Flashcart Kernel Upgrade issue

[cystbear]

Base: I have R4i Ultra flashcart (HW version 81). There is rumor this flashcart clone of official Acekard 2i.
I am trying to upgrade Kernel via my New 3DS XL.



First attempt: I have used Decrypt9WIP (Decrypt9WIP all-in-one 20170607) as a flasher and Kernel from this 3ds.hacks.guide page archive R4i_Ultra-Flashrom.zip.
Archive contains:

ak2i_flash.bin (md5: 4589eb768decdb60d47ad889d3708c40)

ak2i_rom_0x4000.bin (md5: 93764051aa1f225a5e166cde3800e564)

During flashing it stuck on 12%





Second attempt: I have used ntrboot_flasher (v0.5.0) as a flasher and same Kernel.

Stuck as well but on 25%


ntrboot_flasher writes some logs

in the log (in DEBUG mode) after some writes operations, only waitFlashBusy entries were added to log.

[DEBUG]: AK2i: write(0x00003ffc) = 0x00
[DEBUG]: AK2i: waitFlashBusy = 0x00000000
[DEBUG]: AK2i: write(0x00003ffd) = 0x00
[DEBUG]: AK2i: waitFlashBusy = 0x00000000
[DEBUG]: AK2i: write(0x00003ffe) = 0x00
[DEBUG]: AK2i: waitFlashBusy = 0x00000000
[DEBUG]: AK2i: write(0x00003fff) = 0x00
[DEBUG]: AK2i: waitFlashBusy = 0x00000000
[DEBUG]: AK2i: write(0x00004000) = 0x10
[DEBUG]: AK2i: waitFlashBusy = 0x0b0b0b0b
[DEBUG]: AK2i: waitFlashBusy = 0x0d0b0b0b
[DEBUG]: AK2i: waitFlashBusy = 0x0b0b0b0b
[DEBUG]: AK2i: waitFlashBusy = 0x0b0b0b0d
[DEBUG]: AK2i: waitFlashBusy = 0x0d0b0b0b
[DEBUG]: AK2i: waitFlashBusy = 0x0b0b0b0b
[DEBUG]: AK2i: waitFlashBusy = 0x0b0b0b0d
[DEBUG]: AK2i: waitFlashBusy = 0x0b0b0b0b
[DEBUG]: AK2i: waitFlashBusy = 0x0b0b0d0b

Any Ideas?


PS Also I have tried flash original Acekard 2i kernel -- same result.

Post automatically merged: Feb 25, 2023

Strange stuff, I have disassembled cart itself and found next:


Chip spec is AM29LV160DT

https://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pdf/55545/AMD/AM29LV160DT-70EI.html

according datasheet chip has 2MB of storage, HOW 16MB kernel can fit it?
Despite HW version 81, tried to flash dump from HW44 which has smaller footprint 2MB. Same result flashing stuck on the same percents 12% for Decrypt9WIP and 25% for ntrboot_flasher. For ntrboot_flasher tried different versions of it.

No luck.

 

[MushGuy]

I am not alone in this one. I also tried to do the same with the R4i Ultra that I just got, and still getting stuck at 12% and 25% respectively. It looks like there's compatibility problem with certain Acekard chips, and the frustrating part is that ntrboot_flasher stopped getting updated since 2017. A flashcart unbricking app built off of ntrboot_flasher with improved compatibility with Acekards could come really handy with this kind of issues.

Edit: Perhaps you could try posting on the 3DS forum as well, as this is more of a problem regarding 3DS homebrew.