Solved Trimmed Wii Black Screen

Luca

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Whenever I try to boot up my trimmed Wii with a PMS, I get a black screen.

To power my board, I am using a PMS bought from the BitBuilt store which outputs the correct voltages on every voltage line. When I power on the PMS, I get 3.2v on pin 4 on U10. The bottom three pins of U10 are connected to gnd and pin 5 is connected to the 3v3 line. The GPU pin and pin 4 have continuity.
It does not matter wether or not I disconnect 3v3 from the MX chip, the WiFi module or the BT module, I get the same black screen. I have tried to boot with the minimum required components connected (eg. only U10 and WiFi). Yesterday I determined I broke my U10 because there was no 3.3v on the pin 4 after poweron, so I replaced it with a U9 chip from a 6-layer donor.



I did short that GPU pin that goes to pin 4 on the U9 to gnd once, could that have messed thing up? None of the voltage lines are shorted to gnd or have abnormal resistance to gnd.

I do not have the data lines from the USB connected to the board. I have tried connecting several spots on the board to the composite input of my TV, I just get a black screen until I power the PMS board off. When I connect reset to gnd, the image stays black and the Wii does not boot to anything. My trim is slightly larger than the trimming guide suggests, I cut about 2mm outside of the red line. I did not install No-WiFi ioses which is why I wired up the WiFi chip. I measured continuity between every data line on the WiFi module and all of the lines are connected to the board properly. The video encoder and CPU/GPU heat up when the Wii outputs a black screen. The board worked fine before trimming.

Anything I've missed? I have no idea what the problem is...

(btw there is a wire soldered to the 1v8 spot on the Wii, but it is not connected to anything)

trim_1.jpeg
trim_1.jpeg
trim_2.jpeg
trim_3.jpeg
trim_4.jpeg
Perhaps the wires from the WiFi module are too long?

trim_5.jpeg
trim_6.jpeg
trim_7.jpeg
trim_8.jpeg
trim_9.jpeg
 

Gman

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Thank you for uploading plenty of pictures!!

I think the wifi wires are fine length.

If using the 1v8 on the PMS, you must remove the 1v8 regulator on the wii. Try disconnecting the 1v8 wire on the PMS. Not sure if this is the wire you meant that was not connected but it looks connected in the picture.

The fact that there are not nowifi isos, does not make this very easy because it could be many things. I'd suggest shorting the reset pin to ground so the wii will try to boot to priiloader. Overall there is a lot of flux residue, I'd recommend cleaning all the solder joints with IPA and a q tip.
 

Luca

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Thanks for your reply! There is no 1v8 line going to the Wii, the pictures make it seem like it though for some reason? Anyhow, I tried shorting reset to ground and cleaning the flux off. Still a black screen.
The fact that there are not nowifi isos, does not make this very easy because it could be many things.
I should have installed the ioses before trimming, jup. I'll definately do that for my next trim. Any idea what these things could be? I tried every troubleshoot I could find mentioned on the forums...
 
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Gman

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Thanks for your reply! There is no 1v8 line going to the Wii, the pictures make it seem like it though for some reason? Anyhow, I tried shorting reset to ground and cleaning the flux off. Still a black screen.

I should have installed the ioses before trimming, jup. I'll definately do that for my next trim. Any idea what these things could be? I tried every troubleshoot I could find mentioned on the forums...
It helps going back to the basics. Remove all the wires for BT, USB, MX, whatever else. Just have power, u10, wifi, and video. Then once you get that confirmed, you normally add the rest.
 

GingerOfOz

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Can't quite see how you have video wired up, but do you have a ground connection between your screen and the Wii?
 

Luca

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Alright, I just removed wires for the following:
  • MX chip
  • Bluetooth
  • USB
The only things that are attached now are:
  • WiFi
  • PMS
  • U10
  • Reset jumper wire
Still a black screen.
Can't quite see how you have video wired up, but do you have a ground connection between your screen and the Wii?
I took a ground point from the trimmed AV port for my composite connection to my TV:

Untitled.png


As for the composite video signal, I'm now taking it from the composite filter cap but I have tried getting the signal from different points on the board.

Anything else odd I missed @GingerOfOz ?
 
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Whenever I try to boot up my trimmed Wii with a PMS, I get a black screen.

To power my board, I am using a PMS bought from the BitBuilt store which outputs the correct voltages on every voltage line. When I power on the PMS, I get 3.2v on pin 4 on U10. The bottom three pins of U10 are connected to gnd and pin 5 is connected to the 3v3 line. The GPU pin and pin 4 have continuity.
It does not matter wether or not I disconnect 3v3 from the MX chip, the WiFi module or the BT module, I get the same black screen. I have tried to boot with the minimum required components connected (eg. only U10 and WiFi). Yesterday I determined I broke my U10 because there was no 3.3v on the pin 4 after poweron, so I replaced it with a U9 chip from a 6-layer donor.

I did short that GPU pin that goes to pin 4 on the U9 to gnd once, could that have messed thing up? None of the voltage lines are shorted to gnd or have abnormal resistance to gnd.

I do not have the data lines from the USB connected to the board. I have tried connecting several spots on the board to the composite input of my TV, I just get a black screen until I power the PMS board off. When I connect reset to gnd, the image stays black and the Wii does not boot to anything. My trim is slightly larger than the trimming guide suggests, I cut about 2mm outside of the red line. I did not install No-WiFi ioses which is why I wired up the WiFi chip. I measured continuity between every data line on the WiFi module and all of the lines are connected to the board properly. The video encoder and CPU/GPU heat up when the Wii outputs a black screen. The board worked fine before trimming.

Anything I've missed? I have no idea what the problem is...

(btw there is a wire soldered to the 1v8 spot on the Wii, but it is not connected to anything)
I might be completely wrong, but assuming that this is your 3.3v wire shouldn't it be soldered to either one of the 2 pins to the left of where you have it or to the bottom pad?
123.jpeg

123321.png
 

Luca

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I might be completely wrong, but assuming that this is your 3.3v wire shouldn't it be soldered to either one of the 2 pins to the left of where you have it or to the bottom pad?
That wire is the 1v8 wire which is NC at the moment since I would need to remove the regulator in order to use it. I feel like I should reshoot the pictures without that wire connected lmao

Any other memers willing to tackle this problem?
 

GingerOfOz

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It sounds to me like Wifi is probably the issue, if you're getting a black screen consistently and things are heating up. I'd double check that all your connections to the wifi module/board are solid, try tugging on the wires a bit to see if anything pops loose easier than it should. I attempted the wifi reloaction once, it didn't work, but when I went to remove it from the board I noticed that some joints weren't good at all, despite how they looked.
 

Luca

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@GingerOfOz I'm guessing WiFi isn't the problem unless the module itself is bad... I measured the resistance between the right side of these resistors and the pads on the WiFi module. If the resistance between the pads and the right side of the resistors was equal to the resistance of the resistors, I would know the connection was good which they all were. I also tugged on all the wires and none of them came loose...
DSC_1588.JPG


Could there be something else on the board shorted to gnd? Any other components that could be causing this issue? As you would probably expect, I really don't want to do another trim so any thoughts are helpful.
 

Stitches

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@GingerOfOz I'm guessing WiFi isn't the problem unless the module itself is bad... I measured the resistance between the right side of these resistors and the pads on the WiFi module. If the resistance between the pads and the right side of the resistors was equal to the resistance of the resistors, I would know the connection was good which they all were. I also tugged on all the wires and none of them came loose...
View attachment 9214

Could there be something else on the board shorted to gnd? Any other components that could be causing this issue? As you would probably expect, I really don't want to do another trim so any thoughts are helpful.
Did you check that none of the wifi data lines are shorted to each other? At that scale you can sometimes get tiny solder hairs that bridge seemingly invisibly. I once spent a full day trying to diagnose a WASP only to find I just had to run a knife between the pads to scrape off flux and silver hairs.

It's also worth checking that none of the voltage points on the Wii are shorted to ground or each other. It looks fine in the pictures, but shit happens.
 

ABH

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Also make sure that your batteries have enough juice.. I had same issue that caused by batteries
 

Luca

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So I've now assumed the WiFi data resistors were the problem here. Some data lines would have a weird resistance when I measured from the resistor to the pads on the WiFi module, one resistor even became impossible to solder to once I fucked enough with it. I ended up removing those "bad" resistors knowing I would probably have to trash the board. I soldered new resistors to the empty pads and managed to rip a pad this way.

Oh well, I've learned from my mistakes and my next trim should go smoothly... Upwards and onwards! Thread can be marked solved
 

cheese

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Just a quick FYI, the wifi data lines are extremely sensitive to length differences, so if you attempt a wifi relocation in the future make sure to cut all the wires to the exact same length before wiring to the module. It would also be a good idea to download PM with nowifi, install the nowifi ioses, and then re-download the PM pack with wifi enabled. This way, the board will boot regardless of if the wifi module is wired properly, and will only require the module to boot into the emunand, so you won't have a bricked board if you can't get it wired properly, and if you can you can just install the regular ioses back on top of the nowifi ones.
 

Luca

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Yesterday I got my second trim working completely - WiFi, BT, etc. For anyone reading this wanting to do a WiFi relocation themselves, I have a few tips:

1. Practice on a dead/6-layer board first, then attempt relocation on your trimmed 4-layer board so you know how you might fuck up your real board.
2. Set your soldering iron to a low temperature - I set mine too high at first and fucked the board-side WiFi resistors
3. Install no-wifi ioses before you trim your board. After you relocate your WiFi module, run the cheese installer again and replace the no-wifi with the regular wifi ioses so you don't brick your board like I did.
 
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