Hacking Post here if you installed your chip incorrectly!

[IxthusTiger]

Soldering Experience: None. I practiced for half an hour on an old mouse and I got pretty good at soldering wire to a pad. Unfortunately I decided to go with the quicksolder instead. I taped down the CycloWIZ and grabbed little balls of solder with my iron. I touched them between the pads and the contacts on the chip. I couldn't really see if they were touching the pads on the drive.

Hardest part: Soldering the chip. Is there anyone in Los Angeles who can take a look at it and maybe install the switch for me too?

Did you break/forget anything? I put my Wii back together and everything still works except for any backup discs. I think maybe the solder isn't touching the pads because I couldn't really see beneath the blobs of solder that well. Should I go back in and try to melt that solder a bit more to maybe drip onto the pads?

 

[Perplexer]

Should I go back in and try to melt that solder a bit more to maybe drip onto the pads?

"Drip" is bad; means you are using too much solder, and it is probably NOT making contact with the DVD drive points. You probably have cold solder joints.

Is the LED on your Cyclowiz on? Solid or flashing?

Off = check your (larger) VCC and GND points.
Solid = Everything is fine; try a different brand of DVD-R, or borrow a known-good backup.
Blinking = check the smaller quicksolder points.

If blinking, you should probably add flux to each point, and use a 30-watt iron, touching both the DVD and chip solder points briefly with the iron at the same time. Do not hold the iron on any point more than 1-2 seconds!

If you only have a 15-watt iron, then let it heat up for a good 2-3 minutes after doing each point.

 

[IxthusTiger]

Is the LED supposed to come on right after connecting the two power points?