Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and more

[cheese]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

I'm going to decompile what I can off of my Wii's to see what I can conjure up. I'm also going to attempt to find some information on how dios mios (I believe that is the cios that was for GameCube off of SD or something) works to see if I can set up some sort of disc drive emulation. I will also sand some disc drive mobos to see if I can find some special disc drive detect connections. I will post all sanding pictures and any findings.

 

[cheese]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

Hi everyone I decided to trim my wii because I wanted to use it in a portable I completely trimmed off the bios battery part of the wii and now it wont turn on does anyone have any suggestions I didn't think it would kill my wii but unfortunately it did

Which revision wii do you have? RVL-CPU-01, RVL-CPU-20, RVL-CPU-30 all have 6 layers, and cannot be cut anywhere near as small as the rest of the boards (with the exclusion of the Wii Mini, this board also cannot be cut, but it only has 4 layers). Also, can we have pictures of your cut board? Also, definitely make sure to sand the edges of the board, the different layers can easily short on each other after being cut.

 

[Shank]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

If you guys can actually figure this out you'll be my hero's.

<3

Wow this thread is on fire. I love it.

Bentomo, good thoughts and brainstorming. The wii can be soft modded to boot straight into software such as wiiflow, gx, or homebrew channel. You can access all features on the wii without a remote or classic controller; you can control all those menus with a gamecube controller.

From what I have learned from the software modders at GBATEMP, the wii makes "calls" to the hardware on the disc drive, which is why a drive board it is still needed. I can not confirm this entirely, but this is what the wii software modding community has told me.
I have been able to load games using only the board of a wiis disc drive. However, unless the calls can be spoofed, a disc drive will be needed. If someone could make a super tiny chip that could spoof the calls, that would be good. But a software modification would be ideal.

GarageFactory, cheese is mostly right, as the wii mini cant be cut... YET...
Aside from that, cheese is spot on. Attempting to cut any of the 6 layer RVL boards (01, 20, 30) will almost always result in a dead wii. The layers on those are too thin, and will short. Blargaman mentioned the 5 v line. Refer to my pictures of the voltage layer to see where those go. But again, that diagram only applies if you are using a 4 layer board (all rvk boards and rvl 40 and 60). Pictures would be helpful.

As for you cheese, I love you man. Keep it up. Dios mios has pretty much been made obsolete by nintendont, so i would look into that instead. But I really think this would have to be a IOS or firmware level mod and not an app level mod. I know the guys at GBATEMP are the masterminds of soft modding and could probably help you find a solution.

 

[cheese]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

As for you cheese, I love you man. Keep it up. Dios mios has pretty much been made obsolete by nintendont, so i would look into that instead. But I really think this would have to be a IOS or firmware level mod and not an app level mod. I know the guys at GBATEMP are the masterminds of soft modding and could probably help you find a solution.

I know Dios mios is obsolete, but I was pretty sure it was an IOS that you installed that emulated a disc drive... I could be completely wrong, I'm doing some more research now
One google search later, Dios mios just requires certain cIOSes to be installed, derp

 

[Shank]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

Dios mios is a replacement of the MIOS

 

[GarageFactory]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

Thank you all so much for the help sadly my board is Rev 20 or whatever I can't remember but I know it's not 40 or 60 unfortunately I guess it's time to get a new wii and wait for progress

 

[bentomo]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

Well if the disc drive uses some kind of standard interface such as serial, spi, i2c, i2s, or something then making a micro call board can be easily fabbed up. I do have a disc drive motherboard on hand but I believe it's from an old revision.

Have you guys been recording any revisions on the disc mobo's?

 

[cheese]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

afaik all wii disc drives are interchangeable, will test with family dd in rvl-01 board (Tested, working ^-^, makes sense since wiikeys don't need revision number and work without dd attached)... Also, there is a wii disc drive database (Wii Drives) that's got the dd revision information.

Once I get my logic analyzer working, I will post the raw data off of the wifi, dd, etc data lines so we can analyze it and try and find workarounds to the protocols.

 

[bentomo]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

 

[Shank]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

Cheese, this is awesome. You have the skillset and the knowledge to get this done, and I'm really excited. Let me know what I can do to help.

As far as I know all disc drives are cross compatible. I have swapped em around and had no difficulty. I believe the disc drive database was for the old days where modchips had to be soldered to individual pins on the driveboard that varries by revision. Some worked, some didn't. And some were covered in epoxy: Nintendo's way of giving modders the finger.

Speaking of disc drives, I have quite a few. I'd say 10-20. Should I dismember them and take pictures or run tests or is that not nessessary?

Thank you all so much for the help sadly my board is Rev 20 or whatever I can't remember but I know it's not 40 or 60 unfortunately I guess it's time to get a new wii and wait for progress

I'm sorry for your loss

 

[Ampz]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

Are they sanded? And I think it would be a good idea, also my friend has a spare Wii around since he now uses a playsation so i'll see if I can pick that up and check the internals.

 

[bentomo]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

Maybe just one or two disc drive mobos. I think the part we're all interested in is how to remove it completely in the interest of portables.

By the way I found Ashen's original pinout for the wiikey and wii disc drive.

 

[GarageFactory]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

I don't know if you guys already know this but I have a guitar from guitar hero that uses an analog stick to browse the wii menu if I am able to get another wii this summer I could show you guys what I am talking about but this could help get around the wii menu issue

 

[Shank]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

I don't know if you guys already know this but I have a guitar from guitar hero that uses an analog stick to browse the wii menu if I am able to get another wii this summer I could show you guys what I am talking about but this could help get around the wii menu issue

Yes, I have 2 of those guitars. A lot of people don't realize the Wii menu is obsolete. You can boot straight into homebrew channel or USB loaders. You don't need a Wii remote or classic controller at all.

Good find bentomo. If only ashen would join us on our adventure...

 

[Ampz]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

If Ashen did join he would have probably made a lot of discoveries by now.

 

[Bush]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

Yes, I have 2 of those guitars. A lot of people don't realize the Wii menu is obsolete. You can boot straight into homebrew channel or USB loaders. You don't need a Wii remote or classic controller at all.

Yep. Priiloader works great for this. You can boot into the channel of your choice; it works very nicely with WiiFlow because you can launch HBC content straight from it as well as emulators, so you can cut down on loading times considerably.

 

[DuHasst0]

Re: Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and

If Ashen did join he would have probably made a lot of discoveries by now.

I remember Ashen posting in a thread saying something about not being interested in trimming the Wii. For the simple fact that a laptop style portable would be better since most games focus on there use of the Wii remotes.

 

[Shank]

Re: Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and

I remember Ashen posting in a thread saying something about not being interested in trimming the Wii. For the simple fact that a laptop style portable would be better since most games focus on there use of the Wii remotes.

I do too. He actually said that to me in his wii laptop thread. It was in response to me getting excited about him working on a wii project, and him telling me what you just said. He wants his wii projects to use pointer and motion controls, and the best way to do that is in laptop form, which doesn't need trimming.

 

[bentomo]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

I'm more interested in a potentially more efficient gamecube portable with support for various wii games and emulators.

 

[Ampz]

Re: Wii bit smaller: Revisions, Die shrinks, Layers, and mor

I personally prefer Bush's Wii Portable, mostly its style and the thing i like best about it is the pegs,
because you can hold the portable up on the table and use your wiimote for motion controls.