Hardware Will the wii function without it's disc drive?

[Trulen]

Okay, here's the schmeal. I love USB Loaders. Fast, takes up little space as compared to discs, and I can view my library in one go.


What I WANT to do, is buy a dedicated 2.5" HDD (Around 150GB), powered by USB, and put it INSIDE the wii. Of course, the small aesthetic blemish of usb cable(s) coming out the wii and plugging into the usb port(s) might look silly, but it'd be incredibly hadny.


Since I never use the disc drive anymore, and that takes up some space, can you rip that bugger out? Or will the wii simply go "AHHHHHHH" and not function?


And if you're worried about file transfers, there's FTP over wifi. Unless I'm terribly mistaken.

 

[PsyBlade]

theres also a modchip doing exactly that afaik
sundrive iirc

but go ahead if you got the skills

but you dont want to thansfer games over wifi
every hombrew wifi app Ive seen was really slow
but afaik that might be a sw problem and thus might get fixed in the future
try it before doing anything you might not be able to undo

 

[hybridLearner]

I'm pretty sure I've seen a post or video somewhere that somebody did that. In my experience I've found that the usb loaders don't load the game from usb if there is no dvd drive attached.

 

[steve-p]

one guy who tried what your planning said no,
but i'v done it.

i think the answer is that it depends on your firmware version.
try unplugging your dvd assembly & booting the wii.

 

[x_r3ap3r_x]

one guy who tried what your planning said no,
but i'v done it.

i think the answer is that it depends on your firmware version.
try unplugging your dvd assembly & booting the wii.

The Wii will boot without the drive but USB games will not boot unless you have just the drive clip in, mean de-solder the 6 wire, 2 screws and unplug 3 cables. Just connect the drive chip with the ribbon cable, the white cable bundle is not required.
I am currently doing a slim mod on my Wii and it is currently 7/8" think or 23mm. All gamecube controller ports have been removed and replaced with a single port (Think Playstation Multitap).
I only have one problem atm and that is finding a 8.5v pin on the wii for the fan which has been ripped out of a dead PS2 slim. If anyone has information concerning this please tell me or and alternative ( I'm thinking maybe a VGA fan for a PC may be ideal)

 

[steve-p]

the power input is 12v,
you could feed that into a regulator with 8 or 9v output.

 

[x_r3ap3r_x]

the power input is 12v,
you could feed that into a regulator with 8 or 9v output.

Yer i was thinking about using a 7808 regulator but i was testing the temperatures on the Wii last night playing SSBB with a couple of mates for about 6 hours and the Wii doesn't get hot at all really. After playing i took the Wii heat sink off to check the temperature and it was about 23 Degrees Celsius. So i found this awesome VGA cooler on ebay for about $3 and it fits over both the CPU and GPU nicely, and as an added bonus it runs direct 12v.
So far i have removed all the GC Memory card and controller ports, Removed the USB ports and put two singular ports side by side, A/V port removed and replace with a headphone jack (You know the ones that output video?!). I am getting the case made up from polycase.com after i work out the final design. So what do you guys (or girls) think about this so far? I would love to hear some criticism or ideas.

 

[DunkrWunkah]

dub post

 

[DunkrWunkah]

the power input is 12v,
you could feed that into a regulator with 8 or 9v output.

Yer i was thinking about using a 7808 regulator but i was testing the temperatures on the Wii last night playing SSBB with a couple of mates for about 6 hours and the Wii doesn't get hot at all really. After playing i took the Wii heat sink off to check the temperature and it was about 23 Degrees Celsius. So i found this awesome VGA cooler on ebay for about $3 and it fits over both the CPU and GPU nicely, and as an added bonus it runs direct 12v.
So far i have removed all the GC Memory card and controller ports, Removed the USB ports and put two singular ports side by side, A/V port removed and replace with a headphone jack (You know the ones that output video?!). I am getting the case made up from polycase.com after i work out the final design. So what do you guys (or girls) think about this so far? I would love to hear some criticism or ideas.

What will the casing look like? Are you making it custom, or are you slimming down the original casing?

 

[x_r3ap3r_x]

What will the casing look like? Are you making it custom, or are you slimming down the original casing?

The case will be a custom one, think of the DSi closed but a bit bigger with the same sd card cover as the DSi.
It will be side on (gamecube port side) so a lot ports need to be relocated, but most of that is already done.
I'm going to send away my CAD design sometime this week with a 3 week turn around so it should look quite great when it's finished so ill have to post pictures when its done.

 

[DunkrWunkah]

What will the casing look like? Are you making it custom, or are you slimming down the original casing?

The case will be a custom one, think of the DSi closed but a bit bigger with the same sd card cover as the DSi.
It will be side on (gamecube port side) so a lot ports need to be relocated, but most of that is already done.
I'm going to send away my CAD design sometime this week with a 3 week turn around so it should look quite great when it's finished so ill have to post pictures when its done.

Awesome! Can't wait to see the end result.