Loud Wii drive - Any one else? * SOLVED *

[CRTGAMER]

I just found a picture of the metal piece with the plastic piece removed...



And in this next pic, you can see the spindle a little more clearly...



So look at the first pic, see all those tabs? The tabs fit into the plastic spindle, and the plastic spins around them. The vibration noise is caused by the plastic spindle touching the metal while it's spinning.

Okay I see now, Good catch!

Maybe this very useful info should be in the guides, all the info bumped up to the OP.

[RCBH928]

My wii makes extra loud noise reading a Game Cube disc, its even louder than the dreamcast!!

Should I be worried?

I have it vertically positioned, its soft-moded, I cat even remember when was the last time I played a Wii game on it(I hate Wii games for the most part) but I use it to play ROMS of SNES/GENESIS and gamecube games backups and original.

I am using original Eternal Darkness gamecube disc this time, and its very noisy . I don't recall hearing the drive being this noisy playing original or backup Gamecube or Wii games .

Any tips on this?

[Ziggy]

So it was a slow progression, but it's now official. Right now, my Wii is just as noisy as it was when I first posted this thread.

After I fixed it, it was dead quiet. A few months back, I noticed a little noise while a disc was spinning. Now, it's back to being just as loud as it was before I fixed it.

I'm a little annoyed that the fix was only temporary. Not because of how annoying the noise is (and trust me, it's annoying) but because how annoying it is to fix it! The fix lasted about 2 years. I guess it's just bad design and/or materials. I probably clocked a lot of hours in the past 2 years. If I'm remembering my findings correctly, I guess that metal piece is just a weak material and eventually bends out of shape. So despite the fact that I fixed it, it eventually found its way back out of shape.

I guess I'll be fixing it again, if I can. I mean, I mostly remember what I did. I just reread my posts in this thread. I think I remember most of it. It's just a huge pain in the ass. Taking apart the Wii is a chore in its own. Then once you have it apart, it's a whole trial and error thing. You have to constantly remove the metal assembly to play with it, then reinstall it so you can check it with a disc spinning. So tedious!

I guess I'll just have to sit down and do it though, even though I'm not looking forward to it at all. I just read one of my posts in this thread warning of the dangers of this noise. The noise is caused by the plastic grinding on the metal. I definitely remember finding white dust in the console when I first opened it. Playing the Wii with this noise will just cause the plastic to grind more and more. I'd imagine it would eventually get to the point of failure. So, fixing it should be at the top of my list.

It's just kind of funny... When I found the fix, I made sure to post my findings and provide as much info as possible. I do this for others that search for a fix. But this time, it's ME that's glad I posted all that info.

[cookie monster]

Our launch wii was doing the same thing a few years back so i sent it to a liscened repairman and he fixed it and told me the reason it was so loud was over time setting straight up it was pulling the eye outta alinement. He suggested laying it flat on your stand. It has been 2 + yrs and it is still quietly purring.

[BoringSupreez]

Our launch wii was doing the same thing a few years back so i sent it to a liscened repairman and he fixed it and told me the reason it was so loud was over time setting straight up it was pulling the eye outta alinement. He suggested laying it flat on your stand. It has been 2 + yrs and it is still quietly purring.

It's always best to keep your consoles vertical. I've been mocked for insisting on laying all my systems flat, but it's never done me wrong. The only consoles whose drives have ever given me errors were ones I bough second-hand, and who knows how they were treated before I got them?

[gtmtnbiker]

It's always best to keep your consoles vertical.

I think you meant horizontal, right? Ziggy, it's good that you documented this as you can see it's easy to forget stuff over the years. Why don't you just run it off the hard drive?

[Ziggy]

Our launch wii was doing the same thing a few years back so i sent it to a liscened repairman and he fixed it and told me the reason it was so loud was over time setting straight up it was pulling the eye outta alinement. He suggested laying it flat on your stand. It has been 2 + yrs and it is still quietly purring.

Well, I'm sure the lens isn't out of alinement or anything like that. I know this because I've already fixed the problem once. The lens is fine, the problem is with the mech that holds the top of the disc. And my Wii has been horizontal pretty much since I fix it two years ago.

If Nintendo could assure me that, if I sent my Wii to them, they would replace the mech with a new one that wouldn't eventually succumb to the same problem, then I would probably send it to them to fix.

It's always best to keep your consoles vertical. I've been mocked for insisting on laying all my systems flat, but it's never done me wrong. The only consoles whose drives have ever given me errors were ones I bough second-hand, and who knows how they were treated before I got them?

Vertical... I think you mean horizontal as well. Here's what runs through my head every time I think of the words vertical and horizon. Not that I use it as a mnemonic device, but rather, it's burned into my brain. Remember that stupid movie that came out maybe 10 years ago, Vertical Limit? The movie had a lot to do with climbing mountains. Mountains are mostly vertical. And then there's that stupid thing they teach you in elementary, horizontal sounds like horizon.

Any way, back on topic. I mostly keep my consoles horizontal as well. My Wii was kept vertical in the stand since I got it, I had no other choice. Though around the time that I originally posted this thread, I have a new set up for my AV stuff. My Wii has been horizontal since then. So in this case, the horizontal position didn't help at all.

But it's important to stress that I'm not having any read errors. Discs can be read perfectly fine. It's just the stupid mech that holds the top of the disc. The cheap metal bends/warps and causes a plastic piece to rub on it while spinning.

Why don't you just run it off the hard drive?

I know, I know. I really don't have a good answer for you. I never hacked my Wii with the HBC, so that's one reason right there. But also, I don't ever feel like spending the money on a hard drive. I don't have a spare right now that's large enough (my largest spare right now is 80GB and I don't wanna bother setting up a hard drive unless it's a decent size). Money isn't exactly tight, I could buy one. But it's just that I have too many damn hobbies that all require money. So buying a HDD for the Wii hasn't been any where at the top of the list... yet.

This is bullshit though, so I guess I'm gonna be forced to set up a hard drive. I'm gonna fix it this time (I'm gonna get started after I post this) but I don't wanna have to keep fixing it every ~2 years. I wanna try and get a Wii U soon, so I can really limit the use of my Wii until I can get it set up with a hard drive.

Anyways, off to fix my Wii (again). Wish me luck!

[BoringSupreez]

It's always best to keep your consoles vertical.

I think you meant horizontal, right? Ziggy, it's good that you documented this as you can see it's easy to forget stuff over the years. Why don't you just run it off the hard drive?

Yeah, I meant horizontal. Good luck trying to keep a Genesis w/SCD + 32X vertical.

[Ziggy]

SUCCESS (again) !

I have to take back a couple of things I said. One, it wasn't as awful of an experience as I remembered it being. It was actually quite simple. Taking apart the Wii is a bitch the first time you do it, but after you've done it a few times, it's not that bad. You just have to keep track of screws (there's at least 5 different types of screws). This is the guide I used to take apart my Wii for the first time, it's a great guide!

http://www.wiihacks.com/wii-modchip/803 ... r-wii.html

Second thing I have to take back is what I said the problem was. I was misremembering. The white plastic piece was not what was causing the noise. I'm assuming that's where the white dust comes from though. By the way, I found a little more white dust when I took the drive apart. Anyway, moving along, the problem is what I described in this thread already. I just must have mixed up the two memories. Important reminder, READ EVERYTHING! That's what I get for not reading everything, which is funny to me since I'm the one that wrote it.

It's actually a pretty simple fix, once you know what you're doing. Use that guide to open the Wii. Once you pop the cover off, the top of the drive will be staring you in the face. I'll use mmmonkey's pic again as a reference...



Ignore the blue and red circles, those were for something mmmonkey was talking about. At this point, you can play with the drive to see if it's vibrating in the same spot mine (and many others) was. This YouTube video shows what point you have to play with...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp1ZQS4UC9g&NR=1

It might be a little hard to understand, so I'll illustrate it. On the top of the drive, there's 5 or 6 silver philipshead screws. Remove them, and the top of the drive will pop off. There's a thin ribbon cable attached to the top portion of the drive, so just be mindful of it. I just take the top of the drive and flip it over so it's out of the way, leaving the ribbon cable attached.

Sorry for the dark pic, but this is what you'll see...



Here's a zoomed in shot, with a circle over the problem area...



You just have to remove two small phillipshead screws (already removed in the last pic) and that part will lift right off. The part circled in red, that's what you have to bend. In this case, I bent mine down very slightly. I used small needle nose pliers, making sure to bend it the way I wanted. You wanna just bend that triangle tab slightly, but be careful not to bend the entire thing out of whack. It's pretty thin metal.

Anyway, I bent it down slightly and now my Wii drive is super quiet again. I'm not sure if it needed to be adjusted a second time because it bent on its own, or maybe it bent from stress that I caused. Perhaps knocking the console around while plugging/unplugging Gamecube controllers and memory cards.

So, there's the info. Again. I know I posted this before, but I don't think I was as clear. What I really should do, what CRT suggested two years ago, is compile all the info into a guide with pics and whatnot. Maybe if I get the time I'll do that.

[gtmtnbiker]

Why don't you just run it off the hard drive?

I know, I know. I really don't have a good answer for you. I never hacked my Wii with the HBC, so that's one reason right there. But also, I don't ever feel like spending the money on a hard drive. I don't have a spare right now that's large enough (my largest spare right now is 80GB and I don't wanna bother setting up a hard drive unless it's a decent size).

Glad that you got the Wii fixed again. An 80GB drive is still decent size. Not all Wii games are 4GB. A good number of them are between 2-3GB so you could fit 20-30 on your drive.

If you have a larger drive that you like to use with your PC, you can still share it with the Wii because you just use wbfs files on FAT32.

If you use ModMii program, you'll find the process to be pretty easy.