Some Help With My New Gameshark Pro 3.3 For N64?

[Izzyrbb]

On 2/1/2020 at 7:17 AM, Hawkeye9723 said:

Sorry for reviving such an old thread, but after several weeks of search on how to fix my v3.3 Shark I finally got it working and wanted to share what I did. 

First of all I had 2 GSs. One was v2.0 without the parallel port, and the other was a v3.3 (early 3.3 with the sparkling case and the LEDs). The 2.0 worked fine, but the 3.3 was DOA (8 in the GS window and not booting). I tried to piggy back them, but since they were different versions that didn't work. I went to the local used game store to see if they had any used Sharks (I also brought my 3.3 with me). I was in luck and they had a 3.3 (solid color case and no LEDs) I asked if I could test it first and they let me. I made sure theirs would boot, and it did. J piggy backed mine and this is what I did:

 

 

1) Booted working Shark with mine plugged in and Mario 64 in mine.

 

2) Went into the key code menu and selected Mario 64 and confirmed.

 

3) Power cycled the N64 and made sure their Shark still booted.

 

4) Swapped their Shark with mine, and it now booted to the menu.

 

5) Thanked then for letting me use their setup to recover my Shark

 

After I got home I wanted to test the connectivity with my Windows 10 PC. I kept having an issue with the N64 Utility not being able to detect the shark. Found that this was caused by how Windows assigned resources to my parallel port. I ended up having to use a Windows 98 VM with the parallel port passed through to it. That allowed me to communicate with the Shark, and I was able to flash the firmware. 

 

Now here's the kicker. I plugged the v2.0 GameShark (not a pro) into the 3.3 and booted to the menu. Again, I flashed the firmware. To my surprise the original GameShark took the 3.3 Pro firmware. I now have 2 GameShark pros. One with and one without the parallel port.

 

I hope this write up helps at least one person.

Hey Hawkeye,

 

I recently purchased 3 of these as bundle deal a 2.1, 2.2 and a 3.3 

Its my first time owning these, how do you flash the firmware?

[Hawkeye9723]

Hey Hawkeye,
 
I recently purchased 3 of these as bundle deal a 2.1, 2.2 and a 3.3 
Its my first time owning these, how do you flash the firmware?

First off, does the 3.3 have the sparkling case, or the LED in the front? This is important, because the later models that shipped with 3.3 had 2 of the IC chips removed from the circuit board to cut costs, and without them the Shark port on the back is useless.

You will need a Windows PC with a 25-pin parallel port and 25 Pin male to female cable to flash the device. (My desktop did not have an on-board port, so I had to purchase an add-on card. USB - Parallel cables WILL NOT WORK).

Here's a guide to use to flash them.

http://micro-64.com/features/gsrepair1.shtml

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

[Izzyrbb]

On 2/14/2020 at 9:12 AM, Hawkeye9723 said:

First off, does the 3.3 have the sparkling case, or the LED in the front? This is important, because the later models that shipped with 3.3 had 2 of the IC chips removed from the circuit board to cut costs, and without them the Shark port on the back is useless.

You will need a Windows PC with a 25-pin parallel port and 25 Pin male to female cable to flash the device. (My desktop did not have an on-board port, so I had to purchase an add-on card. USB - Parallel cables WILL NOT WORK).

Here's a guide to use to flash them.

http://micro-64.com/features/gsrepair1.shtml

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk
 

My 3.3 is one with the sparkling case with the LED in the front.

 

Dang I was hoping I could just use a Parallel to USB I had, oh well looks like im going digging through my old trash bin.

 

Thanks Hawkeye

[adamw12894]

I have a sticker for v 3.3 with a red led screen, software also shows v3.3 when booted

On 10/5/2008 at 4:03 PM, shadow460 said:

A real 3.3 should also have "3.3" printed on the round white sticker you find on the back. That is, if InterAct didn't decide to upgrade some in the factory after they'd been built as 3.2 units.

 

[Andrew Cranford]

On 2/1/2020 at 10:17 AM, Hawkeye9723 said:

Sorry for reviving such an old thread, but after several weeks of search on how to fix my v3.3 Shark I finally got it working and wanted to share what I did. 

First of all I had 2 GSs. One was v2.0 without the parallel port, and the other was a v3.3 (early 3.3 with the sparkling case and the LEDs). The 2.0 worked fine, but the 3.3 was DOA (8 in the GS window and not booting). I tried to piggy back them, but since they were different versions that didn't work. I went to the local used game store to see if they had any used Sharks (I also brought my 3.3 with me). I was in luck and they had a 3.3 (solid color case and no LEDs) I asked if I could test it first and they let me. I made sure theirs would boot, and it did. J piggy backed mine and this is what I did:

 

 

1) Booted working Shark with mine plugged in and Mario 64 in mine.

 

2) Went into the key code menu and selected Mario 64 and confirmed.

 

3) Power cycled the N64 and made sure their Shark still booted.

 

4) Swapped their Shark with mine, and it now booted to the menu.

 

5) Thanked then for letting me use their setup to recover my Shark

 

After I got home I wanted to test the connectivity with my Windows 10 PC. I kept having an issue with the N64 Utility not being able to detect the shark. Found that this was caused by how Windows assigned resources to my parallel port. I ended up having to use a Windows 98 VM with the parallel port passed through to it. That allowed me to communicate with the Shark, and I was able to flash the firmware. 

 

Now here's the kicker. I plugged the v2.0 GameShark (not a pro) into the 3.3 and booted to the menu. Again, I flashed the firmware. To my surprise the original GameShark took the 3.3 Pro firmware. I now have 2 GameShark pros. One with and one without the parallel port.

 

I hope this write up helps at least one person.

How did you run it through the virtual machine. I would like to be able to connect to mine on windows 10 using Game Software Code Creator using a usb to parallel adapter but I don’t know how to get it to communicate to it through the usb because it seems to be looking for a parallel port that my pc doesn’t have.

[Hawkeye9723]

How did you run it through the virtual machine. I would like to be able to connect to mine on windows 10 using Game Software Code Creator using a usb to parallel adapter but I don’t know how to get it to communicate to it through the usb because it seems to be looking for a parallel port that my pc doesn’t have.

Sorry it took so long to reply. I never got a notification, and I just checked this thread for the heck of it today.

You won't be able to do it with a USB-Parallel adapter. You'll need to have a desktop with an on-board parallel port, or in my case, get a PCI-E add-in card. Once you do that, all you need to do is pass the parallel port through to the VM. Windows will then see it, and you can use it with the software.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk