DMA card not working? Fixes for common errors

If your DMA card isn't showing up, fails its speed test or gives you VMM INIT FAILED, the cause is nearly always the main PC's power state, the port, the cable or the slot. Start with the cold boot below. It fixes more of these than anything else on this page. Then find your problem and work down its list in order until it's fixed. If your card isn't flashed yet, keep the main PC in the BIOS the whole time. See Booted Windows with an unflashed card for why.

Find your problem

Cold boot the main PC first

A normal restart, or waking from sleep, can leave the card stuck. The main PC looks fine but the card stops answering.

Do this after any Windows update, BIOS update or crash, before you try anything else.

DMA card not showing in Device Manager

Check this on your second computer, not the main PC. Open Device Manager (right-click the Start button, then Device Manager). Unplug the USB from the second computer, plug it back in, and watch for something appearing and disappearing.

• Which port the cable is in.
  Which is data and which is JTAG is printed on the card. If yours isn't labeled, data is the port furthest from the gold strip. On the data port, a flashed card shows as FTDI FT601 USB 3.0 Bridge Device under Universal Serial Bus controllers once the data driver is in. On the JTAG port it's a different device. Before it has a driver, Windows may list it under Other devices with a yellow triangle. On the 100T it shows as USB To UART+JTAG, and as the CH347 JTAG interface once the JTAG driver is in.
• The driver.
  In MewTools open Drivers & Flashing and press Install DATA Driver (FTDI FTD3XX) for the data port, or Install JTAG Driver (CH347 / CH341) for the JTAG port.
• The kill switch.
  If your card has one, it has to be on. Never flip it while your PC is on. The kill switch explains why.
• The main PC is on.
  The card gets its power from the slot, so with the main PC off there's nothing to see.
• The cable.
  Use the one that came with the card. A USB-C charging cable often has USB 2.0 wiring inside and won't work. Flipping the USB-C plug over at the card end can also fix a bad connection.
• The port.
  Use a rear USB 3 port on the second computer, not a hub. Front and top ports go through a cable inside the case and can cause dropouts. They can work, but rear is more reliable.
• The slot.
  If none of that works, the card may not be coming up on the main PC at all. Go to the lights section. Your Main PC covers slots that share lanes.

Main PC Setup has the same checks for a brand new card.

The card's lights are off

What each light on the GODLIKE 100T means, from GODLIKE's own diagram:

• No lights at all.
  Check the card has power. Make sure the kill switch is on. Then shut down, unplug the main PC, touch a bare metal part of the case and reseat the card. Take it out and push it back in until no gold shows above the slot.
• Still nothing.
  Try another slot. Some slots share lanes with an M.2 socket (where a flat SSD screws in) and switch off when that socket is used. A few boards only bring a DMA card up in the top x16 slot. Which slot to actually pick covers it.
• On a riser.
  Take out the riser (the extension cable for the slot) and put the card straight in a slot. Cheap or long risers make cards unstable or stop them working.
• The PCIe status light blinks.
  The card has power but its connection to the slot failed. Shut down and reseat it. Then try another slot, or step the slot's speed down one at a time in the BIOS.
• Power light on, PCIe status light off.
  The firmware is missing or doesn't suit the card. Check you picked the right Target Board when you flashed, and send a photo of the card in your ticket.

"Unable to connect to USB/FT601 device"

The software on your second computer can't reach the card's data link. Newer versions of the software say "Unable to connect to FPGA device" for the same thing.

• The cable is in the JTAG port.
  Move it to the data port. JTAG is only for flashing.
• The FTDI data driver is missing.
  Install it from MewTools, then check Device Manager shows the FTDI device with no warning triangle.
• The cable or the port.
  Use the cable that came with the card in a different rear USB 3 port, and try flipping the USB-C plug over at the card end.
• Then a cold boot, from the top of this page.

VMM INIT FAILED

VMM INIT FAILED, or "[CORE] Initialization Failed", means the software on your second computer couldn't start reading your main PC's memory.

• Cold boot first.
  A stuck card after a restart or sleep is the most common cause.
• Check the card came up on the main PC.
  Its power and PCIe status lights should be on steady, and the FTDI device should show on the second computer.
• The cable and the port.
  An unstable link can fail here as well as in the speed test. Ports and cables has what to look for.
• The slot.
  A slot sharing lanes with a drive you use can give the card a bad link. Try another.
• Your BIOS settings.
  Turn off Fast Boot in the BIOS, not the Windows Fast Startup option. It's the one setting that causes trouble with every build. The firmware supports virtualization and Above 4G makes no difference, so leave the rest alone. How to open your BIOS shows where Fast Boot is on each brand. If your drive uses BitLocker, read this first.
• The PCIe speed of that slot.
  In the BIOS, each slot has a speed setting shown as Gen1, Gen2, Gen3 and so on. Start at the fastest and step it down one at a time until the card works.

If it still fails after all of that, open a ticket with the things in What to send us.

Speed test failing or slow

A FAIL or a slow result in the MewTools speed test usually means a problem with the link between the card and your second computer. So do "Failed to retrieve Physical Memory Map" and "TINY PCIe TLP algorithm auto-selected" in other tools.

• The cable.
  Use the one that came with the card, with no extension.
• The port.
  Try a different rear USB 3 port. If you get random stutters, move to a different group of rear ports. They're on a different USB controller.
• Nothing else on that controller.
  No hub, and nothing that streams all the time, like a webcam or a capture card.
• The USB-C plug.
  Flip it over at the card end and test again.
• Other PCIe devices on the main PC.
  They can make speeds unreliable. Turn off onboard devices you don't use in the BIOS, like Wi-Fi if you're on a cable.
• Cold boot, then test again.

Run a speed test shows what a pass and a fail look like. If the cable and port are right and it still fails, say so in your ticket. Then it's worth looking at the firmware.

MewTools will not flash, or JTAG is not active

• It doesn't say JTAG ACTIVE.
  The cable has to be in the JTAG port, and the main PC has to be on so the card has power. If the card isn't flashed yet, go no further than the BIOS on the main PC.
• The driver buttons do nothing.
  Right-click MewTools and choose Run as administrator, then press Install JTAG Driver (CH347 / CH341) and Refresh.
• Windows blocked MewTools.
  MewTools blocked by Windows covers SmartScreen, Smart App Control and antivirus.
• The kill switch is off.
  Shut the main PC down, flip the switch on, and start the main PC again.
• You picked the wrong Target Board.
  Stop, leave everything plugged in and send a screenshot in your ticket before you flash again. You can usually fix it by flashing again with the right board picked.
• It flashed, but nothing changed.
  A normal restart doesn't load new firmware. Do the cold boot, and move the cable to the data port.
• The DNA it reads doesn't match the one you sent.
  Stop and tell us in your ticket. Firmware for a different card will flash fine and then not work.

Only run MewTools on your second computer, never on your main PC. Flashing your firmware has every step with screenshots.

Main PC will not boot, freezes or blue screens with the card in

• Fans spin but no picture.
  Turn the power supply off, unplug it and reseat the card. If it's the same with the card out, something else got knocked. Press the graphics card and RAM back in.
• A drive disappeared.
  The slot shares its lanes with that M.2 socket. Your files are still on the drive. It comes back once you move the card to another slot.
• It freezes or crashes on a riser.
  Try the card straight in a slot. If that fixes it, the riser is the problem.
• The kill switch was flipped with the PC on.
  PCIe slots in a normal desktop aren't built for that. Shut down fully, set the switch, and start again.
• The first start takes a few minutes, or it goes into the BIOS on its own.
  That's normal after a hardware change.
• DRIVER_VERIFIER_DMA_VIOLATION.
  It's a Windows stop code, 0xE6, for problems with how a driver or device uses direct memory access. It isn't named after DMA cards, and most causes Microsoft lists for it are driver bugs. But one of them is the IOMMU catching a device, so with a card in, don't ignore it. Do the check below, then tell us in your ticket.

To find out if it's the card at all, shut down, switch the card off with the kill switch or take it out, and use the PC for a while. If the problem stays, it's not the card.

It worked yesterday and stopped today

• Cold boot. Most of the time that fixes it.
• Windows or a BIOS update.
  A BIOS update can turn Fast Boot back on, so check it's still off.
• The cable got knocked, or moved to a different port on either machine.
• Your firmware was blocked or detected.
  A real detection usually looks like a 24-hour ban that turns into a 365-day ban. If you were offline when it landed, it can go straight to 365 days. Sometimes it's a manual ban. If nothing was banned and the card just stopped, it's almost always the cable or a stuck card, so start with the cold boot. If you were banned, tell us in your ticket what happened and when, with your DNA ID. A ban on its own isn't a warranty claim. Firmware warranty and upgrades covers what happens when we confirm a detection.

The software can't find the game, or the game crashes

• Run the speed test first.
  If it passes, the card and the cable are fine, and the problem is on the software side.
• Activate again.
  Run the activator on your second computer again after every restart of the main PC. Check it shows time left on your key. A new key is free, just ask in your ticket.
• The game crashes or freezes on the main PC.
  Do the check at the end of Main PC will not boot to rule the card out.
• The software itself.
  Blurred handles its own configs, updates and license in Blurred's Discord. If they say the problem is the card, tell us in your ticket what they said.
• The anti-cheat may have blocked it.
  What a real detection looks like is under It worked yesterday and stopped today. Open a ticket with the game, what happened and when.

Booted Windows with an unflashed card

DO NOT boot into Windows with the card plugged in until it's flashed. Windows logs the device it finds, and we can't be sure that ever gets fully cleaned up.

If you already did, tell us in your ticket. The fix is to reinstall Windows on the main PC, so back up anything you want to keep first. Back up and reinstall Windows goes through it.

What to send us

Open a ticket in our Discord with:

If you bought your card somewhere else and have never bought from us, we can't help with it in a ticket. Already own a DMA card? covers what we know. If you haven't bought yet and want to know if something will work, post on the support forum.

Hardware we sold you has three months of warranty. We replace faulty parts if you send proof like photos or a video. Firmware warranty and upgrades covers every claim.