Worklog Wii U R&D Thread (WURD)

[zal16]

I know the vWii don't works without the disc drive, but about the GC/Wii injects? They works without he (and de_fuse patch)?
It's possible to do a undervolt, specially on more demanding lines like 1v and 1.15v?
What is the power consupmition and current(A) in vWii mode? Is much less than last revison of original Wii hardware?

 

[Lazr]

I know the vWii don't works without the disc drive, but about the GC/Wii injects? They works without he (and de_fuse patch)?

A missing disc drive is fine for GC/Wii injections. They don't even know if the disc drive is even missing, as its entirely emulated.

 

[zal16]

And about undervolting? It"s possible?

 

[YveltalGriffin]

Undervolting doesn't seem possible, at least with wires. Whenever I try to decrease the core rail voltages the system just hangs.

However, after brainstorming with Benge at MGC, I've decided to design a modified 1v/1.15v reg board that will sit on the motherboard next to the SOC and solder directly to the core rail copper. This will eliminate all voltage droop and should improve stability. There's a chance some mild undervolting will be possible with this new reg board.

I haven't measured vWii mode power, simply because it doesn't matter for portablizing until we get vWii disc drive patches. Keep in mind that in vWii mode, the console has a bunch of extra hardware blocks running to upres the video to 1080p and pipe it to the 1080p HDMI transmitter. Plus, all the Wii U hardware that's "turned off" in vWii mode still consumes some static current while idle. So it's virtually impossible for the system to beat an undervolted Hollywood-2 Wii.

 

[zal16]

Why not use stock regulators to undervolting? Are they that much worse?

 

[Viilmo]

Why not use stock regulators to underclock? Are they that much worse?

Yes, you would have to trim them out first and they are physically bigger and much more inefficent

 

[YveltalGriffin]

Right. They're huge, they need at least 12V, the 1v one is two-phase (meaning it has two giant inductors), and we don't have full documentation for the controller ICs.

The 12v input they require is the main issue. Going from 3.7V→1v is a lot more efficient than 12v→1v. And managing 4S batteries in a portable is trickier, since you need balancing. Custom regs solve all of these problems

 

[Viilmo]

Right. They're huge, they need at least 12V, the 1v one is two-phase (meaning it has two giant inductors), and we don't have full documentation for the controller ICs.

The 12v input they require is the main issue. Going from 3.7V→1v is a lot more efficient than 12v→1v. And managing 4S batteries in a portable is trickier, since you need balancing. Custom regs solve all of these problems

They actually need 12V? I thought it was less so I didn't write it down.
12 fucking volts and all because drive go spin

 

[zal16]

I have no interest in trimming the board. I think about removing the useless disk drive and filling it with batteries. so I can play on the gamepad and keep the console wherever I am, without depending on wall sockets. It is also in my interest to make it more efficient, so I think I will choose this model that ends at -50, it will also be necessary to replace the regulators, regardless of whether they are spacious or not, just targeting efficiency. Using SD cards/flash drives and SSDs can help with low consumption too.

 

[zal16]

@YveltalGriffin
Can you sell the bistro regulator board?
Because i don't have expertise do build theses boards

 

[Juninho]

incredible project I have a Wii U, I want to use it without the disk drive, from what I understand I should use a picodrive plate, is there any guide to teach the process?

 

[Lazr]

incredible project I have a Wii U, I want to use it without the disk drive, from what I understand I should use a picodrive plate, is there any guide to teach the process?

You can just set the SEEPROM device to None in minute. Don't need a pico to do that, you can load minute with a browser exploit

 

[Juninho]

You can just set the SEEPROM device to None in minute. Don't need a pico to do that, you can load minute with a browser exploit

my disk drive is defective, error 160-1400, I bought it like this

 

[Lazr]

you should use udpih then

 

[Juninho]

you should use udpih then

I'll look into it, thanks

 

[Lazr]

The LOLWUN is real!!

Over the past few weeks I gained an interest in trimming the earlier Wii U board revisions. The WUP-50 will always have the superior trim, but with them being so rare compared to the WUP-01/WUP-30 (and to some extent, the WUP-40), it makes more sense to trim one of the common rev's than to risk breaking a WUP-50. I can't say I'm not a little bit bummed about how much bigger the LOLWUN is to the LOLWUT, but the fact it can be trimmed at all is super exciting!

Let me introduce, my trimmed WUP-40:

It's only slightly bigger than the LOLWUT, with the dimensions being around 123x95mm.

That's not too bad with it having a much larger SoC, along with the RAM being further out.
I haven't relocated any of the wireless modules yet, but those can always be done later. They don't halt booting into the Wii U Menu, it just makes doing anything impossible.

I have talked with Yveltal a little about the LOLWUN, it is going to stay an "experimental" trim for a little while. I'm not sure if it will ever be added to the guide.

Here is a video of me restoring a vWii NAND dump on the trim:

Along with this post, I want to share the pinouts I drew up while working on the trim:
(None of these are as fancy as the ones Yveltal made for the trim guide, but this isn't a guide, so its fine, probably)

I drew up this pinout months ago (right after the LOLWUT guide was released). It is meant to match up with the pinouts shown for the NAND/eMMC/WiFi/de_Fuse on the LOLWUT guide. The bare numbers mean the ONFI NAND, e means eMMC, d means DEBUG (for de_Fuse), and w means WiFi. Ignore the "TP2" via. That does not go to TP2, and its not useful in trimming.

SMC wiring. I had used the WUP-01 board scans to find the I2C pins, nRST I managed to find by poking TP144 and the SoC pins with a multimeter.

The nice part about having everything so spread out is that you get to keep some of the SD resistors by the SoC. Since I didnt label them on the picture, I will do so here:
Green - CD Dark blue - DAT1 Lighter Purple - DAT0 Orange - CLK Darker Purple - DAT3 Light Blue - CMD White - WP
The green-ish trace is DAT2, that is the only resistor for the SD card I trimmed off.

The pinout here is meant to match up with the pins above. I'm sorry I didn't label them properly!

This is for the front panel, soldering the pins there makes the wiring cleaner IMO.

The SD slot pins and the front panel pins are identical between all revisions.
I hope this post gives someone the inspiration to trim one of these Wii U boards! Yveltal has said in the past that the bistro should be fine enough to power the A5X. For cooling, I would recommend sticking with the stock heatsink since you can actually properly mount it here (if you don't have the WiFi module that is).

and maybe the stock fan (or whatever fan you want I guess). You want the fan to be blowing air into the heatsink.