Hardware Wii Laser Questions (Dirty? Recent DREs)

[MrCheez]

Hello! Hopefully someone can help me with my problem because I am going crazy!

Background: Since yesterday I have been getting 'Unable to Read Disk' errors when trying to play either the Single Layer OR Dual Layer version of Brawl on my wii (modded with Wiikey). However, before yesterday both copies of the game played flawlessly... and had been working fine for the last two weeks. I don't think it's a problem with my modchip as my burned copy of No More Heroes still plays fine while neither Smash Bros disc will read no matter how many times I try. I have also tried retail-copies of games like Twilight Princess and Mario Galaxy, and both work fine on the first try.

Question: Is this the problem of my laser going bad or getting dirty and not being able to read Brawl because that game is more sensitive or something? I did get a few Disk Read Errors a couple of months ago when trying to play Metroid Prime 3, but they went away since then (at the time I just assumed it was the disk).

IF the problem is the laser... is there a way to clean it without opening up the system? I did a google search on this issue and saw someone recommend using a disk-based "laser lens cleaner"... however I cannot find one made for the Wii. Will ANY "laser lens cleaner" (like one for a dvd player) work, and is there any chance of it damaging my Wii?

Thanks a bunch for any help!!!

 

[Ageezer]

Yeh, a dvd based laser cleaning disc, is just a disc with a tiny soft brush on it. It's only on one part of the disc so has to be played.

To do this on the wii, burn a copy of the beta wii dvd proggy, start it up, use the 'z' button to unmount disc, the swap to the laser cleaning disc, press 'z' again to mount and start playing the cleaning section on the disc.

if your lucky it might get it all going fine again, otherwise you will need to take the wii apart and give it a good clean and/or pot tweak

last resort is to buy a new laser assembly, @£20.00 on fleabay.


edit.. note the wii dvd player is GC homebrew, so you need a GC controller

 

[MrCheez]

Thanks for the help Ageezer, I am going out today to buy a cleaning disc and I'll try that.

So does my issue sound like it is definitely a case of the laser needing to be cleaned? Whats confusing me is that ALL of my other games work except for the two copies of Brawl... if it was just the dual-layer version that was unable to read it seems like it would make more sense, but the single-layer copy of Brawl won't read as well. I guess it really is just a matter of ALL burns of Brawl being more sensitive to dirty laser lenses?

Anyway thanks again for your help

 

[tng]

I would never use one of the DVD lense cleaners they can cause more problems and in some cases even scratch the lense.Are the disc definetly clean if these are discs you are using regular they may have grease or finger marks you will be surprised how picky the wii can be.

 

[MrCheez]

I would never use one of the DVD lense cleaners they can cause more problems and in some cases even scratch the lense.Are the disc definetly clean if these are discs you are using regular they may have grease or finger marks you will be surprised how picky the wii can be.

I was afraid of something like that... are those DVD lens cleaners a scam, then? Or is the danger because they aren't meant to work with the Wii?

I don't think the discs are the problem... they are both really clean and also the Single Layer Disk always worked fine and hasn't been used for 2 weeks... now that the Dual Layer Disk stopped working I tried the Single Layer and it suddenly doesn't work either... so it definitely seems like something is going on with the Wii itself if both disks are having that problem

 

[izanDY]

Mine never scratches lenses, and i use it often as a preventaive every 2 or 3 months on everything from my PC dvd burner (aged old pioneer 108 still going strong) to all my consoles including xbox1, 360, dvd players ect.

Maybe some of the ebay/market ones might be shoddy or something.

 

[maxpouliot]

What was the result of the cleaning MrCheez?