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Harmony Cart is not working


H311bender

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Hi All,

 

I bought my Harmony Cart over a year and half ago and have not used it that much since I've mostly been playing my 7800. The problem started 6 months after I purchased the cart. When I powered on my 7800 or 2600 the harmony logo would just spin forver. I would power down and reseat the cartridge a few times and it would work. This problem would happen every now and then I I just figured it was no big deal. Today, I plugged it in for the first time in about 6 months and have the spinning logo problem again. I reseated the cart and then got an initialization error. I reseated the cart again and got a SD format not recognized even though the SD card is fine (I've tried different SD cards). After about 10 times of doing this the cart finally loaded the menu correctly. Anybody have any idea what's going on or what I can check? Is there a part on the circuit board I need to replace?

 

Thanks

Edited by H311bender
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Yes, I've tried three different Atari's 2600's Jrs and one 7800 and I get the same errors. 1 of the Atari 2600's Jrs has never even been used and its still having the problem. I'm wondering if maybe there is cold solder joint on the Harmony board at this point unless it a software issue. One thing I did notice was that the Harmony board was not exactly lined up with the dust cover of the cart and would catch sometimes. I removed the Harmony case and inserted the Harmony board directly in the Atari's without the cart case and still have the same problem too.

Edited by H311bender
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I doubt there'd be any sort of warranty, especially since you've had it for over a year. But I'd try to IM Albert and see what he recommends.

 

Since you've got it open, you could always try re-soldering a little to see if it helps. I do remember one time someone complaining about the SD holder coming undone. But I don't remember if that was a Harmony, or another flash cart.

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How old exactly? There was a bug in an early BIOS that could cause this. You should try to upgrade to the latest BIOS and see if that helps. If not, send it back to me and I'll reflow the solder on relevant parts and send it back. No charge. PM for more info.

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How old exactly? There was a bug in an early BIOS that could cause this. You should try to upgrade to the latest BIOS and see if that helps. If not, send it back to me and I'll reflow the solder on relevant parts and send it back. No charge. PM for more info.

You rock. :)

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  • 2 months later...

Hi batari, tried to PM but not possible, so wt=riting here in this related topic:

 

,

I bought a cart from you a couple of months back, and just now have I been able to play around with it.

the specific model was the one you suggested to me with the new microsd slot.

The thing is when I went to try it today, instead of the menu I receive the message:

"Initialization Error. Press fire to continue"...

Pressing fire of course does nothing but repeat the message.

What could be the problem? I saw this metioned here, but since you mentioned an older rom/bios and since mine was with the new connector I would have thought it was from a newer batch.

Help???

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Update.... I had not bought it with a card, and didn't have any files on the card I'm using except the roms themselves...

 

Just in case I went through the update process and everything looked fine (green light, harmany found etc) and upgraded (or maybe it was the same) to 1.05, and now the Bios is on the root of the card.

 

I tried again and while I do not get the same error, the screen I get says at the top:

 

Harmony BIOS Update Tool

 

and in the middle of the screen:

 

SD Card Initialize Error

Press fire to try again.

 

Which of course just repeats after fire.

 

wtf? (tried another micro sd card just in case, same result).

 

now what?? :?

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Update.... I had not bought it with a card, and didn't have any files on the card I'm using except the roms themselves...

 

Just in case I went through the update process and everything looked fine (green light, harmany found etc) and upgraded (or maybe it was the same) to 1.05, and now the Bios is on the root of the card.

 

I tried again and while I do not get the same error, the screen I get says at the top:

 

Harmony BIOS Update Tool

 

and in the middle of the screen:

 

SD Card Initialize Error

Press fire to try again.

 

Which of course just repeats after fire.

 

wtf? (tried another micro sd card just in case, same result).

 

now what?? :?

You should try to format the card and repeat the BIOS update. Make sure the card is formatted with FAT or FAT32. Make sure you format with a computer and not a phone or camera.

 

If this fails, post back here and we'll take it to PM, as Harmony might not like your particular microSD cards. If you still have trouble, I can send you a known working microSD card to try. If it still doesn't work, I can replace the cartridge.

Edited by batari
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You should try to format the card and repeat the BIOS update. Make sure the card is formatted with FAT or FAT32. Make sure you format with a computer and not a phone or camera.

 

If this fails, post back here and we'll take it to PM, as Harmony might not like your particular microSD cards. If you still have trouble, I can send you a known working microSD card to try. If it still doesn't work, I can replace the cartridge.

 

 

Hi batari, thanks for your quick reply!

 

So far I have tried the update process twice, and 3 cards:

 

LG Micro SD 256MB

No brand Micro SD 2GB

Kingston Micro HDSC 4GB

 

in all cases formatted on computer in fat and fat32

 

Gonna try a few more different cards and post back.

 

Thanks!

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Ok, posting back.. I though I had many more cards but it seems I don't (at least not microsd ones anyway).

 

I did get another Kingston SDHC 8Gb one, formatted it on the pc, did the eeprom upload, bios copy, etc, stil same issue... Pop it into the atari, same screen as before.

 

So does this mean the firmware update is not even completed yet at this point?

 

What do you suggest I do? What brands are the ones you mentioned are known to work??

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