Offline
hiding under your bed

Alright, I got a EMS USB cart from Nonfinite a few months back, it wouldn't save at all (even after getting a new battery) so I got it replaced.
Now for the past few months I've been having other problems with it.
I've asked on 8BC multiple times, and either got temporary fixes, or had the thread turned into members talking about how hot one of their Edward avatars was.

I'm pretty sure there isn't anything seriously wrong with the cart itself, as I've seen others with these problems before, and it usually ends with "OH NVM I FIGURED IT OUT MYSELF" or "I EMAILED WHATS-HIS-NAME AND HE SHOWED ME HOW TO FIX IT"
of course, nobody ever seems to publicly explain what was wrong and how it got fixed, so I may be wrong.

Anyway, here's my problems:

1. the cart only boots up to page 2.
Powercycling usually doesn’t do anything.
SOMETIMES, if I’m lucky, it’ll boot to page 1 the first time I turn it on,
or if I just keep trying to powercycle it will eventually work (but that takes like 15 minutes to finally get it to work).
Then when I turn it off and come back to it later, it boots to page 2.

I’ve tried formatting the card, saving LSDJ to page one only, page two only, saving other roms to page one/two only, tried saving stuff to both at the same time, It still keeps booting to page 2.

I’ve temporarily fixed this by saving the LSDJ rom to both pages, but I’d prefer to have LSDJ on one page, and other programs on the other.

2. For whatever reason, I don’t have the option to turn off the Energy Save feature in LSDJ any more.
I did about a month ago, and after trying to put roms on page one/two etc. as explained in problem 1, It doesn’t let me turn it off.
The space where it usually has “OFF/AUTO/FULL” is blank.
I’ve tried formatting the cart and putting lsdj back on it, and older saves from before this happened, and it’s still the same.
I can’t turn it off.


So would anyone over here happen to know how I can fix this?

Offline
Canada

For the energy save one, press hold A and left on the D-pad until it cycles back into the right range of values.

Offline
hiding under your bed

Ah, I kept trying to go left or right to see if it would do anything, but I hadn't though to just hold down left.
Thanks!

I'm still trying to figure out why I can't get to page 1, and this is pretty much the most helpful anyone elsewhere has been so far:

offer sacrifice to thunder lord quetzalcoatø

neutral

Last edited by PianoGameboy (Oct 16, 2010 7:35 pm)

Offline
Minneapolis

The page 1 issue is fairly well known by now. Page issues could indicate a faulty capacitor on the cartridge board and/or weak batteries in your Gameboy. The cartridge uses a capacitor to "sense" if the GB's power has been cycled quickly or not. If this capacitor is not holding a proper charge or has become shorted it's possible that the page changing circuit will freak out. This has been reported so much that I suspect there may have been a bad batch of capacitors that went through at EMS. I have never been in possession of a misbehaved cartridge yet so I cannot confirm this explanation, but it's the best one I have been cable to come up with. The only other one I can think of is that the cap isn't draining properly (drain load not looked up properly etc) but again, I haven't had to test this because mine has always worked. You could see if Nonfinite will cover replacement, wait until someone develops a fix, or keep using it with LSDJ on both banks.

However, there is one thing you should know: the cartridge will not, even when it's working properly, cycle reliably between bank 1 and bank 2 just by flicking the power switch back and forth. To get from bank 1 to bank 2 you are supposed to flick it off and then on again, but to get back to bank 1 without corruption you need to power the GB off for long enough to reset that capacitor "sense" circuit. For most working carts this delay is only a couple of seconds, but if yours is working improperly you might want to try longer.

Last edited by arfink (Oct 16, 2010 9:24 pm)

Offline
hiding under your bed

Ah, that actually makes sense now, as most of the time I can only get page 1 to load when using one of my GBAs or Gameboy Pockets, and it almost never works on my two original Gameboys, which have quite a bit of wear, including pretty loose battery compartments.
(sometimes I have to take the batteries out and put them back in to get it to come on)

I may have to experiment with this a little more, maybe see if I can get a original Gameboy in better condition or a AC adapter for mine and see if that works any better.
BUT it doesn't ever seem to load page one if I'm using my Super Gameboy, so maybe it is a bad capacitor, I don't know.
I guess I'll figure it out soon.

Thanks a bunch, I've been trying to get an explanation for this for quite a while. ^_^


EDIT: Yep, it seems it's the original Gameboys that are the problem.
I guess I'll be getting a AC adapter or some "new" Gameboys sometime soon.
Thanks again!

Last edited by PianoGameboy (Oct 17, 2010 12:26 am)

Offline
Minneapolis

Yeah, or ask someone to "re-cap" your old GBs to put some new life into the worn power supply. I suspect more and more people will be looking to do this as even the nearly ubiquitous gameboy DMG continues to become harder to find in working order. big_smile Good luck!

Offline
Massachusetts

Really great information, guys. I'd be hard pressed to find this type of information on 8bc nowadays.

But I have one simple related question I'd like to ask without intentionally trying to steer this thread off-topic.

Like most of you, I write using a number of DMGs, all of which are probably closing in on a few too many years. I find it a little unsettling that this is a problem with the EMS carts, as I don't have the highest budget in the world for music, these just seem like the logical decision, money wise.

Do the Bleepbloop carts feature the same problem with the DMGs old caps? If they don't, I might have to save my money when I move over to LSDJ in a few weeks. Thanks, again, sorry for the hijack.

Offline
Minneapolis

The problem isn't old caps in the DMGs making the EMS carts freak out- AFAIK it's in the cart itself. Bad caps in the DMG does things like make the power supply less efficient and more noisy and degrade the sound quality. Bleepbloop carts don't have a bankswitching thing like the 64m EMS carts do, so they won't behave like this, however you may wind up kicking yourself if you buy a bleepbloop cart. There have been serious supply issues with bleepbloop carts, and Nonfinite has so many customers that people sometimes slip through the cracks. So you could wind up paying and waiting for months. Also, for me at least, the bleepbloop carts have a tarnished name, having been developed by stealing someone else's work. However, it's your decision, and alot of people are quite happy with the new redesigned non-GPL-violating bleepbloop carts.

If you do decide to buy an EMS cart, buy it from Kitsch. He ships faster and he's got good customer service. (Shameless plug, I know. Get over it. big_smile )

Offline
Sweeeeeeden
arfink wrote:

However, it's your decision, and alot of people are quite happy with the new redesigned non-GPL-violating bleepbloop carts.

As far as I'm aware, the microcontroller firmware is still the same on the new carts.

Offline
Minneapolis

Oh lovely. Didn't know he was still violating GPL. Good to know.

Offline
Massachusetts
arfink wrote:

The problem isn't old caps in the DMGs making the EMS carts freak out- AFAIK it's in the cart itself.

So there's a chance I could get an EMS cart that wouldn't be affected by this issue? As far as being designed in a dishonest fashion, is there any website I can check out the details on? Or maybe I could get a PM from someone in the know?

Offline
Minneapolis

nitro2k01 can give you all the details on the bleepbloop GPL violation fiasco, so give him a PM. There was tons of info on the 8bc forums at one time, but Jose nuked it to protect himself. As for the chances of you getting a normal EMS cart I'd say it's fairly high. And if it's not working, Kitsch will almost certainly accept a return and either replace or refund. He's awesome like that.

EDIT: we try to avoid bringing the Jose-bashing into CM.O since alot of people here got booted/offended by Jose. So yeah, PMs will be good since most people here have heard the story too many times.

Last edited by arfink (Oct 18, 2010 4:12 pm)

Offline
Massachusetts

Yeah, that's completely understandable. I did just that.

Again, thanks for the help guys. Reminds me of when I was on 8bc like three years ago. big_smile

Offline
matt's mind

e-mail me if you don't get a reply on replacing this another way.  i'm generally able to help out in some fashion.  If not directly, then hopefully via EMS (through us, as they tend to cater to us a little bit more).

regarding your powercycling issue.....  and the issue with the cart....  and because i enjoy doing research on this stuff because it affects me.....

1) on the back of the cartridge, there should be a numerical code stamped in the plastic.  what is this code?
2) have you tried taking the cart out of the gameboy, waiting, then trying to get to menu 1?  sometimes that helps if the cart is getting hung-up in menu 2. 
3) lastly, the 1-2 second wait time EMS mentions (in one of their manuals at least) is a joke....  its more like 10-15 seconds on most carts.  a longer wait, but who cares, since you get two menus tongue  (provided they work unlike your cart apparently).




actually, i should maybe say.........  if people need cart help ask (PM or whatnot).  i answer e-mails all the freakin' time from people who aren't customers of ours and can't get help, so its something i really don't mind doing.... unless it becomes a burden which it isn't right now at all. 

that goes for you, mountainhead, as well as anyone else in a shit-storm with a cart.  from us, or not.

Offline
Massachusetts

Argh, I hoped I wouldn't have to revive this thread, but I'm getting the same (well, similar) problem.

My cart I just bought from Kitsch works fine (great service as well, the shameless plugs are for a good reason) on my DMGs but I can't for the life of me get it to work with my GBA SP and my CGB. Always on page 2 like the OP has said. I'm a little disappointed but only with EMS.

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SLC, UT

Have you tried just leaving it alone for 10-15 minutes? That's how I get mine to page one. Honestly the two page thing is kind of a gimmick. I'd recommend just putting everything on the same page if possible. Sure it would reduce it to 32MB but you're still getting a usb cart so it's still good imho.

Also, about the sp problem, there is a kid on the gamboycarts.com review page that had that problem but he solved it by putting a little tack of hot glue on the cart, his english is horrible but it sounds like he put it right on the middle post thing where the screw goes in. Does that make sense? And maybe I'm just deciphering his words wrong so have a look for yourself: http://www.gameboycarts.com/2009/12/ems … ard-64-mb/