Shank's Wii Super Thread

[Shank]

I got a Wii Mini (RVO-CPU-01) with a HOLLYWOOD-2, which has not been documented in this thread yet. I have delidded it, and it seems to be a 45nm die-shrink of HOLLYWOOD-1. Also, it is branded Renesas instead of NEC.

Yes, the existence of this chip is known. It seems to appear interchangeably with the Hollywood-1 on Wii Mini boards. I haven't performed power consumption tests myself, but another user who tested it told me the power consumption delta was not significant. If you can acquire a Wii Mini with a Hollywood-1 chip and perform comparisons, that would be useful data to have.

My suspicion is that the power consumption reduction from an (assumed) 30% GPU shrink alone is not going to be enough to justify making portables out of them. From the 01 to the 40, both the CPU and GPU were die shrunk, which is why we have such a drastic reduction in power consumption. Wii minis are far less common, and there would be no way to know from the outside if it has a Hollywood-1 or Hollywood-2. To make matters worse, hacking a Wii mini is far more complicated, and the board and its behaviors aren't as well documented.

 

[Luca]

If you can acquire a Wii Mini with a Hollywood-1 chip and perform comparisons, that would be useful data to have.

@nino Want to exchange some data?
Disassembled my own Wii Mini which turned out to have a Hollywood-1:

I left the Wii menu running and had the following connected:
BT module: Jup
Disc drive: No
LED board: No
Fan: No
AV out: Jup

I measured current like this:

I don't have very precise tools for this, but at least the PSU and multimeter match so I know it's accurate.

Voltage	Current	Wattage
12.0	0.68	12.0*0.68=8.16W

These numbers are not representative of power draw inside a wiip, since with a wiip the stock regulators would obviously be cut off. But it's good enough to compare.

@nino you think you could do the same with yours? Otherwise I'll see if I can try to find a Hollywood-2 myself. Multimeter or other tool with more than two digits would be best to compare probably

No idea if getting BBLoader working on the Wii Mini is hard or not, but I do know you can run homebrew on them now. If it's an insignificant delta like Shank says, or the delta doesn't justify the trouble, at least we'll be one Wii revision smarter

 

[nino]

I'll see what I can do! I don't own a regulated bench PSU though, just a multimeter. So probably someone else would be better suited for this. Nevertheless; I'll see what I can do in the next days.

Edit:
BT module: Jup
Disc drive: No
LED board: No
Fan: No
AV out: Jup

12V
0.563A
~6.76W


However, I removed the fuse (F2) on the board and measured across it, since I don't have screw terminals. Also put some passive heatsink on the board, but it shouldn't really have any influence (mainly to have something to have some pressure on the Hollywood IHS which I delidded.)

Standby current is 3.8 mA.


Would be nice if someone could confirm these findings.

 

[Luca]

12V
0.563A
~6.76W


However, I removed the fuse (F2) on the board and measured across it, since I don't have screw terminals. Also put some passive heatsink on the board, but it shouldn't really have any influence (mainly to have something to have some pressure on the Hollywood IHS which I delidded.)

Standby current is 3.8 mA.


Would be nice if someone could confirm these findings.

Cool! Thanks for measuring. It would be nice if someone confirms the numbers, but I don't see why we couldn't trust what you measured. So the difference between Hollywood-1 (8.2W, which I believe is what a non-Mini 4-layer draws too) and (6.8W) is 1.4W, about 20%.

So a 20% increase in power consumption between Hollywood-2 to Hollywood-1 isn't as impressive as the 40-50% decrease between Hollywood-1 and Hollywood/Hollywood AA. With no way to see from the outside if it's a Hollywood-2 and the relative rarity of the Wii Mini (at most 100th of the sales numbers of the regular Wii), I wouldn't start recommending these to portablize.

But installing BBLoader onto a Hollywood-2, if you have one, shouldn't be impossibly hard. And Wii Minis, where I live at least, are worth 15-20 eur and aren't extremely rare or anything. Looks to me that if you have a BT adapter and a way to run Linux, it acts the same as a regular Wii. Maybe @Aurelio knows if the Wii Mini is more locked down than a regular Wii in relation to Hiidra or VGA, etc.

 

[Aurelio]

Cool! Thanks for measuring. It would be nice if someone confirms the numbers, but I don't see why we couldn't trust what you measured. So the difference between Hollywood-1 (8.2W, which I believe is what a non-Mini 4-layer draws too) and (6.8W) is 1.4W, about 20%.

So a 20% increase in power consumption between Hollywood-2 to Hollywood-1 isn't as impressive as the 40-50% decrease between Hollywood-1 and Hollywood/Hollywood AA. With no way to see from the outside if it's a Hollywood-2 and the relative rarity of the Wii Mini (at most 100th of the sales numbers of the regular Wii), I wouldn't start recommending these to portablize.

But installing BBLoader onto a Hollywood-2, if you have one, shouldn't be impossibly hard. And Wii Minis, where I live at least, are worth 15-20 eur and aren't extremely rare or anything. Looks to me that if you have a BT adapter and a way to run Linux, it acts the same as a regular Wii. Maybe @Aurelio knows if the Wii Mini is more locked down than a regular Wii in relation to Hiidra or VGA, etc.

I have never tried BBLoader and Hiidra on the Wii mini, so I don't know tbh

 

[Luca]

Tried installing BBL onto a Wii Mini last night. It installs fine, and everything seems to be working fine. Basically Bluebomb the Wii (instead of using Letterbomb) and you can install it the same way as a normal Wii.

Now someone just needs to try to install BBL onto a Hollywood-2 board, since according to @Aurelio there may be a difference between the two dies. I'd be down to try it out, but it would take some time to find a Hollywood-2. Maybe @nino wants to try, to test out BBL you can run the installer and press B when prompted, and it won't install, just run.

 

[Matt Sephton]

I've just picked up a 50. It's black and from PAL region.

The OP says it needs documenting, is this still true?

 

[Shank]

I've just picked up a 50. It's black and from PAL region.

The OP says it needs documenting, is this still true?

I was able to get a hold of a 50. It appears to be exactly the same as the 60, but only in PAL regions. I appreciate it though!

 

[wiiplayer]

So the family edition of the wii can play gamecube games with modifications?

 

[octranspo9307]

CPU-RVL-40 isn't the last revision to still use Sharp parts, I just saw a RVL-60 on ebay that had a Sharp 1.8V regulator on the board.

I also found a RVL-40 that used a 1.8V regulator by RichTek, so it looks like they were simply used interchangeably for these revisions.

Not sure if any 101s have Sharp regulators.

RVL-CPU-50 is also the first revision to have the revision number written in the SD card slot

RVL-40 photo:

RVL-60 photos:

 

[chibu]

The led1 on wii motherboard does not light up on my wii when I connect power cord...I have tried a different front panel to see if that was the problem but no luck...
I can still power on the wii with the power button and wii works ok but just looks wierd working with no light...Is there a way to check and fix the motherboard led?
Have added a pic of the led part that does not light up...thanks for any help.

 

[Shank]

Try replacing the LED. If that doesn't work, trace the traces from the LED back to the other components. Investigate/swap those. Probably a transistor or 2 and a resistor or 2.

 

[chibu]

where would I get one of these led1 for motherboard

 

[chibu]

Does not matter now as just live with no light...