used a really poor quality cartridge slot for their programmers. I bought a used one that was listed as broken, but I found that the cartridge just wasn't lining up with the slot. Apart from that, the PCB is somewhat "floating" in the enclosure, not held in with screws. So that may worsen the misalignment.