samsonlonghair wrote:
Yes, I think we can rule that out now. Sorry I didn’t think of CD incompatibility sooner.
That leaves you with the Official Wii cleaning kit, which is getting hard to source these days, or a replacement Wii/WiiU.
If you can’t find that Wii cleaning kit, you could go gung-ho and take apart the Wii to clean it with a q-tip and alcohol. It’s a non-zero risk so to speak, but what do you have to lose?
It's not completely junk though, right? Can't you mod it and load stuff on it without using a disc?
Yes, absolutely! Modding a Wii is actually a lot of fun. You don't need a working disc drive to pull off a Wii softmod these days. You just need to be able to connect your Wii to the internet to utilize the "letterbomb" exploit.
The only thing you can't do (with a busted drive) is rip your own games to a HDD. But you could always download game images, if that doesn't bother you.
racketboy wrote:So does that mean I should rule out a general-purpose cleaning disc?
Yes, I think we can rule that out now. Sorry I didn’t think of CD incompatibility sooner.
That leaves you with the Official Wii cleaning kit, which is getting hard to source these days, or a replacement Wii/WiiU.
If you can’t find that Wii cleaning kit, you could go gung-ho and take apart the Wii to clean it with a q-tip and alcohol. It’s a non-zero risk so to speak, but what do you have to lose?
Though I do not like the CD Cleaning Disc, the Wii will spool up the disc while the laser attempting to identify the CD. Should be enough for the brushes to make a few passes before the drive stops.
Concur the cleaning pad more forgiving then a cleaning disc.
Ziggy587 wrote:Yeah, there was dust, but it was plastic dust from that spindle part that was grinding.
I had to clean my Wii lens, but perhaps I got it dirty from the times I had to open my Wii to fix the grinding issue. But anytime you insert a disc, you have the potential to insert dust and whatnot.
If you use the official cleaning kit and follow the directions, there's no danger of damaging anything.
I would never clean a lens "just because" in a preventative kind of way, but in the same way that I would never apply a fix to anything that isn't yet broken. I don't know about it being a last desperation, either. Cleaning the lens is step 1 when you are having trouble with a disc drive.
Agree, definitely worth a shot cleaning the eye over disassembly if a reader is not working. I should have been more clear, that the game disc should be checked and cleaned first. Even try different game discs to confirm the disc itself not defective.
