Worklog Naimlessones Black & Wiite WiiP

[Naimlessone]

Heya peeps,

Starting a worklog to get some help with my first serious attempt at a Wii portable. I have a pretty solid idea of what I want to do; nothing fancy, just a simple portable to play some classic GameCube titles on, so no Wii functionality.


Here's what I plan to incorporate:

1. Custom Vacuum-formed case
2. 3.5" screen (from the BOM list)
3. 7.4v 7800mAh (4-18650 cells also from BOM list)
4. Modified GC heatsink w/30x30x10mm case fan
5. GC+ controls
6. 3DSliders and DS buttons
7. Dual-Tact (obviously)
8. Pam 8803 audio amp with button controls (from the BOM list)
9. 32GB Samsung Fit 3.0 USB (Formatted FAT32 w/32kb Clusters)

I have the shell of a case made up, which turned out pretty well for just getting into vacuum-forming. It's about 7.5"x 4.875" at the widest points, and is currently 2.125" tall w/screen bezel, but I plan on cutting it down a little more and get it to anything between 1.5-1.75"

I was having an issue with the Wii I'm trying to use for this build. I was getting help in the PM sub-forum and finally got around to breaking it down to be able to solder on an old Gamecube controller board to plug a gamecube controller into in order to install the MMM file. I did all of that ( thanks for the help on that one @cheese) and got PM up and running. I haven't relocated anything or trimmed anything at this point.

My issue came up when I shut the system down, Took the USB out and put Pikmin 1 and Battalion Wars into the games folder, following the guide on how to setup Gamecube games. I put the USB back into the system, PM loaded up, I scrolled up to select 'Gamecube' from the drop-down menu to check if they would show up and my screen went black. Nothing was happening. I had to pull the power plug to turn it off. Restarted it. Black Screen.

So far, I have tried to:

• remove the two games and put the drive back in; Black Screen.
• Removed the USB drive, restarted, eventually a screen came up giving me an option to load the Wii menu.
• Reformat the USB drive and copy the 'Copy_to_USB' contents from the PM pack back to the USB drive with no games. Started it up. PM booted up, created the config file on USB, and I was on the Homebrew channel.

At this point, I copied a couple of different games onto the USB, plugged it back in; Black Screen.

Idk what's wrong it. USB is formatted FAT32 with 32kb clusters. It's only after I put a game on the USB and start the system up again.

Any suggestions/things I can try?

 

[BocuD]

Maybe you will have some luck with a different USB flash drive. PortablizeMii is known to have problems with usb drive compatibility, even when its correctly formatted. Try it again with a freshly formatted different USB drive.

 

[Naimlessone]

I thought it may be a problem back when I was planning this in my head and i ordered a couple extra so I'll give that a try and see what happens.

 

[Naimlessone]

No go. Same problem. I tried restarting the system (by unplugging and replugging the PS) and instead of a black screen I would sometimes get the PM screen to come up and sometimes the homebrew channel, but it would either freeze up or not show any games. I also noticed sometimes when the homebrew channel came up, it was upside down. Not sure what that was about.

I actually reformatted the new USB and the SD card and went back into the mmm app and reloaded all of the wads and go through the cheese installer again which got me to the point I'm at. I'm not sure where to go from here. I have a hard time believing that I have two identical Samsung USBs that are garbage for this.

Also, even If it had worked once through all that I did, I can't really expect to have to keep restarting the console 10 times to get the load screen to show up.

 

[DeoNaught]

No go. Same problem. I tried restarting the system (by unplugging and replugging the PS) and instead of a black screen I would sometimes get the PM screen to come up and sometimes the homebrew channel, but it would either freeze up or not show any games. I also noticed sometimes when the homebrew channel came up, it was upside down. Not sure what that was about.

I actually reformatted the new USB and the SD card and went back into the mmm app and reloaded all of the wads and go through the cheese installer again which got me to the point I'm at. I'm not sure where to go from here. I have a hard time believing that I have two identical Samsung USBs that are garbage for this.

Also, even If it had worked once through all that I did, I can't really expect to have to keep restarting the console 10 times to get the load screen to show up.

So I am assuming that you have tried both usb ports? because I noticed if I had mine in the wrong one, and without the Wifi module, it was buggy af, and took forever to do anything, I would usually get a crash, until I switched ports

 

[cheese]

Hold reset and see if you can consistently get priiloader to show (there's a note in the trimming guide about reset). As for the upside down homebrew channel, it's because of the nowifi ioses, they programmed it to flip and mirror like that when it detects its running on a non-stock ios

 

[Naimlessone]

Thanks for the responses. I did get Priiloader to come up each time by holding the reset button immediately after turning the console on. I did not, however, see anything in the trimming guides about a reset note other than connecting the blue reset via to ground to activate a reset.

I also tried putting my USB in the top slot of the two USB ports and that seemed to help. PM loads up right to the homebrew channel every time I turn it on. Still need to mess with the file name structure to get GC games to load.

 

[Naimlessone]

So, I think I found the issue with PM loading properly...

I think the issue was with the fact that when I originally tried to soft mod the Wii, I noticed an error notification during the initial letterbomb setup. I posted for help here. Cheese helped me out there as well with the MMM.zip file, which I needed in order to finish installing PM along with soldering a GC 4-port controller port to the Wii to finish installation (my wiimote lost BT functionality during that part of the setup).

But I did remember this message on the screen during setup about boot2, but I don't know if it really had anything to do with it, just seems curious as it will only work consistently in the upper USB port now.


My HUGE problem currently is the fact that I can't for the life of me get a GC iso to show up in either Nintendont or on the Postloader :: Gamecube Games screen.

I have tried multiple USB drives, reformatting each and different variations of file structure naming; IE- games/[gameID]/game.iso , games/Game Description[gameID]/game.iso , games/GameDescription[gameID]/game.iso

I've tried filters all on/all off, show hidden games, etc. Every time it comes up 'No games found, please rebuild the cache!'

Is there other settings or another place in PM to go and change settings to try and get this to work? This is becoming incredibly frustrating as it has been a problem on multiple Wiis, both 6 layer and 4 layer. And I really don't want to move on until I figure out what the issue here is.

PLAESE HALP!

 

[Stitches]

So, I think I found the issue with PM loading properly...

I think the issue was with the fact that when I originally tried to soft mod the Wii, I noticed an error notification during the initial letterbomb setup. I posted for help here. Cheese helped me out there as well with the MMM.zip file, which I needed in order to finish installing PM along with soldering a GC 4-port controller port to the Wii to finish installation (my wiimote lost BT functionality during that part of the setup).

But I did remember this message on the screen during setup about boot2, but I don't know if it really had anything to do with it, just seems curious as it will only work consistently in the upper USB port now.


My HUGE problem currently is the fact that I can't for the life of me get a GC iso to show up in either Nintendont or on the Postloader :: Gamecube Games screen.

I have tried multiple USB drives, reformatting each and different variations of file structure naming; IE- games/[gameID]/game.iso , games/Game Description[gameID]/game.iso , games/GameDescription[gameID]/game.iso

I've tried filters all on/all off, show hidden games, etc. Every time it comes up 'No games found, please rebuild the cache!'

Is there other settings or another place in PM to go and change settings to try and get this to work? This is becoming incredibly frustrating as it has been a problem on multiple Wiis, both 6 layer and 4 layer. And I really don't want to move on until I figure out what the issue here is.

PLAESE HALP!

I can't remember if it was already suggested in a past thread, but you have tried pressing start and selecting "Refresh Game Cache" (top option), as well as making sure that hidden games are set to show (second last option) and Gamecube mode isn't locked (final option)?

 

[DeoNaught]

basically what Stitches said, I believe it's supposed to automatically refresh, but I could be wrong.
Here's the layout to my Zelda twillight princess(gc version)

 

[Naimlessone]

I did try to refresh game cache after each change to no avail. I tried the show hidden games and locked and unlocked the Gamecube mode. Nothing. Refreshed the cache each time.

Note: I'm using AnyToISO converter tool to convert all my .zip and .7z compressed files to .iso files

Here's what my file structure looks like:

Could it be that it's not a 'disk image file'?

That's really the only difference I see between our two pictures. Mine is associated with PowerISO File


EDIT: I changed the file association for .iso files to open with windows explorer which changed the type to 'disk image file'. That didn't seem to help. So I tried it again removing the space between the game description and [gameID] and nothing changed there either. Still didn't show up in Postloader, or going into Nintendont. Only thing that shows up in Nintendont is the boot GC disc in Drive [disc01] which is nothing to me as there is no disc drive lol.

 

[DeoNaught]

Wait, you are converting the .7z to .iso?
or are you opening the .7z to get to the .Iso ?

 

[Naimlessone]

If the download a game, that I own already, it's either a .rar or .7z or whichever, I open AnyToISO, open the file, hit 'convert!' and it converts it to a .iso file. I then transfer from my PC to the usb.

It's the only free app I could find that will convert a file the size of a GameCube game . WinRAR was giving me issues converting

 

[DeoNaught]

I think I found your problem xD
Use 7zip to open them, and extract the .iso file,
http://www.7-zip.org/ (it's free)
and that should be it.

 

[Naimlessone]

@DeoNaught, My Man! You are my Hero!

I almost thought I would never get it. Thank you so much! You have no idea. Now I can finally get to work on the rest of this, and with Zeal!

Thank you so much everyone who commented with suggestions as well. Really do appreciate it!

 

[DeoNaught]

@DeoNaught, My Man! You are my Hero!
View attachment 5370 View attachment 5369

I almost thought I would never get it. Thank you so much! You have no idea. Now I can finally get to work on the rest of this, and with Zeal!

Thank you so much everyone who commented with suggestions as well. Really do appreciate it!

I'm glad that worked, because after that I no idea xD

can't wait to see where this Wiip goes

 

[Naimlessone]

Update: I dun goofed.

Or maybe I got lucky. I got around to attempting the U10 relocation yesterday. Removed the U5 and surrounding components just fine. My attempt to 'cut' the trace per the trimming guide at the U5 location resulted in removing board material down to the next layer, copper and all. I attempted to place the U10 chip without soldering onto the exposed copper but failed miserably. My question is did I basically just F my board in the A or not. I would imagine I did.

What happened was I used my dremel with a round ball attachment to try and just touch to trace which at first did nothing, so my second go at it was with a little too much pressure and I went through the top layer of the board, right on top of where the three leads on the back of the U10 chip are soldered.

I have a couple other wii's to start over with, but if this is okay, I'll continue to move onto the trim. I'd rather not waste my time finishing that though if I know I boned myself now.

 

[jefflongo]

Update: I dun goofed.

Or maybe I got lucky. I got around to attempting the U10 relocation yesterday. Removed the U5 and surrounding components just fine. My attempt to 'cut' the trace per the trimming guide at the U5 location resulted in removing board material down to the next layer, copper and all. I attempted to place the U10 chip without soldering onto the exposed copper but failed miserably. My question is did I basically just F my board in the A or not. I would imagine I did.

What happened was I used my dremel with a round ball attachment to try and just touch to trace which at first did nothing, so my second go at it was with a little too much pressure and I went through the top layer of the board, right on top of where the three leads on the back of the U10 chip are soldered.

I have a couple other wii's to start over with, but if this is okay, I'll continue to move onto the trim. I'd rather not waste my time finishing that though if I know I boned myself now.

Definitely do not cut the trace with a Dremel. You should use an xactoknife to cut the trace it does not require much force at all as it is a very thin trace. Assuming that cut didn't damage anything aside from those pads it should still be able to boot. The U10 relocation spot is nothing more than convenience. Just perform the relocation as normal if the 3 pins are on the left side connect those to gnd, the top pin on the right side to 3.3v and the bottom pin on the right side to the GPU via. Make sure no voltage lines are shorted after that event happened.

 

[Naimlessone]

Yeah, lesson learned on that front. I'll finish that and try it at least. If it works great, if not, onto the next victim.

 

[Jack Sasquatch]