Loud Wii drive - Any one else? * SOLVED *

[Ziggy]

What you're describing sounds like what mmmonkey said he did to fix his. About the backups though, I was talking to Jeffro about my Wii. We both have a launch model. I've played only originals, he plays pretty much only burns. His Wii is quiet as day one, while mine is loud. We both keep our Wii in the vertical position. So I'm not too sure what causes it.

[gtmtnbiker]

That and the fact that I generally trust a hard mods over a soft mods. I don't wanna go too far off topic here, so let's just leave it at this: Hard mods can be, and usually are, more stable and future proof than soft mods.

I'm a hard mod man myself but for the Wii, the soft mod solution is the way to go. Unless you get a WODE or a SunDriver, all a chip will do is give you the ability to play backups, right? It doesn't give you USB loading or SD booting.

In any case, good luck tracking down the source of the loud noise and hope you're able to fix it.

[Ziggy]

I'm a hard mod man myself but for the Wii, the soft mod solution is the way to go. Unless you get a WODE or a SunDriver, all a chip will do is give you the ability to play backups, right? It doesn't give you USB loading or SD booting.

I believe you can do anything you can with a chip that you could do with a soft mod. I just checked one Wii chip at random, and it did say it supports loading games from SD cards. A chip would let me install the Homebrew Channel straight from a disc, where as with soft mod I'd have to run a hack to install it. If anything the chip can do more since it allows the direct loading of Wii and GCN backups and original imports. And then there's my feelings on how secure I feel they are, pushes chips way in the lead for me.

In any case, good luck tracking down the source of the loud noise and hope you're able to fix it.

Thanks. I really hope I can get it quiet again. It's driving me nuts!

[Ziggy]

The triwing screwdrivers finally came in today. Long story short: My Wii is super quiet again! I'll post my full story for others that might want to know...

So as I've mentioned throughout this thread, from everything I've read, it seemed like there was no one fix for this problem. The problem is unique for each Wii, with a unique solution for each Wii. This is not entirely true. For THIS type of drive noise, the problem is caused by one single thing. Although, there are multiple ways to quiet it. First, take a look at the first pic from mmmonkey's tutorial...

http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/console/other/wii-noise.htm

See that blue circle? That's what's causing the noise, all from vibrations. Many say to loosen the screws (circled in red in mmmonkey's pic) which may or may not help, which I'll explain why in a second. Some others say to play around with that blue circle area, while mmmonkey says to play around with the 3 screws directly under it. All of these are possible fixes, kinda. Once you fully understand the situation, it becomes much simpler. I actually got the most info from the video Bacteria linked earlier...

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

He talks about the white plastic spindle piece. THIS plastic piece is actually what is causing all the noise. You'd have to examine this part in person to fully understand what I'm gonna try and explain. The plastic spindle revolves around a metal piece that fits inside it. Arms control this assembly to lift it up and down (it holds the top of the disc).

So let's talk about loosening the screws first. The reason why this can work is simple. If you examine the entire top side of the drive, you'll notice that it's pretty much all connected. The plastic spindle and the metal arms that hold it can flex very easily. If you loosen a screw, the whole thing can flex thus changing an awful sound (if you have one).

The first thing I did was loosen a screw. If you look at mmmonkey's pic, I loosened the screw in the top-left. Not the top-left red circle, the screw above that one. I loosened it a little and my noise dropped 50%. I was amazed. But the problem wasn't fixed, I wanted it dead silent.

As far as the 4 red circles go, I wouldn't recommend loosening those to fix the noise. They're the shock screws that will dampen vibrations from the drive, or allow the drive to bounce a little (I'm not too sure). But they're also the screws that mount the drive to the system, so I don't think loosening them is a good idea.

Messing around with the plastic spindle is definitely the way to fix it for sure, though it's an easy way to break your Wii if you're not super careful. You need to play around with it while the noise is happening, which means there will be a disc in there. The disc is just a small distance away from the metal parts you have to touch and you can easily ruin a disc. I would recommend using a disc you don't care about. I was messing around with a blank disc, but in order to keep it spinning, you need a real Wii game (unless Wii can read burns from start up).

Anyways, the youtube video linked above explains how to bend a piece of metal that fixed the noise. This worked for that guy, not so much for me. I was able to play with the metal with a screwdriver and get the Wii dead silent, but I couldn't figure out a way to get it to stay quiet. I ended up taking the Wii apart a little more.

If you look at mmmonkey's pic, there's 5 silver screws that hold the top of the drive on (4 on the right side and one on the top-left). If you take these screws out, you can lift the top of the drive off. With the top off, you can see the entire assembly that holds the plastic spindle, and it's held on by two small screws. I took the assembly off so that I could bend the metal (I wanted to bend it exactly as explained in the youtube video). So that's what I did, but it didn't work. I might have made it worse, actually.

I put it back together and went to stick a disc in. The disc wouldn't go it. The assembly is very fragile and flexes a lot. I ended up lightly pressing the disc, increasing pressure until it went it. Again, I was using a disc that I didn't mind if it got ruined. Any rate, I still had noise. At this point, I really can't explain exactly what I did to finally get it quiet. I was constantly listening to a disc spin and playing with it, then removing the cover to play with the assembly more, and repeat until I got it right.

When you have the Wii open with a disc spinning, you can lightly press on the metal in the center of the plastic spindle. This is what I was doing, I would try and press in different locations until it went quiet. Then I would know how I had to bend it, so I would take the top off and try to flex it, put the top back on and see if it worked. I did this process at least half a dozen times until I got it perfect. So you definitely need patience for this. And you definitely need to be super careful, lots of delicate parts.

Again, loosening the one screw made my drive noise level drop in half. So you might not need to do everything that was explained, one screw might be all it takes. It just depends.

One thing I can say for sure, if your Wii is making this noise, you should definitely get it fixed ASAP. If not yourself, then send it in to Nintnedo (even if your Wii is no longer under warranty and will cost you money). The plastic spindle is what is causing all the noise because it's touching the metal. This is definitely a problem. When I first opened my Wii, I noticed a little bit of white dust. The plastic spindle was grinding, creating dust. This is a problem for two reasons. One, you don't want dust inside your drive for obvious reasons. Two, if it's grinding then leaving it that way can't be good. Eventually over time, it could cause the drive to stop working. That plastic spindle could eventually break. If you have this noise, I definitely recommend taking care of it soon.

So long story short, my Wii is super quiet again and I couldn't be happier. It was driving me CRAZY! I just hope it stays this way.

[swiftzx]

Glad to hear your problem is solved

[Ziggy]

Thanks! I'm so revealed, I can't even explain.

[CRTGAMER]

Good to read you solved it, I guess from bending the metal to get a tighter "Spring effect"?

I pulled the pic here for a closer discussion study.

Does the metal underneath or the plastic spin? If not, maybe a little thermal paste may act as a glue vibration cushion, a risk of dripping inside to the disc.

If it does spin
The white plastic dust not a good sign. Perhaps even a little grease may help as a combo lubricant and vibration buffer. Again too much may centrifugal force splatter and get inside, contaminating the drive eye.

[gtmtnbiker]

@crtgamer, the picture is not showing up in your post. I uploaded it to tinypic.com

[Ziggy]

Does the metal underneath or the plastic spin?

It's actually pretty ridiculous. You'd have to see it, I can't explain it that well. The plastic piece holds the top of the disc, and spins around the metal piece that holds it.

The white plastic dust not a good sign. Perhaps even a little grease may help as a combo lubricant and vibration buffer. Again too much may centrifugal force splatter and get inside, contaminating the drive eye.

Right. When I first saw the dust, I was thinking about putting some lubricant on it, but that probably isn't a good idea. The thing spins at ridiculous speeds. It's pretty lame, actually. The fact that a piece of plastic has to revolve around metal while NOT touching it. Maybe if both parts were plastic that would have been better?

@crtgamer, the picture is not showing up in your post. I uploaded it to tinypic.com

Yeah, I had trouble linking that picture. I edited my post to link to mmmonkey's site instead.

[Hobie-wan]

Does the metal underneath or the plastic spin?

It's actually pretty ridiculous. You'd have to see it, I can't explain it that well. The plastic piece holds the top of the disc, and spins around the metal piece that holds it.

I've only looked inside a slot loading drive once (not a Wii), but I'm assuming that plastic disc is just like the ones in tray loading drives where it either has a magnet or a steel ring (and a magnet in the motor spindle) so that it will clamp down and hold the disc when it's lowered by the support around it. Presumably that lifting support was the culprit.