Nintendo GameCube Mod

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Status: Completed

I purchased a Black Game Cube from gamestop to practice my soldering skills in preparation for the Eee PC Laptop Mods. I snagged a DuoQ Mod Chip∞ and am anxiously awaiting its arrival. Once I receive the chip, I'll being the hopefully simple procedure of disassembling the GC, and installing the 6-wire chip. Pics and thoughts should follow soon.

Pics

Before modifications


Case removed, fan removed, ready for unscrewing DVD holder from base


Where the modification will occur


A couple of pics of me soldering the chip to the board


My initial solder job left uninsulated leads that were much longer than they needed to be. I ended up desoldering the leads from the board and then cutting off the excess with my exacto knife.


After modding, a dual-color LED must be made visible from outside the box to show that the chip is working. I moved that led to the side opposite the fan for maximum exposure.


Final view before the case top goes back on. Note the LED is tucked into the side.

Problems

Unfortunately, I never tested the unmodified GC prior to modding. It turns out that the volume was borked, pretty much causing an Epic Fail for the project. I unsoldered the chip, retested the sound, swapped known-good cables and tested the included cables with a known-good GC and determined the problem was with my game cube. I'll be purchasing a new gamecube and performing the mod again.

Update: I purchased a new GC, performed the mod, after trimming the leads down even further. The new DVD drive didn't work, so I ended up swapping the old DVD drive with the new console, combining the good drive with the sound-enabled console. End result... working mod.

Related Projects

WiiMod


CategoryProjects