Wii chip

[Pebs]

You probably all already have done/know about this. MtE has just chipped the Wii (chip bought from cheapmod.com for £27, Wiikey), so now all PAL games are downloadable (we get all ours from Newzbin), burn them and bobs your uncle! Kids are currently playing Sonic :)

It was easy enough to do...MtE has a special screwdriver if anyone wants to borrow it (although they're only £5), he'll do it for you too if you like.

If I'm waaaaaaaaaaaaay behind, sorry :embarassed:

[Feek]

Tell me more...

[Pebs]

What would you like to know?

[Matblack]

Just had a nose, this looks good, pretty much the best mod chip for the Wii at the moment and connects directly to the DVD drive so if they work out how to disarm it you can activeate it again with a DVD update, very interesting. Might take Mike up on fitting it for me too, I suck with precision soldering and don't have the best tools for the job. :)

MB

[Feek]

I'm with MB, I guess it's the Wiikey? Been a while since I did any close work soldering and my eyes ain't what they used to be.

[Pebs]

Bring 'em over then fellas, jobs a good'un :)

[Mark]

If/when I get one, I'd be up for this too. I have zero soldering skills. :)

Currently attacking the lounge (the VM stuff has kicked me into action - though I'm just tossing stuff about atm) so you never know I might actually have room to use it within the next month. :huh: :eek:

[Zirax]

I haven't really looked into modding the Wii at all but that does sound interesting. If it can be modded then the chances of me getting one will go up loads :D

[petemc]

I've heard things around the net about the Wii mod chip but I never looked them up. Soldering eh. Thats about 8 on my top 10 list of ways to kill my Wii ;) Does it make it region free at all? That would be my number 1 reason to get one.

[CliffyG]

I'm definately interested in this. As they dont have anything like live setup i'm assuming it won't effect online play when they actually bring out a game that does it.

[Nismo]

I did mine about a month ago with the Wiinja modchip, very easy only 5 wires to solder.

Cooking Mama is great :D

If anyone is interested, this is a copy and paste from another post I made at another site...

Mmkay...

I would definitely buy from this guy...

http://www.cheapmod.net/cat--Wii--Wii

He has Wiinjas in stock, and the Wiikey for preorder. Wiinja has less features, but it can play the same import games as the Wiikey by patching the game images (the Wiikey does this 'on the fly' via the chip). The Wiikey has more potential, and can be upgraded in the future via software/firmware updates. There is a new version of the Wiinja due out that will be more like the Wiikey. There is also the cyclowiz chip, which seems to have a few issues, plus various other chips based on some open source code (so you would have to buy a blank chip & programmer)

http://www.wiinja.com/
http://www.wiikey.cn/

All the chips as far as I know use the same points in the Wii to solder to. The Wiinja is a 5-wire only install, most of the other chips on the market have quick solder pads, but you still might want to use wires in case you want an easy time removing the chip.

Playing backup games that you have downloaded from the net is simple, its just a case of burning the ISO onto a DVD+/-R disc, however you should use decent media and a relatively low burn speed.

Some games are downloaded as the raw dumps - .wii files - these need to be unscrambled with something like Rawdump2.0.

Backing up your own originals requires a certain PC DVD drive, not sure on the model but I think its an LG. Dumping the originals also takes quite a long time from what I have read, not actually done it myself. I'm guessing these would be dumped as .wii files too.

The Wii isn't multi region, but SOME (http://wiki.gbatemp.net/index.php/Wii_Region_Free_Patcher_Compatibility_List) games can either be patched to run on another region machine, or a modchip like the Wiikey will do it for you. No matter which route you go though, playing of imports isn't 100%.

The patcher tool to turn a compatible NTSC game into one that will play on a PAL wii is here... http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=45346

AFAIK you can play GC backups that are the same region as your console straight off, import GC backups might need to use a disc swap method, I'm not too sure on this.

Regarding VC games, AFAIK you cant download cracked versions for free, but there is no interference from the modchips with legitimate downloads on your Wii.

Here are a couple of good resource sites...

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showforum=108
http://wii.ps2-scene.org/portal.php?styleid=28

[LeperousDust]

Guys i might just wait out a little longer for the WiiXT chip, not sure when its coming out but it *should* enable DVD playback too! Which would be awesome...

[Desmo]

There are a few chips about for the Wii now and they've been available for a while. I'll be waiting until we've moved back home and set up again and then I'll be chipping ours. I've not done any soldering for a while so might seek some help when the time comes :)

[Flibster]

Guessing that a soldering iron with a 1" chisel tip won't be much use for these then? ;)

TBH I'd be more interested in getting NES/SNES/N64 roms working on it rather than 'backups'

Already got the complete sets of them. :D

Simon/~Flibster

[Dailygeek]

Ooh would anyone be able to do mine? Or is it easy enough to fit if you've not soldered for years...?

[Pebs]

If you're anywhere near Chelmsford bring it over, otherwise MtE says it depends how competant you are when you did soldering before. Its very small surface mount pads.

[Dailygeek]

If you're anywhere near Chelmsford bring it over, otherwise MtE says it depends how competant you are when you did soldering before. Its very small surface mount pads.

Hmm, sounds a bit risky :p

[Desmo]

Yep, they're proper small. I think I'll be paying a visit to Chelmsford when the time comes ;D

[Nismo]

Aww there not that small! :p

I've not got the steadiest of hands or the best soldering skills, and I still managed it first time.

[Desmo]

Well, maybe not. But by the time I've dug out my old soldering stuff I could have driven to Chelmsford :D

[Dailygeek]

Well, my wiikey should be here tomorrow :) don't think i'll be doing it myself though ;)

[CliffyG]

Quite tempted to get one of these:

http://www.dsstore.co.uk/prod3.html

Just how hard would the soldering be? I have literally no experience.

EDIT

Spotted this:

Quicksolder interface - no wires required

Is that a case of putting in the right position and heating then?

[Desmo]

You line up the chip but still need to solder the points onto the board. Some people have had trouble with the quickersolder on the Wiikey though. I'd be quite reluctant to do it with no previous soldering experience, although you could practice on an old PCB if you've got anything laying around.

[CliffyG]

Thanks. i've bought one now, hopefuly it will be here before saturday as my old man will be about and should be able to do it for me.

[Nismo]

Just a warning, quick solder pads can sometimes actually be more tricky than using wires, plus should you ever need to remove the chip it will be a lot harder.

[Will]

I'm happy to help with soldering might as well use some of my professional skills somewhere :p But I don't know anything about Wiis....

[CliffyG]

Started to take it apart today then realised i should have bought a tri-thingy screwdriver. Quite annoying! I'll have to order one up then get my dad round again to do it.

[CliffyG]

Has anyone actually done this and got it working? Planning to get mine done tomorrow.

[LeperousDust]

I don't have a wii, but i've done some ps2 chipping before, its not easy, but will a bit of effort its just really following instructions and soldering carefully. I reckon you'll be ok cliffy, if youre unsure, leave it apart ask on the internet or take to your local computer fair (they'll finish it for you, or at least they used to, havent been to one in years!!)

[CliffyG]

My Dad is doing it and he did my old PS2 many moons ago. Hopefuly he'll be ok :). Just curious if other people had managed it really.

[CliffyG]

Wii chipped and the first test game i tried worked fine :D. Time to get the other 6 i have burnt off now :).

[Feek]

Nobbut like a bit of necroposting - I ordered one of these today, just after I bought the Harry Potter game for my Wii from eBay. The game came from eBay, the Wiikey didn't.

[Feek]

Holy plop, it's a lot smaller than I expected. The various pictures don't give any indication of size.

http://www.ukrm.org/feek/wiikey.jpg

[CliffyG]

Aye it's certainly very tiny. Once you have it installed make sure you download the latest update so you can play Super Mario Galaxy:

http://www.wiikey.cn/dl/1.9g-beta.rar

And the setup proggy too:

http://download.wiikey.cn/dl/config.1.3.rar

I enabled multi region and 3x disc speed on mine (have done since my first Wii's DVD drive died)

If you plan on using games from other regions then this link is vital to see if the game will work or if your Wii will be bricked at all:

http://wiki.gbatemp.net/index.php?title=Wii_Region_Patcher_Compatibility_L ist:_PAL

Give me a shout if you need any more info.

[Feek]

The whole 'getting it going' thing was difficult last night.

The first thing I burned was a CD with the 1.3 setup on it, which of course gave a disk error saying it didn't recognise the disk. Of course it didn't, I'd not run the pad utility to pad it out to make it into a DVD.

So I did that and it still didn't work. Investigation showed that DVD-Rs are the order of the day rather than +Rs (I'd used a +R) so I found an old box of -Rs and burned 1.3.

Still didn't work.

So some more investigation suggested that the reason is that 1.3 only loads if the Wiikey is set to region free. Which by default it isn't.

I downloaded the 1.9 firmware (not the beta) and burned it to a DVD-R, threw it in the Wii and it tested and flashed perfectly. Great :)

I then thought I'd try the 1.3 setup just to see if it worked, it gave the same error as before.

So I grabbed and padded the 1.2 setup which padded itself to full DVD size. I started that burning before I went to bed and checked it quickly this morning - It worked fine so I'll set region free and then load the 1.3 setup disk this evening.

All good fun and a learning curve!

[CliffyG]

Ah i didn't realise you had to change the settings befoe using 1.3. The 1.3 setup disc didn't work on mine until i restarted with it in the drive. I'd not padded it either just burnt the ISO.

I've been running the beta since SMG was released and not had any issues as yet btw :).

[Feek]

Grrrrrr, the one thing I'm grabbing shows as red on that list :(

[petemc]

Dang. Ditto Feek. The one game I'd really love to get on import for a chipped Wii is red. Looks like a lot of Japanese games are red too :(

[CliffyG]

What ones are you both after?

[petemc]

I haven't chipped my Wii yet, but I wanted to play the Bleach game. I hear its out in the UK next year though.

[CliffyG]

Ah k, not my cuppa tea, annoying how it takes so long to come out though.

[Feek]

I'm not sure my Wii is keen on traxdata DVDs, having read issues - Hopefully the Verbatims I've got on order will work better.

Flashed to 1.9g last night :)