32mb Flash Card - Replacement

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pinktofu
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32mb Flash Card - Replacement

Post by pinktofu » Mon Jul 08, 2013 9:27 pm

Thank you in advance for any and all information on this topic.

I have a 32mb flash card from my 8th mix ddr that has two bad sectors, so I am looking to find a suitable replacement. I know I can source on from Channelbeat.com but I am not interested in spending $345 for it. On eBay there are 32mb ATA PCMCIA cards (sandisk) that I assume in theory should work. Has anyone ever tried a replacement that isn't a Fujitsu/Konami (rebranded) 32mb flash card? Also, has anyone tried using a larger size card? Say, 256mb?

Thanks!

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MonMotha
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Re: 32mb Flash Card - Replacement

Post by MonMotha » Mon Jul 08, 2013 10:17 pm

If you haven't already tried it, hit the "Initialize Card" option in the operator (test) menu. This will erase and re-write the entire flash card from the installation data. This process takes about 5 minutes or so.

If you find you do need a replacement, note that it has to be a linear flash card, and it must use Fujitsu flash. ATA type cards, including virtually all CF cards in adapters, will not work. Linear flash cards using Intel flash do not work. Linear flash cards using AMD flash can be made to work with a lot of hackery (the game can read it but can't write it, so you have to write it via other means). Note that the flash device vendor is very rarely specified (the cards themselves are branded by their makers, not by the vendor of the flash chips contained therein).

Everything you find is going to be used or NOS. This stuff hasn't been made for about a decade.

There's a couple non-Konami-branded cards that have been found to work by various people:

M-Systems 32MB PCMCIA Card
FlashLite 100
LDPC-FD-32-V

32MB Pretec Linear PCMCIA Flash Card
PN# F13032W

I haven't tested these. All mine are first party. I'm not aware of any larger linear cards. All the larger cards I've seen are ATA.
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Re: 32mb Flash Card - Replacement

Post by pinktofu » Mon Jul 08, 2013 10:43 pm

Yeah the first thing I did was re-write the flash card. I am just researching ahead of time, the machine works fine, but I know that because it still shows those two bad sections, it will need to be replaced eventually.

Well based on that information, that sure makes it difficult to find a replacement, guess that's the name of the game when working with this old of equipment. Thank you so much, you are very knowledgeable.

I'll have to post of photos of my machines once I get them going. My new monitor got in today, going to get it installed this week.

Thanks!!

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Re: 32mb Flash Card - Replacement

Post by Merk » Tue Jul 09, 2013 7:28 am

From personal experience I can confirm that the 32MB Pretec Linear PCMCIA Flash card works with DDR. I got mine for about $60 on eBay but you can likely get it for less elsewhere - I did just do a cursory search for one on eBay however but I could not find one so you might have trouble getting your hands on one.
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Re: 32mb Flash Card - Replacement

Post by MonMotha » Tue Jul 09, 2013 1:56 pm

How do you know it's bad? I presume it's failing a startup check, but which ones? Many of the common bootlegs fail some of the startup checks normally due to how they were hacked up, though it's usually in the onboard flash, not the card.
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Re: 32mb Flash Card - Replacement

Post by Merk » Wed Jul 10, 2013 12:45 pm

Better yet, if you can provide the error code or a picture of the monitor when the game fails to boot that may help us (MonMotha) narrow down what the exact issue could be.

One thing to check with the flash card is to make sure it's not write protected. Oddly enough I ran into a weird situation where I installed 6th mix, took the flash card out, inadvertently flipped the write-protect tab on my card, put the card back in, and booted up 6th mix -- The game actually ran fine up until the song select screen, every slot of the song wheel was the "RANDOM SONG" slot and selecting this option promptly crashed the game. That's obviously not your issue here but hey, this is about as natural of a segue as I can get to tell that anecdote to people on IndyDDR.
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Re: 32mb Flash Card - Replacement

Post by pinktofu » Tue Jul 16, 2013 12:44 am

Hey all,

After some research, I have found that most likely my security card is fine, and as MonMotha stated, it seems that it is part of the bootleg. The issue is that upon the startup check and withing the flash card area, it showed 27M and 31M as bad. I assumed that meant that there were bad sectors, but I have found a post specifically showing that one bootleg shows those two as bad as part of the bootleg. I also tried a different security card and received the same "bad" sectors.

Thanks all, you have been a tremendous help!

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Re: 32mb Flash Card - Replacement

Post by MonMotha » Tue Jul 16, 2013 8:42 pm

Those 27M and 31M actually refer to IC designator positions on the mainboard, which if you look you'll find are flash chips. What's happening is that those chips are failing the startup checksum due to modifications made by the bootleg (which invalidates the checksum). The bootleg has then been patched to ignore the bad checksum result and boot anyway. This is one of the most common Extreme bootlegs.

The 32MB flash card, btw, is not the security cart. You may not even have a security cart (having a bootleg), but if you do (and old one, which some bootlegs require), it'll be the big blue T-shaped cart near the top of the box as it's oriented in a normal Japanese DDR cabinet.
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Re: 32mb Flash Card - Replacement

Post by pinktofu » Mon Jul 22, 2013 12:54 am

Thanks for the information, I appreciate it.

So now that I have my new monitor installed and everything up and running smoothly, I have started to work on my memory card slot panel that I purchased separate from the machine. Per your previous information, I used a USB cable to connect from the back of the memory card board to the system board usb slot. I believe I am missing where I am to connect power to the unit. I have photos of how it is currently set up:

http://sdrv.ms/1aD8CB5 Link to photo front of machine memory card slots
http://sdrv.ms/1aD8Fgi Link to photo of back of the memory card slot board

The front has power to the memory card slot lights (which is working), and a data cable to the memory card board. I am assuming that the 6 pin port next to the data connection is for power, and where that comes from is my question. I assume the back photo is correct, the only cable coming out of the back is the USB cable. So! That being said, I would appreciate it if you could direct me to how I go about powering the memory card slots (from the jamma? from a separate cable which I do not have that is connect to power separately?).

Thanks!!

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Re: 32mb Flash Card - Replacement

Post by MonMotha » Mon Jul 22, 2013 1:59 am

The power is a 4 position JST VH header on the "back" side of the card slot board. It needs only 5V (and ground) - there's 2 connections for each on the plug. Do not get it backwards, and do not apply more than 5V. You will break it.

I've included a picture of the unit with the cover off. You can clearly see the power connector labeled CN65 near the bottom left of the picture near the DIP switch bank (which is not used for anything). +5V is the two pins at the left in this picture, and GND are the two pins at the right.

If you need the mating connector, here's the JST part numbers (and links to Digi-Key):
VHR-4N (housing - you need 1)
SVH-21T-P1.1 (crimp contact - you need 4, and get a few extra)

The original retrofit kit from Konami included a wiring adapter to pull 5V off of the big bundle of power wires right where they plug into the JAMMA harness that feeds the system 573 box. You can pull 5V from wherever you want in the cabinet. While I'm no fan of them, most people use those little automotive Y-splice thingies.
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Re: 32mb Flash Card - Replacement

Post by pinktofu » Sun Dec 22, 2013 2:34 pm

I wanted to follow up and let you know I followed your instructions MonMotha and it worked great. My memory card board works perfect, and machine happened to have that original retrofit kit that you discussed. Thank you for your help!

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Re: 32mb Flash Card - Replacement

Post by Fluffyumpkins » Sun Dec 22, 2013 9:14 pm

IndyDDR (aka MonMotha) solves another one.

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