Which modchip....?

**{{909}}** · 11th March 2007

Neither Digital Forums or I condone Copyright/Patent/Trademark circumvention. All information is provided on an ad hoc basis as an Educational Tool Only.

All the mods today offer the same basic features, some work slightly better then others but none offer anything groundbreaking yet. The key feature in this current range is the ability to update it, Most new chips are now updatable.

Most of the homebrew style mods are fully upgradable since they are designed to be flashed by the user with a Chip flasher fitted to your PC, If you fit the mod into a socket you can remove the mod from your wii and reflash it in your PC at a later date, should improved code be available. Developments on homebrew chips can sometimes be slow, so don't expect speedy updates if there are problems.

All mods use the same 5 solder points on the DVD drive and therefore there isnt one thats any easier to fit. A few mods have one additional wire that is used to enablee the chip or enable flashing. Even though the points used when fitting a wii chip are quite large, they are still delicate and can be damaged very easily.

Some of the later Wii consoles have 3 legs cut from the DVD chip which means using the standard install points will no longer work, however you can use various methods to repair these cut pins, or grind the top of the chip away to expose the 3 connections that have been lost. This makes the install much harder but can be done with practice and patience.

Wii's bought from about July 07 are likley to be the latest model, known as the D2C and are MUCH harder to chip, at the moment it has its own dedicated chip called the D2Ckey, but other modchips are also soon to be released which promise to be easier to install.

To check which model you have, enter your serial number into the site below. If your wii was purchased around july 07 time, there is a chance the database could be incorrect, if in any doubt, open the machine and check which model you have before ordering a chip for it.

http://nintendo-scene.com/wiitracker/search.php

Commercial Mods

Wiinja *now discontinued*
The first commercial mod available and currently available in 2 versions, the main difference being the deluxe claims to be updatable, at the moment.

Wiinja V2
The WiinjaV2 is available as a homebrew mod now and is a very good option if you have the ability to program your own 12F629 pic chips. It offers excellent compatability for wii and GC, including the audio fix which others lack. The only downsides to the wiijaV2 are the lack of region free (easily fixed by patching your ISO before burning) and the chip is not updatable (no updates will ever be officially released either, since the chip is now discontinued)

Spoiler:

Wiinja Deluxe
a well supported mod but not compatable with the newer D2C chipset. Still a very good option for older machines.

Spoiler:

Offical Site
http://www.wiinja.com/
Wiinja Wiki
http://wiki.gbatemp.net/index.php/Wiinja
Review
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=44099

Wiikey
Currently the favourite mod for the older shipsets, updates were initially very slow which gained the team behind the chip a lot of disrespect but everythin upto this date seems to work well. Very cheap clone wiikeys can be found and most of the time they work very well, however if you want to make sure you are recieving a genuine chip, make sure theres a little hologram sticker included.

Specifications

Spoiler:

Review
http://www.iso420.org/wii/wiikey/
Offical site
http://www.wiikey.cn/
Wiikey Wiki
http://wiki.gbatemp.net/index.php/WiiKey

CycloWiz
Specifications

Spoiler:

Official Site
http://www.teamcyclops.com/

minor clean up, the ones in the spoiler below are all discontinued or turned out to be fakes, info is left here for reference.

Spoiler:

D2C Chipset Mods
The latest models of the Wii have a new chipset called D2C, all the above chips do not work on this model.

D2CKey
From the Wiikey team and is the first chip developed that supports the newer Wiis. The huge downside to this chip is the fact it needs 29 wires to be soldered, instead of the usual 5/6. As this is a much harder install it is recommended for experienced solderers only.

The D2Ckey is updatable but ONLY via an external flasher, which hasnt been released and requires wires to be soldered to teh UNDERSIDE of the chip which installers are usually using to secure the chip to the wii circuit board, in the event of new copy protection methods on new wii games, it could be very difficult to update this mod.

More information and install diagrams can be found on the official site:
http://www.d2ckey.com/

D2Pro
A reduced wirecount version of the D2Ckey, currently competing with the wasabi for the lowest wirecount. Now ships with a ribbon so the chip can be updated without reopening the machine and the very latest models have an additional SPI chip to allow update from dvd-r.

Infectus Argon

An alternative to the D2Ckey and D2pro, offering the same features but with and same reduced wirecount. Current chips arnt updatable by DVD but the chip ships with a ribbon cable to be routed outside of the Wii casing and if an update is required in future a cheap USB flasher can be bought to do this. The same applies for the older D2Pro chips without the SPI chip installed.

Wasabi
The wasabi was the first reduced wirecount mod for the D2C mod and currently stands at a 5 wire install the same as the other main competitors really. The wasabi is the first mod to claim to be compatable with the new D2E models of the Wii drive.

Homebrew Mods

This is a way to mod your wii using chips and components freely available at shops like Maplins. Alot of the commercial mods above are simply the same components soldered onto neat boards making the job a little easier but if your handy with a soldering iron, the homebrew route is cheap and fun.
Some homebrew mods below come with instructions to build a small device to plug into your serial port on your PC and with this you can program a pic style chip. This is then soldered into your wii in the same way any other mod would be. You can also find programmers on ebay very cheaply if you dont fancy making your own.

There is currently NO homebrew solution for the D2C chipset.

Currently the best option for homebrew is the YAOSM chip, everything else has stopped development so these have been put into the spoiler below for reference only.

Spoiler:

YAOSM

The only real option for homerew at the moment as its the only chip that supports mario galaxy, smashbros brawl, mariokart and the other 'error 001' protected titles.

The official support site for this mod is a subsection in the forums of http://wiinewz.com/. the official developer posts there and provides excellent support.