Continue reading »]]> Last night I was playing some online Battlefield: Bad Company when all of a sudden the console just froze, and I had to power cycle it. Worried that I’m starting a second cycle of Red Ring of Death again, I restarted the console, but the console froze *again* just as soon as my Gamertag managed to login to Xbox Live.

After many forums reads and even logging a support ticket with Microsoft (who still haven’t replied to my mail), I finally came across a forum post that explained how to fix it.

Here’s the really simple, step by step solution:

• Switch off the Xbox 360
• Unplug your network cable
• Switch on the Xbox 360
• Once at the Dashboard, go to the System blade on the right, and select the “Memory” option
• Select the harddrive option
• Select “Games” on the list
• Scroll down to almost at the bottom, looking for an entry called “Unknown Game”
• Press the Y button and select “Delete”
• Confirm the delete action
• Switch off the Xbox 360
• Plug the network cable back in
• Switch on the Xbox 360

All should be fine from here on out.
The problem seems to occur due to some fault while an XBLA game or demo is downloading, and doesn’t finish downloading for some reason. When the console tries to synchronise data between the console and Xbox Live, and try to finish downloading any unfinished downloads, the console freezes when trying to access the “Unknown Game”.

The game I was downloading in the background was the new XBLA title “War World“, not sure if that had anything to do with the console freezing in the first place. It *did* stop and start downloading several times while I was playing.

Original forum post here.

Continue reading »]]> Argh. OK, so it’s been a while since I ordered my Wasabi+wii-clip combo, and it *was* a pre-order, but due to Team Wasabi having delays at their manufacturers, I still don’t have it.

I’ve been keeping in touch with Jay at ConsoleChips where I pre-ordered at, and the new d2pro9 chip seems to be a better option all-round than the Wasabi chip. But! The d2pro9 can’t be firmware flashed via dvd-rom without some extra piece of kit that needs to be soldered onto the chip, and for a short time there was no wii-clip for it either.

So, I finally got fed up, and asked for options. My requirements were simple:

• I want to solder as little as possible onto the actual Wii’s board
• The chip must be D2C compatible
• The chip must be able to allow me to play NTSC games on a PAL console
• I want to be able to firmware upgrade the chip via DVD

The answer? There are no chips, currently, that can do all four. Most do only two or three of them. Even the Wasabi didn’t manage to do “No soldering” if I wanted region-free functionality (which was the point after all).

However! The d2ckey, the first chip to work on the D2C chipset drives, does the first three. In fact, it requires NO soldering AT ALL if used with a wii-clip. So its firmware can’t be update via DVD, or at all, but so far, it’s not had to, at all. So that’s what we agreed on. Jay immediately packaged up and despatched the D2CKey soldered onto its wii-clip, and refunded me the difference of cost.

I must say, Jay‘s been great, he kept in contact and offered alternatives when my request didn’t work out.

Continue reading »]]> I recently had the joy of replacing my son’s grey Nintendo DS casing with a replacement housing (red) I bought from www.dealextreme.com (I actually bought a second Blue one too, just in case). At $7 a pop and free shipping, I didn’t see why not.

The experience wasn’t entirely as easy as I thought it was going to be. (One special Nintendo-type screwdriver necessary for first disassembly)

One unfortunately has to make some rather ugly marks on the original casing to take it off, especially the top screen’s housing.

Other than that, the whole thing comes apart quite easily, and the insides fit together very nicely, and taking it apart required only disconnecting the top screen’s ribbon cable and speaker cable from the bottom one screen, and no other removal of ribbon cables at all.

I did run into some issues though:

After putting the whole thing back together, I forgot the one little screw that secures the cover that covers the ribbon cable inside the hinge. The reason I forgot the screw is that the cover is in a separate plastic packet inside the box. Don’t forget that screw! It’s a pain to add it afterwards.

Another thing I had an issue with was after putting it back together, switching on the DS resulted in the normal ‘click’ for switch on, power to the screen very briefly, and then the DS would immediately switch off. After some serious googling and forum reading, taking about 2 hours in total, I found this was a common problem. And the fix? Well, the DS switching off was due to the ribbon cable that comes from the top screen not being fully inserted into the slot in the circuit board. I took the resistance the slot gave me as a sign that the cable was in far enough, but pushing the cable a little bit harder made it slot straight into the right spot, and voila, all was well.

All in all not a totally painless experience (My thumb and forefinger are still sore from the strenuous screwdriving I had to do with a tiny-tiny screwdriver), but in the end, with less than 90 minutes of actual hard work, and the replacement casing is installed, and all is well again in the world.

The replacement housing box comes with everything you need to do the full replacement, including all screws and springs for the shoulder buttons. Well worth it.