WiiD Installation & Review
Method : Install and Test (duh!)
Reviewer: soulja
Date: 04/02/07
Well, I just recieved my sample WiiD chip from consolesource this afternoon and am excited to test out this new chip. Here is a guide to an installation and a review of the latest chip to the wii modchip market.
Discussion and comments here
Here's what you will need.
- A Wii
- A WiiD
- A soldering iron
- Wire
- Flux
- Solder
- Electrical Tape
- Needle Nosed Pliers
Located in Canada - Ships Worldwide
Buy Your WiiD from my supplier here!
Step 1. Preparation
- GO INTO THE WII MENU AND TURN OFF WIICONNECT 24
[this must be done prior to mod installs to avoid connectivity problems] - I'm going to assume that you have already disassembled your Wii. If not click here.
- The picture below shows you the packaging that was sent to me.
- and some images of the chip itself
Step 2. Soldering wires to the WiiD and Wii Drive
Now the installation of the WiiD is like any other chip. You can choose to do a quick solder install (not recommended) or a wire install. You could also opt for a hybrid install [see http://www.wii-ftw.com/?page=wiikey.install.review ] If you decide to do a normal wire install there is a slot on the side of the wii drive where the WiiD will fit in perfectly. Just lay down a piece of rolled up electrical tape and remember to cover the chip with electrical after it’s been seated.
- temporarily mount the chip with a piece of rolled up tape to hold in place while you solder wires to it
- Prepare 5 or 6 wires ( 6 if you want the optional disable function ) by cutting the wire ends down to roughly 2mm in length.
- Now tin the wires with solder.
- Now follow the picture below to match up the points on the wii drive and the wiid chip.
- After you are done with those 5 wires it should look similar to this
- If you want to do the optional 6th wire, remove the black plastic L piece by taking out 3 screws. Doing so will expose SW2.
- Solder wire B to the middle pin of SW2. See the following image for guidance.
- Re-attach the black plastic L being careful to not break the solder joint just done.
- Attach that wire to point B on the WiiD.
- Now cover the solder points on the wii drive with electrical tape and then seat the WiiD into the slot to the side.
- Now cover the WiiD chip with a piece of electrical tape and do some wire maintenace.
- All done. Re-assemble the Wii and lets go test
Testing
- First I tried my original copy of Wii Sports to insure I didn't make an errors on the install.
- Then I tested a list of NTSC games. Such as the DRE prone Wario Ware
- which played perfectly fine without and glitches or problems.
- testing of GCOS and Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles passed with flying colors
- *Note* Final Fantasy worked w/o GCOS as a direct boot also.
- Then I tested Rayman-PAL knowing that the game should NOT work without the update and received the following error
Updating the Firmware
- burn FW2.0 to any of the following media : DVD-R/DVD+R/DVD-RW/DVD+RW with Nero, because imgburn will not recognize the iso as a valid iso format.
- turn on the Wii without any discs in side of it
- click on the Disc Channel
- insert the upgrade disc
- The disc will spin for a few seconds while the firmware is being upgraded and will finally stop.
A message on the screen will say "Unable to read the disc".
This is completely normal and signals that the firmware update operation has been completed. - I burnt to both a DVD-R and a DVD+RW, both discs gave me this screen [WHICH IS NORMAL!] :
- After the update Rayman-PAL loaded and played perfectly
REVIEW
The WiiD is featured to have the following capabilities:
Feature Status
| Non Swap/Direct Boot for Wii backups. | Tested, Working |
| Non Swap/Direct Boot for GC backups | Tested, Working |
| Non Swap/Direct Boot for Homebrew in GC mode | Tested, Working |
| Non Swap/Direct Boot for NTSC region Wii games/backups on US and JAP consoles | Tested, Working |
| Boots PAL Backups/Originals on NTSC WII consoles (partially without swapping) | Tested, Working |
| Boots NTSC Backups/Originals on PAL WII consoles (partially without swapping) | Assumed |
| Boots different region GC Games Original/Backups Imports (partially without swapping) | Tested, Working |
| EUROPE/USA/JAPAN Wii Console Supported | Assumed |
| Double soldering option, 6 wires or Quicksolder (No wires Required)! | Assumed |
| Compatible with all the WII Console Versions/Drive currently available | Assumed |
| Full D2B Drive Support | Tested, Working |
| Built-in audio fix | Tested, Working |
| Full support for DVD-R/DVD+R and DVD+RW/DVD-RW without Booktype | Tested, Working |
| Supports Multi-Disc games for both Wii and Gamecube | Tested, Working |
| Recovery Mode for incomplete/Bad Upgrades | Not tested |
| Stealth mode | Assumed |
Tested Games
I tested all the games listed below on Verbatim 16x DVD-R media. All games were burned at a speed of 16x using imgburn and a Pioneer 108 drive.
Game Region Status
Rayman PAL 100%, NO DRE
Warioware USA/NTSC 100%, NO DRE
Call of Duty USA/NTSC 100%, NO DRE
Sponge Bob USA/NTSC 100%, NO DRE
Super Monkey Ball USA/NTSC 100%, NO DRE
SSX Blur USA/NTSC 100%, NO DRE
Wii Play USA/NTSC 100%, NO DRE
Conclusion
Initially the WiiD handled all NTSC games with out a problem, however due to lack of documentation on the upgrade process, I had no idea that the WiiD had updated when i received the error message. As of the time of this writing the WiiD team has fixed this problem. Updating their webpage as well as their documentation. PAL games loaded fine after the update.
The WiiD is a well designed chip and functions wonderfully. The WiiD team gave me quick and immediate responses to my problems which shows dev support is great. The only gripe I have is the lack of a GUI for the update process. Having an upgrade process as a DISC READ ERROR is rather vague. An redesigned update process would polish off this nicely. The WiiKey has a strong competitior in the WiiD. Hopefully some PAL users can compare the region free capabilities of the WiiD against the WiiKey.
Buy Your WiiD from my supplier here!
Discussion and comments here