Wii Lens Cleaning advice

[samsonlonghair]

The thing about getting another Wii or even a Wii U is that eventually that lens will need cleaning too.

Granted. No machine can last forever. That said, Nintendo consoles are made to last (for the most part). The Wii has proven sturdy. I would dare to assert that a Wii with a failed laser is currently more the exception than the rule at this point.

I currently have four Wiis sitting on my shelf. One get’s played. The other are backups. I know that I don’t reasonably need four Wiis. I just can’t resist when I see one for sale incredibly cheap. Last week I bought one for seven dollars. It’s practically an impulse purchase at this point.

Interestingly enough, doesn’t sound like all disc cleaners will work on a Wii — I think this one only has a cleaner brush on a certain track

From review:
“Product description says it's for "Game Consoles". This is not true. It can't be used for the wii, which I found out when I received it and it says specifically on the package that it doesn't work with the wii. I doubled checked the description. No mention of it not working for the wii.”

Come to think of it, the Wii doesn’t play audio CDs, does it? That would mean that many CD cleaners wouldn’t work. I’ll have to try mine out to see... if I can manage to find the darn thing in my horde.

[Ziggy]

Granted. No machine can last forever. That said, Nintendo consoles are made to last (for the most part). The Wii has proven sturdy. I would dare to assert that a Wii with a failed laser is currently more the exception than the rule at this point.

I currently have four Wiis sitting on my shelf. One get’s played. The other are backups. I know that I don’t reasonably need four Wiis. I just can’t resist when I see one for sale incredibly cheap. Last week I bought one for seven dollars. It’s practically an impulse purchase at this point.

I, unfortunately, had the exception: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=26498

I have a backup Wii, too. I'd probably have more, but I'm rarely searching the wild these days and eBay prices are whacked.

But even so, the lens can apparently get pretty dirty juts with normal use. I bought my Wii brand new and it was "adult owned" in a non-smokers house for it's entire life. Still, I had to clean the leans after owning it from a few years.

Come to think of it, the Wii doesn’t play audio CDs, does it? That would mean that many CD cleaners wouldn’t work. I’ll have to try mine out to see... if I can manage to find the darn thing in my horde.

Can the Wii drive not read CDs at all though? I did a quick look and didn't see any homebrew CD player apps.

[samsonlonghair]

Granted. No machine can last forever. That said, Nintendo consoles are made to last (for the most part). The Wii has proven sturdy. I would dare to assert that a Wii with a failed laser is currently more the exception than the rule at this point.

I currently have four Wiis sitting on my shelf. One get’s played. The other are backups. I know that I don’t reasonably need four Wiis. I just can’t resist when I see one for sale incredibly cheap. Last week I bought one for seven dollars. It’s practically an impulse purchase at this point.

I, unfortunately, had the exception: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=26498

I have a backup Wii, too. I'd probably have more, but I'm rarely searching the wild these days and eBay prices are whacked.

But even so, the lens can apparently get pretty dirty juts with normal use. I bought my Wii brand new and it was "adult owned" in a non-smokers house for it's entire life. Still, I had to clean the leans after owning it from a few years.

Come to think of it, the Wii doesn’t play audio CDs, does it? That would mean that many CD cleaners wouldn’t work. I’ll have to try mine out to see... if I can manage to find the darn thing in my horde.

Can the Wii drive not read CDs at all though? I did a quick look and didn't see any homebrew CD player apps.

I don’t claim to be an expert on Wii modifications. Last time I asked about playing CDs on Wii I was told that it was physically impossible. Wii Modders were able to allow the Wii to play DVD videos just by software modification because Wii games are written on DVD optical media; Nintendo just didn’t want to pay the license fee for DVD videos. Hackers bypassed that easy enough, but CDs are a different matter. Here’s where it gets a little esoteric...

Apparently (insert grain of salt here) CD lasers use different wave lengths of light to read CDs than DVDs. Apparently the laser in the Wii was never meant to read CD data. This isn’t a problem as far as Nintendo is concerned because they only ever intended for the end user to play Wii games in that drive, and never multimedia discs.

Do feel free to double-check me on that because it’s all second-hand information. Also, sorry to hear you had bad luck with your Wii laser in the past, Ziggy. I haven’t encountered that problem yet myself. *Knock on wood*

[Ziggy]

No, I think you're right. I'm pretty sure the Wii's drive is incapable of reading CDs on a hardware level.

Yeah, the grinding issue sucks, but it seems like a fairly uncommon issue. After the second time having to adjust it I resolved to just use HDD loading. The only time I ever use the disc drive these days is to rip a disc to the HDD. And really, I should one day take my backup Wii and rip my entire library to a HDD so I don't have to use my launch Wii's drive anymore. But I'm much too lazy for that.

[racketboy]

So does that mean I should rule out a general-purpose cleaning disc?

[samsonlonghair]

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?

[CRTGAMER]

I, unfortunately, had the exception: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=26498

I have a backup Wii, too. I'd probably have more, but I'm rarely searching the wild these days and eBay prices are whacked.

But even so, the lens can apparently get pretty dirty juts with normal use. I bought my Wii brand new and it was "adult owned" in a non-smokers house for it's entire life. Still, I had to clean the leans after owning it from a few years.

When you disassembled your Wii were there any dust on the inside? Unlike a PC motherboard, when I replaced the laser assembly in mine, I was impressed in the pristine cleanliness of the inside of the Wii. This leads me to question if a cleaning disc is even needed. There is no physical contact of the laser eye and the drive is well protected from any dust.

I shy from any cleaning dis or even an insert cleaning pad due to the sensitivity of the laser servo inside. It moves in such very small increments sideways, swiveling and popping that tiny laser eye up and down. A concern of throwing the precision off by a cleaning disc brushes whacking the eye at such speed. For me the cleaning disc as a preventative measure no, but as a last desperation for a non working laser eye maybe?

[racketboy]

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?

It's not completely junk though, right? Can't you mod it and load stuff on it without using a disc?

[Ziggy]

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?

FWIW, the official Wii cleaning kit could last you a lifetime. I see that NOS on eBay is going for $40-60, but that could be worth it depending how you look at it. You will get many cleanings from the kit, and it'll save you from having to open the Wii.

Opening the Wii to clean the lens manually isn't exactly open heart surgery, it's just more tedious than anything else. The guide that I had used in the past is now offline, but I'm sure you can find something similar with a Google. A step by step with pictures is what you want. It'll show you which screws to take out and in which order, then you just follow the guide in reverse to reassemble it.

What a YouTube video of opening up the Wii. If that seems like it's too annoying then spend the $40 on the official cleaning kit.

When you disassembled your Wii were there any dust on the inside? Unlike a PC motherboard, when I replaced the laser assembly in mine, I was impressed in the pristine cleanliness of the inside of the Wii. This leads me to question if a cleaning disc is even needed. There is no physical contact of the laser eye and the drive is well protected from any dust.

I shy from any cleaning dis or even an insert cleaning pad due to the sensitivity of the laser servo inside. It moves in such very small increments sideways, swiveling and popping that tiny laser eye up and down. A concern of throwing the precision off by a cleaning disc brushes whacking the eye at such speed. For me the cleaning disc as a preventative measure no, but as a last desperation for a non working laser eye maybe?

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.

[Ziggy]

It's not completely junk though, right? Can't you mod it and load stuff on it without using a disc?

Absolutely!