Troubles with Wiikey

ViperGC/Qoob/etc
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cFmisfit
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun Mar 19, 2017 7:48 pm

Troubles with Wiikey

Post by cFmisfit » Sun Mar 19, 2017 8:34 pm

So after all these years I finally decided to try and build a Wiikey/Wasp GC. I was able to source the parts here and there when I could. Well I was finally able to obtain everything. Yesterday I was super excited when my Wiikey showed up in the mail. Had my Platinum GC just sitting there waiting with the Megadrive V3 plugged in that had shown up a few days previous. I sat there for a bit and just oogled over the greatness sitting in front of me.
Having only ever seen this stuff in videos I was in geek bliss. Messed with everything a bit and got it all working and this is where I run into my problem. No matter how I try I cannot get WBFS 4.0 to work so I can put the swiss .iso onto my formatted SD card. I can put things on it in WBFS 3.0 and the Wiikey wii recognize it. Yet 3.0 will not let me load swiss to the SD as im sure you all know. Yet I try anyway hoping it will just pop right on there. Lol.
This is where my frustration kicks in people. A bit depressed about it also as I sit and stare at my poor little Cube that wanted to obtain greatness. Only to be held up by a simple piece of software.
Now while I am no stranger to modifying consoles I will admit there is much I dont know. So the possibility that I am overlooking something is quite possible. So far I have had the Wiikey bootup on my GC using a switch I soldered to the megadrive. When it boots its on 1.5fw. I also had it on the Wii and tried to use AR and an SD Gecko to flash the Wiikey but my modded Wii dumps to the reboot screen everytime I try. Also I was trying to flash my Qoob with swiss to see if I could make anything happen that way. Yet I am having trouble flashing the chip. So I am at a loss and would appreciate any info you folks might be able to enlighten me with.
cFmisfit
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun Mar 19, 2017 7:48 pm

Re: Troubles with Wiikey

Post by cFmisfit » Mon Mar 20, 2017 4:49 am

Okay so I got it to work without having to go that route. Not sure why it worked but it does. Here is the story thus far.
Got the Wiikey home plugged it into the megadrive. It went into linux autoboot. Seeing as how it was brand new it was in fw1.0. So I was reading in the tutorials that in order to get swiss to work you had to upgrade to 1.5. So I formatted an SD card in WBFS 3.0 and stuck the update on there. Turned on the GC autoboot came on I went into Wiikey menu and the update was there. Well I updated and thats where it all started to go wrong.
So after the update I turn the GC back on and nothing. At this time my setup was: megadrive V3 (with lid pads jumpered and p29 and grnd jumpered) and Wiikey with wbfs sd card in at startup. Well I looked down and noticed the region switches were not set to US so I fixed that. Then when I was squinting I could see the blue light on the Wiikey pulsing ever so faintly. It didnt take long to figure out that it was p29 acting up. When you navigate the menu to play game you will notice it will flash between reading disc and disc error. So I went outside and ripped the light switch from my garge fridge and wired that puppy up to p29 and grnd. Start it up once again push my fridge switch once and boom im back in the Wiikey menu. Yay for progress so far.
Halfway into this now and I finally realise that I can not for the life of me get WBFS 4.0 to work so I can put the swiss .iso on there to make this work on the GameCube. So I start looking at my options and they are grim. I started thinking well just give up for now. Maybe someday I can get it to work or there will be some mass GameCube modding revival ya never know. For now I have a cool looking, non-functioning GameCube.
It came to me this afternoon that all I was really looking to do was somehow boot swiss and initialize the Wiikey to be able to flash it. So I started eyeballing my clapped out little whore of a modded Wii. First off you can tell they were meant for a Wii because, Damn, installation was a breeze. Okay, so, I have the Wiikey hooked to the Wii. SD Gecko in slot A with a Fat32 formatted card with all the files i need. Fat32 formatted SD card in the Wiikey. SDML/AR in the disc drive. A bit of a runaround when you cant use the SD card in the GC method but hey it worked.
-Start AR from the Wii menu
-Navigate down to swiss r382.dol(its what I used) and launch swiss
-So meow its reading slot A just so we are clear
-Push B so you can select device and got to Wiikey and push A
-We have initialised and are reading the SD in the Wiikey meow
-Navigate down to swiss flasher.dol and push A
-Select SD gecko in slot A again choose r382.fzn and follow the onscreen prompts
You have flashed you Wiikey now YAY for progress yet there is still no autoboot. In order to achieve this we need to start the whole process all over again.
-Start AR
-From slot A swiss menu push B and select Wiikey
-We have initialised the Wiikey for flashing again. Note that the blue light on the Wiikey should flicker each time showing it has been initialised
-Now select swiss flasher.dol and select SD gecko again
-Navigate to swiss r214 10fw and push A
- Select the fzn file as swiss will automatically detect the attached fw file yay for progress
So I took everything back off of the Wii and slowly assembeled everything back together in the Cube. I put a Fat32 SD card in the Wiikey nothing in the gecko and turned it on. I was sitting there with my hand on the fridge switch waiting to hit it to make the blue light go but.this time was different. Like the first time I plugged her in the red flashed for a millisecond and the blue was bright and flickered a little. The GameCube logo came on and and right when it was done that beautiful swiss menu popped up. Success! YAY!
So for anyone who is trying this late in the game to build and setup a Wiikey/Wasp and have come across any issues I hope this helps. Thanks for letting me share this little story.
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novenary
Posts: 1754
Joined: Mon Dec 30, 2013 7:50 am

Re: Troubles with Wiikey

Post by novenary » Mon Mar 20, 2017 6:55 am

For the record, you don't need to go through all this trouble. The latest version of Swiss supports flashing directly, and comes with a recovery iso for the wkf that you can use to flash without wbfs.
cFmisfit
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun Mar 19, 2017 7:48 pm

Re: Troubles with Wiikey

Post by cFmisfit » Mon Mar 20, 2017 9:18 am

Thank you for the reply Streetwalker. The problem I was having was being able to boot swiss with the Wiikey in the GameCube without having a flash of swiss on it. I couldnt for the life of me figure out how to do that. Do it the easy way cmon' thats not my style I like self torture.
Well here is a stupid semi related question. 2gb sandisk SD card in the Wiikey and it plays the song and does the normal bootup and then goes right into swiss. Now when I use a 16gb SDHC card in the Wiikey it flashes the GC logo plays the "poor me" sound and then I have to navigate thru the menu to get swiss to boot. What am I missing here? Would 2 different SD's make the GameCube boot differently? Just something I have noticed after playing around with it for a few hours now.
novenary
Posts: 1754
Joined: Mon Dec 30, 2013 7:50 am

Re: Troubles with Wiikey

Post by novenary » Mon Mar 20, 2017 2:58 pm

Yes it's a well known behavior of the wasp. Short both LID pins to ground to fix it.
cFmisfit
Posts: 38
Joined: Sun Mar 19, 2017 7:48 pm

Re: Troubles with Wiikey

Post by cFmisfit » Tue Mar 21, 2017 1:41 am

Both lid pins are shorted and my Cube is working great. Thank you for that info. I appreciate you taking the time to help me out like this.
novenary
Posts: 1754
Joined: Mon Dec 30, 2013 7:50 am

Re: Troubles with Wiikey

Post by novenary » Tue Mar 21, 2017 12:08 pm

You're welcome. Have fun. :)
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