Game needs re-flashing after power cycle?

[Mitsurugi-w]

Post a picture of your B-board as well.

 

[daskrabs]

Post a picture of your B-board as well.

Battery still holds 3.4V. Connections to the wires are solid.

 

[Mitsurugi-w]

Try this. Keep the battery installed and load a game. After you conform that it loaded and boots ok, turn off the power and disconnect the key writing wires. See if the behavior continues.

 

[daskrabs]

Try this. Keep the battery installed and load a game. After you conform that it loaded and boots ok, turn off the power and disconnect the key writing wires. See if the behavior continues.

Worked fine.

 

[Mitsurugi-w]

Over the next several says see if that one game continues to boot ok.

 

[daskrabs]

Over the next several says see if that one game continues to boot ok.

I assume you mean leave the key writing wires unhooked and boot the game. Worked this morning. I'll check it each morning this week and leave it alone otherwise.

 

[Mitsurugi-w]

Yes. Exactly that.

 

[daskrabs]

It fired up every day, no issues at all. Tested with XvSF.

 

[Mitsurugi-w]

Ok. So for some reason the key injection process of the multi is resulting in corrupted keys.

 

[daskrabs]

Ok. So for some reason the key injection process of the multi is resulting in corrupted keys.

Seems that way, but only after the unit has been idle for several hours or more. It has no issues flashing a new game ever.

 

[Mitsurugi-w]

I asked you to do the test because every time the multi boots it reads from the SD card what game is loaded and writes that key. It writes the key on every boot. That's why a battery should never be necessary.

Question now is whether the multi is improperly writing the key or if the b-board is developing an issue with storing keys. IMO it's unlikely an issue with the multi. Maybe the chip that holds the key is starting to have issues.

I'm no expert tho. Maybe some cps2 experts can chime in.

 

[daskrabs]

I asked you to do the test because every time the multi boots it reads from the SD card what game is loaded and writes that key. It writes the key on every boot. That's why a battery should never be necessary.

Question now is whether the multi is improperly writing the key or if the b-board is developing an issue with storing keys. IMO it's unlikely an issue with the multi. Maybe the chip that holds the key is starting to have issues.

I'm no expert tho. Maybe some cps2 experts can chime in.

Maybe the multi doesn't write the key quickly enough to overcome the security check?

 

[daskrabs]

As I was removing the key writing wires, I dislodged one of them and lifted a pad. Can you advise on an alternative bodge point? Thanks.

 

[Mitsurugi-w]

First you will need to jump that via that was connected to the pad to the top side of the capacitor just above it. I would use the same place to attach your other wire as well.

 

[daskrabs]

First you will need to jump that via that was connected to the pad to the top side of the capacitor just above it. I would use the same place to attach your other wire as well.

Instead of jumping and re-padding, could I use one of these, assuming I can find one? It looks like the adjacent J4 connector has a pin that attaches to the location in question on the ARM chip.

 

[Mitsurugi-w]

He doesn't make those anymore since it's for the old version. Might be hard to find. You would still need to make the jump from the via to the top of that capacitor to fix the circuit that was broken by the pulled pad.

 

[daskrabs]

He doesn't make those anymore since it's for the old version. Might be hard to find. You would still need to make the jump from the via to the top of that capacitor to fix the circuit that was broken by the pulled pad.

Got it, thanks.

 

[daskrabs]

He doesn't make those anymore since it's for the old version. Might be hard to find. You would still need to make the jump from the via to the top of that capacitor to fix the circuit that was broken by the pulled pad.

Final update: I tracked down a QSB board from a forum member. Yesterday I patched the via, installed the QSB, and it works great to flash and run games. I checked to see if the game would boot this morning, and it fails on first boot, but works on second boot, same as before. Maybe you're right and the B-board is to blame. In any event, I give up for now. Thanks for helping me troubleshoot.