Wii DVD/Wiikey Fusion/WODE + GC Portable Discussion

[Ashen]

Agreed, I will be ordering a few myself. Thx for the tip!

[kevstah2004]

Had hunt around found various stuff seems the higher the number the softer it get's did a knuckle scrap test, 400 seems the smoothest I have, starting off at 60,80,100,150,240 something else marked GRITF2 also

[emu_kidid]

Ashen, I'm trying to wire it all up one last time, 100% properly. Just have a question. In your pin comparison charts, are you comparing the port end on the SUNDriver port or on the Wii mainboard port?

I.e. do you refer to PIN X on the Gamecube Mainboard side connector will go to PIN Y on the Wii Mainboard side connector (or the SUNDriver connector?)

[Ashen]

Yes, its saying Pin X(GC) goes to Pin X(Wii) (drive/mainboard). For our purposes I have marked the DVD drive pins to correspond with the matching pins on the Wii mainboard. The reason I did this is because the pins are clearly marked 1-32 on the Wii MB and on the DVD drive they are not.







For example where I have maked pin 1 on the Wii drive in that picture, That Pin is DID0(Wii) which connects to Pin 31 on the GC. So on and so forth after that. Hopefully the pictures make things a bit more clear.

Edit: Also emu, keep in mind that pin 32(Wii) may be needed for the WODE. I'm 99% sure that this pin is some kind of 3.3v "remote" power on signal. While it is not needed for the DVD drive mod and I leave it unhooked while working with the sundriver. Other chips such as the wode and wiikey fusion may require this to be hooked up to power the chip. I'd try without it first but keep it in mind if things aren't working once you get everything hooked up.

[emu_kidid]

So I wired up a WODE... it turns the LCD screen on and I can navigate it all (updated it even to the latest 2.6 version)

However, the GC would always act like the lid was open (even toggling pin29 made no difference). Pin 32 on the Wode had 2.5v going to it.

On the wode, it would turn the Blue LED on for a bit of time, then the blue would turn off and the GC would throw the "Error blah blah" when the orange light lit up on the wode (and stayed on).

It's possible my wiring wasn't 100% (checked them 3 times though but maybe cables were too long), but I did manage to get it to show "Reading disc..." 1 or two times, but it would immediately eject the disc.

On the down side, whilst messing around I accidentally shorted out the wode so now it's time to order a replacement (yep, smoke came from the actel, no way to save it)

[kevstah2004]

unlucky , shame you don't video yours mods.

[Ashen]

Ugg... that really sucks man >< I'm so sorry it fried your wode...

Did you have a Wii DVD drive hooked to the other end of the wode? Did that survive? If so did you try just the Wii DVD drive alone without the wode hooked up. That should at least work if everything is wired proper.

I'll take some time later to make one up with the GC pins marked on it. Sorry again about your WODE :'(

[Ashen]

Oh yea... On the lighter side of things. Might cheer ya up to know.....

Today I ordered 2 5" LCD's http://www.aliexpress.com/store/600281/ ... l-lcd.html
2 Wii DVD drives
and 6 of these: http://www.batteryspace.com/polymerli-i ... isted.aspx + 2 of these: http://www.batteryspace.com/pcbfor111vl ... ocket.aspx + 2 of these: http://www.batteryspace.com/smartcharge ... isted.aspx I'm also going to order some of those nice connectors like you got for connecting the ribbon cable when I'm not feeling to lazy to call them.

We need to nail down whats going inside these bastards soon! hehe. Now I'm out of money again for a bit.

[emu_kidid]

heh, I'll check how I've wired it up soon.. my issue is I was stupid and accidentally shorted pin 32 to GND!

[Ashen]

Ugg... I feel really terrible... The sundrivers were always so forgiving of me hooking things up wrong/shorting things out... they all still work after all my messing about with them

[emu_kidid]

Connected a D2E drive to the GC - disc reads and authenticates but the GC doesn't like it and says "unable to read disc".. and then stops the disc motor/turns laser off.

100% triple super duper checked my connections and they're all good - I suspect this D2E might have some protection against plain commands or something.. I'll need to investigate further and try a DMS version drive tomorrow

[Ashen]

Hmmm. I wonder... Is the Wii drive the same region as the GC you are using? Is the region lockout method on the GC and Wii different in any way? I have 2 drives on the way. I'll report back my results with them when I get em. Thx for spending the time on this emu!

P.S. are my pinouts above for the protoadvantage connector accurate? If so I'll add em to the "guide".

Edit: Also do you think its worth my time/money to order one of the sundriver updater USB modules?

[emu_kidid]

the DD drives don't carry any region, but for the hell of it I tried both a PAL and NTSC game, both with the same result. I'm using a Wode ribbon cable to go from the GC to the Wii drive, it's possible that it's way too long!

The fact that the disc drive resets, reads the disc id and then fails is telling me that the drive is accepting commands properly from the GC but either the data coming back from the drive can't be read by the GC or the drive expects a certain combo of reads before it will send back proper data (possibly an anti piracy measure on these newer drives). I'll try the DMS drive tonight.

Also, I noticed that if I grabbed the power from other places on the board (i.e. big capacitors) that the GC wouldn't boot (LED wouldn't light up) possible that the drive draws too much power? but then I grabbed it again later from somewhere near the DVD drive connector and it was fine.. quite strange (DOL-101 here).

[Ashen]

Been racking my brain and scouring the net for the past few days for ideas as to what to use as a frankencase for our systems. Think I finally hit the jackpot though:

http://shop.leapfrog.com/leapfrog/brows ... fprod30686

Case looks damn sturdy. It says the dims are 7.5" x 5.5" x 2.1" but I don't think the 5.5" can be right as it would make the case disproportionate to the images shown. I think they meant 4.5". 2.1" thick is admittedly thicker than I want, but I can always slim it down later. @ 10bucks each I've got nothing to loose.

[emu_kidid]

looking sharp

[Ashen]

how long is the wode cable emu? anything over 10" long may cause latency issues. Though like you say, it may also be some anti piracy thing ninty added in later revisions of the drives. I was looking at the wiidrives site today and there are like 6 or 7 different chips nintendo has used on the drives so far. Gonna be a bummer if newer drives don't work Hopefully the ones I just ordered are older revisions.

As for the power on a DOL-101 I have no idea. Seems odd though that pulling it from near where the regulator is built in doesnt work properly though... hmmm.

Edit: Also I wonder if the GC IPL version will effect the drives working or not. I wonder what rev GC zenloc used.

[emu_kidid]

Another theory is that it could be the DOL-101 that's at fault too but I doubt it since it'll take any GC drive version I've thrown at it in the past.

The only bad thing about the proto advantage board (well, not really, just confused the crap out of me ) is that with the ribbon cable connector that is used, the ribbon cable sits with the pins facing up, so it took me a while to reverse it (I can post an updated picture that I used which I converted the pin #'s from your list for the board). I'll do this later tonight.

The wode cable is about 6-7" (200mm) + my wires to the proto advantage I'd say 250mm. I'll try with a small 70mm DD cable as well tonight if the DMS drive doesn't work with the long one. With the GC connector, did you solder blob all the GND pins together - I've tried both ways, no difference. Also, if I power up the GC with pin 29 as NC, I get the error message straight away, are you getting this too?

[Ashen]

the ribbon cable sits with the pins facing up

That is odd :/

The wode cable is about 6-7" (200mm) + my wires to the proto advantage I'd say 250mm.

May be a latency thing. Probably not though. What guage wire are you using? Solid or Stranded?

With the GC connector, did you solder blob all the GND pins together

Yep bridging all the gnd pins together is fine. Just make sure if you do it this way you use a decent guage wire going from the bridged pins to gnd on the GC MB.

Also, if I power up the GC with pin 29 as NC, I get the error message straight away, are you getting this too?

Hmmm... I'm not 100% sure I got the error RIGHT away after boot if 29 was disconnected (I'm not sure I even tried this). I can say 100% for sure though that if pin 29 is not run to ground the disc will never show up in the game select screen though. If you disconnect pin 29 after it loads the disc in game menu of IPL then boot the game it WILL boot the game but will error out after a second or so.

[emu_kidid]

I'm using wire wrap - solid, not stranded, which has a plastic shielding (or whatever you call it), it's very fine, like the stuff that people use for ps2 modchips. the thickness is about as thick as a pin leg on a 144 pin IC. The wires for the 3.3/5/12v and GND are just taken from a ATA cable, I'm using two twisted together at the end per voltage/gnd.

I did wire the connector under the GC mainboard so it's possible that it's getting a lot of noise/latency since the wires are passing very very close to the CPU/GPU.

When I put 1.9v to pin 29, it ejects for a long time then when I put it back to GND it'll take the disc in but the GC won't start the motor/spin the disc, even though it wouldn't have errored out yet on screen.

[Ashen]

Odd man. From what you say it sounds like the disc insert/eject mech is acting the same as with my setup.

Only other thing I can think is that if you are using the very fine (30awg) wire wrap maybe the wires are TOO thin and its distorting the signal? I used an old IDE ata133 cable wires for my testing setup (copper solid). I did buy some wire wrap (30awg and 26awg) to use in our finalized portables though so it'll be interesting to see if I get the same issue when I wire my trimmed MB's up.

[LOCtronicz]

Just to clarify. The Wii drive does carry a region. My PAL Wii will not work with a USA Wii drive and vica versa. The gamecube is the same. I have tested this on many different revisions of the gamecube.

[emu_kidid]

zenloc, I very much doubt it with the Gamecube drives, I've dumped firmware/ram from identical (diff region) drives and it matched up 100%..

[LOCtronicz]

Strange.... I connected my usa gamecube drive to my pal gamecube mother board and it will not load any games. It will say cannot read disc... I've tried this with a usa gamecube motherboard and a pal discdrive and got the same effect...

Maby I was doing something wrong... Hmmmm Let me check and I'll get back to you.

[emu_kidid]

are they the exact same drive? I know the DOL-101 can be picky about older drives..

[LOCtronicz]

Just checked swaped the discdrive and game won't boot. It's like it's detecting it's the wrong region and displays can't read disc. When I put a xenoGC chip on it it works on both region motherboard.

I have tried many different revisions. I have only older gamecubes though. rev A and rev B. No rev C. But I doubt it will make any difference.

I can post you more detailed information about the motherboard disc drives tomorrow if you want. Also a video of me showing the disc drive swap and what kind of error it gives me.