About to mod my Wii... again.

[splattered]

Well i got a wii at launch... got the V1 Cyclowiz... all the games worked and all seemed to go well until i went to update the cyclo and discovered that a bud hooked the upgrade wires up wrong and it fried my drive when i tried to update via a slide switch from radioshack.

I ended up returning the chip that would no longer power on and got a V2 back like 3 weeks ago (without a switch) and i have been patiently waiting to be able to buy a new wii... we tried to fix the broken wii briefly and no dice so i ended up selling it.

Now i finally have a brand new wii from the store, and a brand new v2 cyclowiz still sealed in its little package... and it's time to do the deed again.

The first time it was installed via quicksolder with 30g wires for the upgrade functionality.

I have read on this board that people suspect that part of what goes wrong when a wii bricks from a cyclo install is either small globs of solder connect points that shouldnt be connected, and that the heat from a soldering iron is burning up components.

What are everyone's feelings on these two theories?

I am considering doing a complete 30g wire install this time and putting small bits of tape over all the soldered points... and running the upgrade wires out of the wii and only temporarily soldering the slide switch for the upgrade, then desolder and wrap the wire ends in electrical tape and stuffing them back in the case.

Are there any new precautions that i should keep in mind that we didn't know about when the cyclowiz/update first came out?

Also, does anyone have pics of decent wire installs for the cyclowiz? I tried to google it but didn't come up with anything...

[numms]

Well i got a wii at launch... got the V1 Cyclowiz... all the games worked and all seemed to go well until i went to update the cyclo and discovered that a bud hooked the upgrade wires up wrong and it fried my drive when i tried to update via a slide switch from radioshack.

I ended up returning the chip that would no longer power on and got a V2 back like 3 weeks ago (without a switch) and i have been patiently waiting to be able to buy a new wii... we tried to fix the broken wii briefly and no dice so i ended up selling it.

Now i finally have a brand new wii from the store, and a brand new v2 cyclowiz still sealed in its little package... and it's time to do the deed again.

The first time it was installed via quicksolder with 30g wires for the upgrade functionality.

I have read on this board that people suspect that part of what goes wrong when a wii bricks from a cyclo install is either small globs of solder connect points that shouldnt be connected, and that the heat from a soldering iron is burning up components.

What are everyone's feelings on these two theories?

I am considering doing a complete 30g wire install this time and putting small bits of tape over all the soldered points... and running the upgrade wires out of the wii and only temporarily soldering the slide switch for the upgrade, then desolder and wrap the wire ends in electrical tape and stuffing them back in the case.

Are there any new precautions that i should keep in mind that we didn't know about when the cyclowiz/update first came out?

Also, does anyone have pics of decent wire installs for the cyclowiz? I tried to google it but didn't come up with anything...

If I'm not mistaken, the quicksolder issue placed the upgrade switch contacts very close to a fuse that was easily blown. I think the issue may have been that when the switch was used, it shorted that fuse out and wired needed to be run to override that fuse. Doing a wire install and placing the chip away from that area seems to prevent it from happening. DEFINATELY wrap the chip in electrical tape and tape it down, throw some tape over the contacts you connected and you should be fine. Here's how I set mine up... (no laughing, I'm a noob at this)

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s130/numms/CyclowizInstall.jpg

The crazy loose wires (top left) lead out to the upgrade switch.

[splattered]

Awesome, thanks for the reply and pic!

I would still appreciate as many replies and pics as people wanna throw out there till i am ready to give it another go tonight... just so i have a well rounded board opinion

:)

[duros]

i always take electrical tape and isolate the point I'm soldering. Especially when it is a point that is in close proximity to another one. When the job is done i'll leave electrical tape barriers between the closely soldered points.

[foobar2k]

I've used quicksolder a number of times, worked perfectly every time.

Electrical tape is your friend, make sure all possible shorts are covered! :)

[splattered]

Are you guys laying down electrical tape beneath the cyclowiz to avoid any possibility of a short when you do a wire install and place it beside the board (like in the pic numms posted) it's not safe to put the chip against the bare drive case, right?

[splattered]

All went well.

*sigh of relief*

I just bought the console on Sunday, it ended up being a standard D2B chipset...

Upon actually opening up the Cyclowiz V2 chip and inspecting it... the quality seemed rather wonky.

It was way more flimsy than my V1 was, and the little areas between the various quicksolder points were cut with a tool or something. At first i thought maybe it was a salvaged chip from a bad batch or something like the first ones where you had to slice the points and connect to the little different areas, but we connected it as normal and it functions just fine.

We electrical taped everything, being careful not to load too much on... we did a wire install and placed it exactly like numms did (thanks!) and my friend took his time and really did a bang up job.

We updated the chip to 3.0b... it took like 6 or 7 times and then it finally finished. Tested out various media and the various channels and all is well. I remembered to turn off wiiconnect24 beforehand.

After the update finished, we took the top off again and just disconnected the x wire but left the S wire connected from board to chip. I doubt i will be opening it again anytime soon for another update.

Now that everything is perfect, i am VERY happy.

YAY for being happy.

:P

[dasilva333]

quick question, almost exact same thing happened to me, I already have my new D2B chipset wii, i lost my DMS wii after i broke it. I'm just waiting for the v2 cyclowiz to arrive, but my question is.
-Once I solder the v2 cyclowiz onto the d2b chipset do i HAVE to ugprade it to run burned games?
-How can it be upgraded if it can read burned discs to begin with?
-Doesn't the v2 come with built in support for the D2B chipset 'out of the box'?

[numms]

-Once I solder the v2 cyclowiz onto the d2b chipset do i HAVE to ugprade it to run burned games?
To run, no. To run properly, yes. The v2 cyclo still had the problem with not running games at full speed causing lag issues. Games like warioware don't run properly and skip. The v3 patch corrects this issue.

-How can it be upgraded if it can read burned discs to begin with?
It can read disks to begin with, but the disk doesn't spin at full speed. This does not affect it's ability to read, just how quickly the disk is read.

-Doesn't the v2 come with built in support for the D2B chipset 'out of the box'?
Yes it does. The reason to update doesn't have anything to do with D2B support.

[dasilva333]

thank you for clarifying that for me a ton! so basically what your saying is that im gonna have the same problem i had with my v1 cyclowiz and DMS chipset not reading all the games like (warioware that i have). except now its gonna be on a v2 cyclowiz and d2b chipset but same issue, to fix the issue i gotta upgrade. ah well ill just wait for a 2nd generation modchip since i don't want to install the upgrade functionality lol.

[numms]

so basically what your saying is that im gonna have the same problem i had with my v1 cyclowiz and DMS chipset not reading all the games like (warioware that i have).
Correct.

except now its gonna be on a v2 cyclowiz and d2b chipset but same issue, to fix the issue i gotta upgrade.
Right, the only difference between v1 and v2 cyclowiz is D2B compatibility. They've never advertized any differently. The v3 upgrade works for both v1 and v2 chips.

ah well ill just wait for a 2nd generation modchip since i don't want to install the upgrade functionality lol.
If you're talking about a system hack, you'll probably be waiting a real long time. I think many people make the upgrade switch out to be a much bigger deal than it really is. That's my opinion though.

[duros]

Are you guys laying down electrical tape beneath the cyclowiz to avoid any possibility of a short when you do a wire install and place it beside the board (like in the pic numms posted) it's not safe to put the chip against the bare drive case, right?

I just placed my chip in the recessed black plastic part of the case next to the solder points. Then taped over it.

[splattered]

Hmm maybe things didn't go perfectly smooth after all...

Upon actually checking out the news/weather/etc channels, they seem kinda outta wack...

The weather channel always displays the previous days weather as current and the news channel wont download anything... i can connect to the internet just fine, the wiiconnect 24 thing seems to be fine... what gives?

[jakefell]

erm you may wana deny this if it does work but...


..*wispers* have you made sure the date and time are right?

[splattered]

HAHa

Yeah i have actually... you mean the system time? Then, yes...

I tried to go into the weather channel to find a way to change date/time but i couldnt find one...