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Nintendo GameCube - Welcome to the picoParty, Pal!
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26-06-2023 4:37pm#1
In typical fashion for me, I get to these things when I can. Today, was time for me to do my first PicoBoot install. I had picked up a GameCube from @Colonel Panic a good while back, which was free of charge, but in need of a bit of TLC. The disc drive was borked, so it was a perfect candidate for PicoBoot. It also needed a good/thorough cleaning, and a bit of Retrobriting too around the front panel....so let's get to it!
^^ Looking a bit sorry here.
^^ Dust and hair had made a home in every area of the console really.
^^ Nothing a bit of elbow grease won't remove...
^^ Front panel quite yellowed, and the memory card flaps starting to go aswell.
^^ Front panel released, and ready for a Peroxide bath.
^^ Ok, all of these can soak in Peroxide while I get the rest of it cleaned up with soap and warm water.
^^ I had this controller myself. No idea where I got it, but it was pretty filthy. It needed a disassembly and cleaning also. The thumb stick is yellowing too, like so many of these now unfortunately.
^^ Mank.
^^ Absolute gunge. How do these things get in such filthy condition?
^^ Peroxide bath with some UV, what a combination
^^ This is my first time doing the submersion method for Retrobrite. I had no idea the yellowing actually dilutes the liquid after a while, mad to see.
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^^ Further disassembly time. The whole thing needs to come apart, not for the PicoBoot, but to properly clean it.
^^ The thermal pads on the CPU, GPU, and Ram are likely perfectly fine...IF....the heatsink can be removed without tearing them. I REALLY didn't want to tear them as I've only x2 of the x3 different size replacement pads here. So, advice was, to heat the heatsink with some hot air to loosen the adhesion to the pads underneath...
^^ Eh Voila, they didn't' tear. It came off quite handy in with some heat.
^^ Bare motherboard exposed now, ready to be worked on.
^^ Don't think I've ever disassembled a GameCube this far, interesting seeing the little power regulation board.
^^ The dust and hair can easily be washed off from here.
^^ Buds and some IPA done wonders on the controller ports, they look brand new now, inside and out.
^^ Same for the fan...
^^ Controller PCB and Motherboard chips all cleaned down and ready for solder.
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^^ This is the area on the motherboard where the Pico wiring happens. x5 wires, all in handy enough spots really.
^^ The wonderkid itself, the Pico W.
^^ All five wires soldered into position. I matched the colours shown in the github wiring diagram, it just makes it much handier towards the end.
^^ Some heat sleeving to keep the wires nice and tidy, but also protect them for when the DVD Drive gets attached over them.
^^ Heatsink back on...
^^ DVD Drive back on, and wires are exiting safely and without being pinched. I did have to remove a small flap of shielding, because of the thickness of these wires....they're just a tad too thick, and I could feel/see there was pressure on them with the DVD Drive in place. With the flap removed, they're comfortably exiting now and I've no concerns about screwing the DVD Drive down on top of them.
^^ I decided to place the Pico here, on the fan assembly. Some people mount it to the front of the DVD Drive. I don't think there's any real difference, I just prefer this aesthetically, and I think the shorter cable runs can only be a good thing.
I ordered a nice 3D printed bracket from @Steve X2 which beautifully holds the Pico in place using the screw hole for the fan....but do you think I can find the bloody thing? Nope, nowhere to be seen. No choice to resort to double sided tape to secure the Pico.
^^ I wired all but x1 of the cables in from the rear of the Pico, because in this position, there's nothing behind it which leaves plenty of room. This way it keeps the cabling neater.
^^ Ok, in place, and some insulating Kapton on the bottom just in case it comes unstuck and decides to short out on the screw. I'll order another printed bracket from Steve and install it, just need to wait until I've a few bits that need printing first.
^^ I thought this SD2SP2 Adapter would nicely compliment the mod. It should give a nice flush fit when done.
^^ Ready for installation...
^^ A lovely fit, and quick/easy access to the SD card also.
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^^ A Micro SDXC to house all my legitimately dumped disc images. This one's only a baby at 128GB, but in reality, it's likely all I'll need. I don't want to load up an entire romset of things I'll never play. Quality over Quantity!
^^ Obviously, a card of this size won't be in FAT32 format, and Windows won't give the option to format the card in FAT32 either, which is needed.
^^ A quick run of guiformat.exe can fix this for us...
^^ And before long, we've a nicely FAT32 formatted SDXC card, ready for gaming on.
^^ All cleaned, bathed, and dried off. I could have left the front panel under the UV for longer, but I really didn't have the time today because without it, I couldn't reassemble and finish the job off. It's easily removed again, so I'll give it another dip over the next week or two. This was about x4 hours under a 100w UV lamp, submerged in 9% Peroxide (pure peroxide, no dilution.) I kept an eye on it, watching out for bleaching/reactions, so was happy enough not to dilute.
^^ Ok, it powers on....always a good sign!
^^ Yus! It works, straight into Swiss.
The only downside to the PicoBoot....is you sadly must forego the iconic GameCube startup routine. It's part of how the mod works though, the payload is injected before the startup, so there's probably no way to have both.
^^ Very hard to capture proper images with the damned reflection on the TV, but the game loads up absolutely perfectly.
^^ Not bad for an old timer...
^^ One more game to be sure...
^^ A truly gorgeous game, even today.
^^ I used the force, just like Ben said, and boom, up the Death Star went!
^^ Beauty shot to close....
Post edited by Inviere on3 -
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