Hacking USB Loader GX freezing

[RetroGameReaper]

I got USB Loader GX on my Wii a few days ago and everything works fine accept, that it keeps freezing when I'm playing games. I first noticed this when I was testing my games and I tested No More Heroes. It froze while at random periods during the opening cutscene. And now I'm currently trying to do a playthrough of the New Super Mario Bros. but it freezes when we're doing things like finishing levels. First the music cuts off and then once we get to a load screen or something it freezes. I really want to play on my Wii again like I used to but, Its hard to do so because of this. I hope someone can help me.

 

[GreyWolf]

That would be the games freezing, not the loader.

What are they stored on and how is it partitioned and formatted? What cIOS are you using to run the games?

 

[RetroGameReaper]

My games are stored on my Seagate - Expansion 1TB External USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive. I'm not sure what you mean "how is it partitioned" but I do know that I put the drive in FAT32 format, and I used cIOS rev20b Installer to get IOS 236.










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[GreyWolf]

For best compatibility the drive should be:
- MBR partition type, not GPT
- one FAT32 partition as primary, not logical
- 32K cluster size
- connected to USB port 0, the closest to the edge of the console
- connected with a Y-cable if it's bus-powered

rev20 is very old and IOS236 isn't a slot loaders generally use for loading games. You can use this tutorial to install d2x-v10 as 249/250 but DON'T install beta53 as it recommends. Just use beta52 in both slots.

 

[RetroGameReaper]

Okay. I'll try it when I get the chance.

 

[RetroGameReaper]

Oh, can you give me a link so I can buy a Y-cable?

 

[RetroGameReaper]

I installed both IOS' but, it still works the same. I might be that I don't own a Y-cable? I don't know.

 

[GreyWolf]

Does your drive have its own power supply or just plug in with a USB cable? Do you know what kind of USB plug it is? (Regular square USB, micro, etc.)

If it has a separate power supply you don't need a Y-cable. I'm looking at that drive on Amazon and it looks like it's bus-powered so you might need a Y-cable so it can draw power from both USB ports.

 

[RetroGameReaper]

The drive has a flat square-ish cable that plugs into it. I hope the pictures help. https://imgur.com/gallery/hv6ab

 

[Cyan]

you have USB 3.0 cable
you might need USB 3.0 Y-cable, if the problem is power source. something like that:

blue is USB3.0 data to connect to USB Port0 (bottom of the Wii, or top back of the WiiU) and the other one is "additional power source" you plug in any USB port.


what you are experiencing could be Sleep function.
Even if cIOS is trying to prevent the drive to go to sleep due to innactivity, maybe your drive has a VERY SMALL sleep delay (less than 1 minute).
if no access is done to your drive, it goes to sleep mode (motor stop rotating), and the game doesn't know that it has to wake the USB, because it's not supposed to be on USB in the first place. it doesn't send "wake up" command.
That's why you experience it at the end of a level, the level is loaded in memory, and no more disk access is done until you change area/level/track etc.

What you can do is use your manufacturer tool provided with the bought drive to disable (or increase) the sleep time delay.

 

[RetroGameReaper]

I've already disabled the sleep mode but, it still does it. So it might be that I need a Y-cable.