Hey everyone! This is my first post here and if it's not in the correct area please feel free to move it. ;)

I purchased a powerpak some time ago and I've noticed some strange behavior...particularly with Super Mario Bros 3 (and yes I own the original cart..albeit sealed in the box).

My SMB3 rom used to work great when I was using the 1.11 mappers and when I saw the 1.12 update I jumped for it. Well, after I put it on the card I went to go play several of the games and noticed odd behavior. SMB2 was glitched out (playable...but extremely glitched) and SMB3 would start in world 1 as usual but had a world 8 color scheme, lullaby music, and wouldn't allow you to go anywhere on the map. Odd. Also, now Kirby's Adventure doesn't seem to work either but truth be told I'm not sure if it ever did.

So fast forward several months after an extremely busy season at work to now. I tried to fire up the SMB3 rom again thinking it might be different this time (??) and it obviously didn't change. Still strange looking level map w/ glitched out images. So I go and dl several different SMB3 roms (remember I OWN the original!) and all of them return the same exact screen. hrmmph

I thought that maybe if I go back to the 1.11 mappers it would solve the problem. Nope! It did however change the map slightly. So I put the 1.12 mappers back on the cf and now the new changed world map is the one that loads instead of the old one. Almost as though the nes has a cache.  ;D  Oddly enough though SMB2 works now...kirby still doesn't.

I've tried to contact retrozone in the past with no luck. Lost mail perhaps? Extremely busy I'm sure!

Anyone else have this problem? Any suggestions?  Thanks!

hmmm I've never heard of that before... but did you try another SMB3 rom? new download or something

Yep! I mentioned that in the message.  ;D

"So I go and dl several different SMB3 roms (remember I OWN the original!) and all of them return the same exact screen. hrmmph"

Soooo..

I just reformatted the card to see if that was the issue and now I get a "10 fatal card read error" on all cards I try to use. They are formatted at fat 16 and fat 32....the main card was even one that was supplied with the powerpak itself. I just see the powerpak name without a logo

Is my cart defunct?  :-?

I've seen a total of 2 hours use on this thing so far.

Oh dear god please help. :'( Any quick and effective way to contact retrozone?

:'(

WinXP?

yeah used win to format but certain roms still act extremely funny..

is the nes motherboard version still an issue for this thing?

help?

If the problem you were seeing with SMB3 was that the screen seemed to glitch around a lot,  that was a problem with the early power paks.  Bunnyboy allowed people to send them back and he would solder in some new resistors.

If however you got the powerpak recently, then it might be a new issue.

I cant help you with the formatting.  I damaged my flash cart (forcing it in upside down) and I've never gotten around to reformatting a new cart and uploading the boot info onto it.

Al

It's most certainly more than the glitching that was described in past reviews. This is pretty much creating new screens / music and roms such as smb2 and smb3 do not work along with several others.

I appreciate the help guys! As mentioned before I tried to contact retrozone in the past with no luck. What should I do? I can see if this cart has seen abnormal usage but it still *smells* new.
:-/

I'm going to take a video and post it on youtube to show exactly what I mean by the glitching / false screen creation I refer to.

I know bunnyboy is on vacation this week, his site has a big banner about it.
~~NGD