Question Swiss, Audio, and Bootup issues

[Dr._Mobo]

So I am beginning to come close to finishing my gamecube portable, but it seems that Murphy's law is in full effect- as my gamecube has developed three issues that I don't know how to fix. If anyone has any idea what is going on with any of these issues, your input would be greatly appreciated.

1) Everytime I turn on the gamecube, it shows a message saying that system settings were lost and that I need to reset them, even though my bios battery is wired the same way it was before when everything worked.

2) The audio used to not be distorted but now it is distorted, high pitched, and can only be heard from my headphones (not the speaker). Could this be an issue with my audio amp?

3)After I close the thing telling me my settings were lost, swiss boots up fine. However, when I select a game it loads to 100 percent then never executes. This same SD card used to work on this cube perfectly.

 

[Dr._Mobo]

Hey guys, sorry for the double post but it has been a couple weeks and I still need help!

 

[cheese]

For 1 check that the battery still has charge and is supplying the proper voltage (measure at the points on the gamecube not the battery) and check that the crystal tube thing is still connected
For 2 it probably is the amp
For 3 check with another SD card, and check the FFC connections to be sure they are still seated properly

I'm not 100% sure on any of this though, since I have very little experience with gamecube

 

[Dr._Mobo]

For 1 check that the battery still has charge and is supplying the proper voltage (measure at the points on the gamecube not the battery) and check that the crystal tube thing is still connected
For 2 it probably is the amp
For 3 check with another SD card, and check the FFC connections to be sure they are still seated properly

I'm not 100% sure on any of this though, since I have very little experience with gamecube

Thanks for the imput, I am about to go to sleep since I have to get up at around 5:30 tomorrow morning but will definitely test out the battery and possibly the SD card tomorrow. Also, don't know if this helps, but every time the game starts executing, the image to shifts to the right and becomes partially cut off.

Do you have any recommendations for audio amps or SD cards?

 

[jefflongo]

Thanks for the imput, I am about to go to sleep since I have to get up at around 5:30 tomorrow morning but will definitely test out the battery and possibly the SD card tomorrow. Also, don't know if this helps, but every time the game starts executing, the image to shifts to the right and becomes partially cut off.

Do you have any recommendations for audio amps or SD cards?

There's an audio amp in the BOM, for the SD card I'm using this one. My GC doesn't autoboot though and I'm not sure if that's a fault of the SD card or not because I've heard not all SD cards autoboot. However its very cheap, fast, has the max amount of storage, and works great.

 

[Dr._Mobo]

There's an audio amp in the BOM, for the SD card I'm using this one. My GC doesn't autoboot though and I'm not sure if that's a fault of the SD card or not because I've heard not all SD cards autoboot. However its very cheap, fast, has the max amount of storage, and works great.

Yeah I had an SD card that randomly stopped working before this one that also didn't autoboot, so I'm pretty sure it does depend on the card.

Excuse me if this is a total noob question, but what do you mean when you say BOM?

Also, I checked my battery and it is still supplying 2.9 volts to the gamecube and the crystal thing is still connected.

 

[cheese]

Excuse me if this is a total noob question, but what do you mean when you say BOM?

BOM stands for Bill of materials, more specifically, Gman's portablizing BOM

 

[Dr._Mobo]

BOM stands for Bill of materials, more specifically, Gman's portablizing BOM

Thx man that is super helpful!

I tested a different SD card and the same thing happened. When swiss boots up, the screen becomes translated to the right and the game goes loads to 100 percent then never executes. I also tried unplugging and replugging in the FFC cables, but nothing changed. The blue tab on the FFC cable to the SD card slot popped off when I plugged it back in though. I held it on top of the cable with tweezers whenever I plugged it back in and it still booted up the same, but do you think that cable could be the issue?
EDIT: I tried loading gamecube games from the SD gecko but it still wouldn't load past 100 percent. I also tried hooking up a different wasp fusion but that didn't change anything either. So it's not the wasp fusion, its not the sd card cable, its not the FFC cable, and its not the SD card... I have no clue what it is.

 

[Stitches]

Have you tried updating the WASP/WiiKey?

 

[Dr._Mobo]

Have you tried updating the WASP/WiiKey?

No I'm not sure if the wasp has the latest software or not, but I got them preloaded with swiss from Megalomaniac a while back.

 

[Stitches]

The ones I got from him were v0.3, there've been a few updates since then.

 

[Dr._Mobo]

I just tried updating the wasp fusion following the instructions on the GC Wiki. I loaded the fzn file onto the sd card in the SD gecko slot and flashed it onto the wasp fusion. It said that it was successful, but when I turned it off and back on again now everytime it starts to boot into swiss it is just a black screen! The blue light flashes when I boot though and on the menu you can see that it recognizes swiss as the "disk" being played.

 

[jefflongo]

There is an easier way to flash now, that method is outdated. When downloading Swiss over at GC-forever. All revisions now have a recovery ISO in the Zip file.
Using a program called Win32DiskImager, you can write the recoveryISO on a SD card. Upon booting the Gamecube the gameselect window will show a bootable Linux file/Game with no pin 29 press or anything, which you can boot and it will bring you to the Swiss menu on your WASP FUSION. It will say that the SD card can not be initialized but at that point you just swap your SD card with a normal FAT16/32 formatted card with the Swiss firmware on there and you can select it for flashing!

 

[Dr._Mobo]

at that point you just swap your SD card with a normal FAT16/32 formatted card with the Swiss firmware on there and you can select it for flashing!

Do I just use the same fzn file I used before or do I have to load something else? Also, do I need to redownload the file if it didn't work the first time I flashed it?

 

[jefflongo]

Do I just use the same fzn file I used before or do I have to load something else? Also, do I need to redownload the file if it didn't work the first time I flashed it?

The one from the most recent Swiss version. It wouldn't hurt to redownload it. Instead of using the SD gecko just format an SD card with the recovery iso and load that see if it works when you boot then when the error pops out swap the SD cards for the one with the fzn file.

EDIT: To clarify, the first SD card has the recovery iso flashed to it, the second SD card contains both the fzn and fnz.fw files and is formatted to fat32. You select the fzn file to flash in the Swiss menu.

 

[Dr._Mobo]

Is the SD card with the iso formatted to fat32 as well? I tried to load it onto an sd card via win32diskimager and it shows up on the game select screen, but every time I select it the screen just goes black. The screen does flash on for a second like its trying to do something but never shows an actual image.

EDIT: I just tried it with another SD card and the same exact thing happened.

 

[jefflongo]

Is the SD card with the iso formatted to fat32 as well? I tried to load it onto an sd card via win32diskimager and it shows up on the game select screen, but every time I select it the screen just goes black. The screen does flash on for a second like its trying to do something but never shows an actual image.

EDIT: I just tried it with another SD card and the same exact thing happened.

No the SD card with the iso is formatted using win32diskimager not formatted thru windows. You loaded the recovery.iso from the latest swiss version right? You don't just drag the iso over to the SD card, it has to be injected into the SD card using the tool. Also where are you downloading swiss from?

Also, have you checked for continuity for all the disc drive pins to the FFC connector?

 

[Dr._Mobo]

No the SD card with the iso is formatted using win32diskimager not formatted thru windows. You loaded the recovery.iso from the latest swiss version right? You don't just drag the iso over to the SD card, it has to be injected into the SD card using the tool. Also where are you downloading swiss from?

Also, have you checked for continuity for all the disc drive pins to the FFC connector?

I have not checked for continuity for all the disc drive pins.
I downloaded swiss_r382.7z from github, which I'm pretty sure is the newest one. I did use win32disk imager to load the iso. I picked my SD card as the device, picked the recovery iso as the file, then pressed the "Write" button. The linux penguin shows up on the select screen, it just doesn't open it up after I press start.

 

[jefflongo]

I have not checked for continuity for all the disc drive pins.
I downloaded swiss_r382.7z from github, which I'm pretty sure is the newest one. I did use win32disk imager to load the iso. I picked my SD card as the device, picked the recovery iso as the file, then pressed the "Write" button. The linux penguin shows up on the select screen, it just doesn't open it up after I press start.

I would test for continuity from these points:

 

[Dr._Mobo]

I would test for continuity from these points:

Are you saying I check continuity from disc drive pins to alternative pins on those small chips?
Am I supposed to be checking continuity with the thing on top of the mobo as well?I'm not sure what that is, but if it has something to do with the installation process I used a megadrive as opposed to directly wiring it.