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Wii D2C Trouble Shooting Guide
General
You can leave the battery out the Wii will run fine it doesnt need the battery except for time clock like a PC.
If youre having problems were you think you dont have power check the 2 fuses for continuity. Fuses are found on drive board near where cable bundle connects to drive board, P3001 by six solder square pads, and have an N stamped on them.
The biggest problem youll have is with solder bridges and they will be the hardest to detect and fix. These SMT chips bridge very easily especially if you dont have the right soldering gear. Once you have a solder bridge it will be tough to clean the solder out from behind the chip legs. Use a generous amount of rosin flux and solder braid to remove excess solder from legs. Try not to over heat or scrape the board with the solder braid as you could lift off or damage the board foil which could be catastrophic.
The other problem youll run into is not properly soldered connections or cold solders. Make sure to fully heat the foil/leg with the wire, with out over heating, so that solder flows proper. It is also important to secure the wire until the solder cools if you move it before solder is solid your connection could cause you intermittent problems which are the most difficult to find. If soldered properly the connection should be somewhat shinny if it looks cloudy you probably have a bad or cold solder. When your done soldering a wire gently wiggle it some to see if it is secured well, does it pull off the leg or spin in the via, foil eyelet.
If youre using the Alternate method be careful when soldering via points VRP FED as it is easy to touch the IC2002 chip legs and create a solder bridge especially if you are right handed and it is late at night.
LED Status
LEDs are located kitty corner from each other, LED1 by JP1 & JP2 jumpers and LED2 kitty corner from it. LED1 is blue and LED2 is red typically during operation.
Original Discs
Insert & Detect LED1 (flashes)
LED2 (on)
Detected/Reading LED1 (flashes)
LED2 (off)
Detected/Idle LED1 (off)
LED2 (off)
Backup Discs
Insert & Detect LED1 (flashes)
LED2 (on)
Detected/Reading LED1 (flashes)
LED2 (on)
Detected/Idle LED1 (off)
LED2 (on)
No Disc Inserted
Idle LED1 (off)
LED2 (off)
NOTE: LED1 flashes during detection or reading of discs.
Myths
Rosin Flux is conductive this is totally not true if you buy soldering flux from Radio Shack or most other places you will not have a problem. You would have to really screw up to get a conductive flux, like a tinning flux, but I guess it could happen its just not likely. With this in mind you wouldnt have to clean the flux off after wards because it wont cause you problems as far as the Wii not working. You should never use tinning flux for PCB work as it can cause solder bridges and is typically corrosive. Tinning solder is for tinning wires, typically stranded wire to pre-tin them for soldering to connectors or PCBs and would be cleaned of before using them. It is good practice to clean it off right away though in case you need to rework. It will be much easier to rework if you dont have to a thick hard coating to contend with. You dont have to have special solvents to remove the flux residual you can use Isopropyl Alcohol 91% which is cheap and you can find it just about anywhere. Make sure to get 91% and NOT 70% as 70% has too much water in it and wont evaporate quickly and will leave a dirty film.
6 bad chips out of 15 trust your chip, if this is happening it isnt the chip it is something you are doing or missing. If a chip manufacture had this many chips bad they would go out of business. When the chips are programmed they would see errors and not sell them. Programming these chips could corrupt the chip but it is highly unlikely that would happen and the percentages would be extremely low like 1% worst case. If youre talking about a home brew programmer then you could have higher percentages but in this case they are using professional programmers and hopefully testing the chips as well.
Dead drive (doesnt spin up and wont except or reject discs)
With the drive dead your console may boot up fine but if you try to access Mii Channel, Weather, NEWS, or whatever it will start the process but eventually black screen and freeze so that you will need to reboot it. The drive will not spin up during start and will not except discs like it should.
Check that 2-9 and C points are connected to the GC2-D1 chip. One trace off will cause the problem.
Check G and H, J and K for shorts these are common spots to bridge solder across either of the chips legs, D2C and D1, when using the Alternate method. This means you will need to inspect both chips legs for solder build up behind or across the legs. Use Rosin Flux and solder braid if you find a solder bridge, DONT OVER HEAT or you will end up pulling board foils up and possibly ruin your console. If youre good with a solder sucker you can use that as well of course.
Check 330ohm resistor for Z point.
Check 330ohm resistor at X point on Alternate method. This resistor is on the back side of the drive board. Test the resistor from each side of chip, best practice. Also check to make sure it is still soldered correctly to the board by checking the resistance between the two foil eyelets, vias, that connect to the resistor, through foil traces. One is very close and the other you have to follow the trace to the next via (eyelet). Re-solder if necessary. Unless you seriously over heat the resistor it should not be bad so always verify the resistor directly first, its not like a diode where you can ruin the barrier easily destroying the component.
Backups Freeze System
Either a bad burn, ISO image, or media compatibility issue.
1) Try media that is known good, always works in the Wii, to verify your ISO image is good use an RW so that you dont waste discs.
2) Burn disc at slowest rate possible.
3) Try different +/-R type media and/or burn tool.
NOTE: Burn tools, if you are using Nero and you are experiencing read error problems try using ImgBurn v2.3.2.0 or higher as it may correct your problems or visa-a-versa (ImgBurn to Nero). ImgBurn fixed read error problems I had with Memorex +R 16x Ink Jet discs where when burning Sonic Secret Rings with Nero the disc would boot but when selecting the game play it would read error on me.
Web Site:
http://www.imgburn.com/One thing not mentioned above but could be a possible problem is your burner, you may need to upgrade the firmware of your burner some people with Pioneer drives have had problems when burning Booktype / bitsetting DVDs and flashing their drive has fixed this issue. Please note though that sometimes upgrading your drives timing table can cause older media from being read, this is rare but can happen so only do this as a last resort or if you are having problems burning other stuff as well.
Disc read errors
Many things can cause this but arent typically due to your console per say. Some things to consider for this problem are.
Jumper your region, JP1 & JP2, for where your box is from. For some reason if you dont use the region jumper your original games may not read proper in your Wii. So even if you dont intend to use out of region games still jumper for your region and have the L point connected.
Short JP1 if your console was bought in the US.
Short JP1 if your console was bought in the Canada.
Short JP2 if your console was bought in the UK (PAL).
Short JP1&JP2 if your console was bought in Japan.
Burn discs at lowest speed 2x, 4x, 6x, and so on.
Media could be an issue and may work for some stuff but not for other ISOs. If youre having problems it is a good idea to find a +/-RW that works well with your console (DVD Drive) which will confirm that your ISO was created correctly. Use the basic procedure laid out above found under Backups Freeze System to trouble shoot media issues.
RWs that work well:
Phillips 4x DVD+RW
Sony 4x or 8x DVD+RW
RWs that didnt work well:
Verbatim 4x DVD+RW Video series
LG 2x DVD-RW
R media that worked well:
Maxell Ink Jet 16x DVD+R burned at 4x
Sony 8x or 16x DVD+R burned at 4x
Memorex Ink Jet 16x DVD+R burned at 4x but on some ISOs I get read errors when using them in my Wii, I havent tried the R Memorex yet to see if they perform better. ImgBurn fixed this problem with out trying different media, you can find the link above for site to download this tool from.
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